Mr.
Curry: I do not want to again get into a 30 years war, as
the French would call it. Yorkshire must ensure that its tourism is
more diverse and has a greater range. The problem is that a large
volume of the people who come stay in bed and breakfasts and the take
is relatively small. That is why we need much better winter facilities
and a wider offer: we want to take more money off the individual
tourist. That is what I am talking about. If the Minister looks at the
regeneration strategy based on Skipton, she will find that I am
practically quoting it.
Ms
Winterton: The right hon. Gentleman would, I hope,
acknowledge that the £30 million invested by Yorkshire Forward
in “Welcome to Yorkshire” is having a huge effect on
tourism. It is a good example of how such regional intervention can
help to stimulate one of the key industries in our area at a very
difficult
time. Tourism
is worth something like £6 billion to the Yorkshire and Humber
region and employs about 250,000 people. We are trying to stimulate it
through regional action. However, council leaders in North Yorkshire
have been anxious to ensure that when there is an economic focus,
through, for example, the city regions, they can put together an
economic case for their area as well. Areas such as Scarborough and
Bridlington have been what we call “renaissance towns” in
terms of investment from Yorkshire Forward to ensure that we are
getting high-quality tourism. The worry for councils is that it is
important that they have their “economic stamp” on the
plans, as well as the economic plans put forward through the city
region
pilots. There
has been a lot of support from councils of all political hues in the
fight for Leeds city region to become one of the pilots. That has been
welcomed. Taking an overview of Yorkshire and the Humber, it is exactly
the type of action that councils are supporting. They want to play a
role in economic development, but feel that consistency is
needed.
The problem
with the Conservative amendment is that it actually says. “You
can do it if you want to.” The whole point of getting councils
together and emphasising
economic development is to ensure that they make the assessment needed
to get consistency that can be fed into the overall strategy on the
regional approach to stimulating the economy. That fit needs to be put
together to ensure that councils, which can have a huge effect on their
local economies, think clearly about what they need to do to support
local businesses, support people to get jobs and help new company
start-ups. I am surprised that the Opposition feel that it is better to
sit back and think, “Fingers crossed, let’s hope
something
happens.” Several
hon. Members
rose—
Ms
Winterton: I give way to the hon. Member for
Peterborough.
Mr.
Jackson: It is a shame that the Minister is having
recourse to a tub-thumping political attack. Her argument is predicated
on preparing an assessment being the same as taking action, but we have
seen over the past six months that they are not the same. In fact, she
is cogently making the same argument as my hon. Friend the Member for
Wycombe. She is giving many examples of the diversity and plurality of
local authorities’ actions to benefit their local areas
economically, socially and demographically. The clause is not needed if
those things are already
happening.
Ms
Winterton: The hon. Gentleman is missing the point about
what local authorities are saying. They want notice to be taken of
their local economic assessment. The provision is a way to build it
into the everyday business of local authorities. That is hugely
important to local people.
The hon.
Gentleman talked about being over-focused on growth, but I do not think
that we should deride a focus on growth. It is incredibly important
that we focus on how we can stimulate the local authorities and others
to help people through these difficult times, but beyond that we should
think about the future, when the economic downturn is over. What will
local areas look like, what skills will they need, which industries
will they want to attract into their area and which will they need to
help? Those questions are encompassed by introducing the duty for local
authorities. I am certain that if Opposition Members talked a little
more to their local councillors, they would get the same message, which
is about the role that they feel they can play now to help local
people.
Julia
Goldsworthy: I can see that, both at local level and from
central Government’s perspective, it is necessary to see how all
the different economic experiences fit together to inform Government
policy, but does the Minister not understand that if central Government
dictate the shape and size of those jigsaw pieces, it undermines their
ability to understand what is going on the ground? We need a bottom-up
process to give central Government the best understanding of what is
going on, rather than a top-down
one.
Ms
Winterton: That is exactly why we give local authorities
the ability to join together through local area agreements if they
wish. Some local authorities may say that in some instances it is right
to widen the area covered, but in others, because of the employing
power, the businesses in a particular local authority, colleges, schools
and so on, there will be a very clear fit within the boundaries of the
local authority. However, if there is desire to join
together—for example, through local area agreements—we
have said that it is for local authorities to come forward. There is
flexibility within that, but within the Bill there is obviously a clear
duty on the principal local authorities to do
that. In
terms of the counties and the relationship between the counties and the
districts, when drawing up any economic assessment the counties will
have to consult with the districts. If the districts wish to draw up
their own economic assessments, they can do so, but again that gives
the flexibility to achieve what feels right within individual areas.
That is an important caveat that perhaps has not been entirely clear.
That perhaps addresses some of the points made by the right hon.
Gentleman. Many districts within that North Yorkshire area will want to
make their needs clear, especially some of those coastal areas and
seaside towns.
Mr.
Curry: I am sure the right hon. Lady understands that
nobody is suggesting that local authorities are not enthusiastic about
trying to address the economic needs of their areas—of course
they need to recognise the different needs. One thing she said is very
important: the measure is not intended to be too prescriptive. My
concern is not that I do not want people to take action; I simply do
not want them to find themselves in a framework in which arrows are
pointing in different directions. Given the importance of a
sub-regional strategy, if we are now going to produce an over-layer of
a county strategy, which is not inconsistent with the provision, I do
not want there to be a huge problem in marrying both strategies
together. In that sense, I am reassured. I discuss all this with my
county councillors all the time, of course, and I will certainly
discuss it with the 50-odd Conservative members, the 20-odd Liberal
members and the Labour member of North Yorkshire county
council. 3.15
pm
Ms
Winterton: As have I. I have found quite a lot of support
for the idea of involving local authorities in stimulating their
economies. On the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for
Greenwich and Woolwich on the GLA strategy, I assure him that the
guidance will stress the need for boroughs to take account of mayoral
strategies and vice
versa. It
is important that the duty is enshrined in local authority duties. The
duty is vital, now and for the future, to support local people and
businesses, and it has the right amount of flexibility to ensure that,
if local authorities want to join together over a wider area, they are
entirely free to do so, if that is what is felt to work best locally. I
hope that my arguments have absolutely persuaded the Opposition to
withdraw their amendment and that they recognise the importance of the
action that we are
taking.
Mr.
Goodman: The Committee has had a wide-ranging debate in
which we have considered whether the assessment of economic conditions
is too narrow and whether such assessments should be more widely drawn.
We did not say that it is not important to do that at a time of
recession any more than the Minister said that it is not important to
assess sustainability. The Committee has also considered whether the
economic areas referred to
in the clause are too narrowly drawn. We have been given two small tours
by my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon and by the
right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, who raised the point,
which my right hon. Friend summed up very well, about arrows pointing
in different directions, and how the duty will interact with other
local authority duties or assessments that are carried out in other
forms.
The
Minister’s response seemed to show very little confidence in the
Bill’s content. I have not served opposite her for long and I do
not know her modus operandi well, but she clearly feels much happier in
her comfort zone attacking the Opposition for apparently doing nothing
while the Government do everything, which is reflected in their
successful results in the current polls. I could reply in a similar
vein. We could have a little bit of party political knockabout and
consider whether it is the Opposition or the Government who are doing
better out of their respective political approaches at
present. That
would be an interesting debate, but it is more relevant to state that,
owing to her splendid piece of knockabout and her wielding of an
enormous cudgel in the direction of Falmouth and Camborne, I am not
actually sure whether the Minister has properly read the amendment or
the clause. She has painted a picture of the clause as a vital part of
a strategy that, to quote her, “feeds into” regional
strategies, so that the direction of movement is clearly upwards. We
understand her approach, but the clause does not state that at all. As
someone pointed out during the debate—I think it was the hon.
Member for Falmouth and Camborne—it only states that they
“must prepare an assessment.” It does not say that they
have to do anything with it, nor does it say that it must be fed up
into the great regional strategy, of which the Minister is so proud. I
am not sure that she has read her own legislation—she is just
much happier doing the traditional Labour thing of seeing how well it
will serve them at the
polls. Finally,
we on this side of the Committee do not propose to do nothing. All we
are doing is proposing to delete the prescriptive word
“must”—it leads nowhere, because all it does is
compel the local authority to create a strategy without putting
anything else on the face of the Bill—and insert the word
“may”, which will allow local authorities the freedom and
the flexibility to carry out the assessments for themselves. That is
the clear divide in the Committee, and we intend to press our amendment
to a
vote. Question
put, That the amendment be made:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes
8.
Division
No.
29] Question
accordingly negatived.
Mr.
Goodman: I beg to move amendment 61, in
clause 66, page 49, line 19, leave
out ‘, other than a non-unitary district
council’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following: amendment 62, in clause 66, page 49, line 27,
leave out from ‘council’ to end of line 28 and
insert ‘it shall act in
partnership with the district council or district councils for that
area in discharging its functions under this
section.’. Amendment
63, in
clause 66, page 49, line 35, leave
out subsections (6) and
(7).
Mr.
Goodman: In effect, we have just considered the first part
of the clause. We ought, for a moment, to consider further aspects of
the economic assessment, which will stand alone as a result of the
clause. If members of the Committee turn their eyes to
subsection (6), they will see, to their surprise,
that “A
principal local authority must have regard to any guidance given by the
Secretary of
State— (a)
as to what an assessment under this section should contain and how it
should be
prepared;”. There
is a considerable role for the Secretary of State here, as other
paragraphs of the subsection make clear. If Members turn the page, they
will see that before giving the
guidance “the
Secretary of State must
consult— (a)
such representatives of local government as the Secretary of State
considers
appropriate”. It
is an entirely circular process invented in the latter part of the
clause, which is why we sensibly propose to leave it out. The first
amendment seeks to explore that, and no doubt the Minister will tell us
why non-unitary district councils should be excluded—she may
well have a persuasive argument to put
forward. Amendment
62 seeks to stress partnership. We have been here many times before. We
have heard the approach from the Government side and from those on the
Opposition Benches. As I have said, we have this economic assessment,
which stands alone, and there are no further means on the statute book
of putting the measure into effect, which seems odd—although not
as odd as putting it on the statute book without those means in the
first place. We look forward to hearing what other members of the
Committee have to
say.
Ms
Winterton: We have already outlined many of the ways in
which this section will work and the need for county councils to
consult district councils in drawing up an economic assessment. As we
have said, there is nothing to stop district councils doing their own
assessment, if they wish to. However, I find it a bit odd that, to a
certain extent, the Opposition are saying, “You’re making
everybody do this assessment,” but then say, “Well,
actually we want more people to do the assessment than is currently
required under the
Bill.”
Mr.
Goodman: We are not saying that at all. We are simply
trying to establish the Minister’s rationale for forcing the
other councils to do things she does not seem to want to force district
councils to do.
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