Mr.
Raynsford: My right hon. Friend is making an extremely
valid point. I listened to the entirely intelligent response from the
right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon, who rightly is trying to find
certainty about future prospects and trends. However, I must tell him
that that is not life. He is slightly overwhelmed by his own
interpretation of the measure as some kind of latter-day soviet Gosplan
that determines everything according to the availability of public
finances.
As all of us
with reasonably long memories are aware, the Government of whom the
right hon. Gentleman was a distinguished member in the 1990s had very
pessimistic views about public expenditure, and cut it. As a housing
Minister, he had to put up with some very serious reductions in his
budget. The climate has changed, and we have seen considerable
investment since then. Inevitably, the downturn will have consequences
for a while, but it would be wrong to base planning for the future
simply on assumptions of public sector investment. Planning should be
based on the wider economic imperatives, which is what is behind the
clause.
Ms
Winterton: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I
wish to add only this: I have meetings as a regional Minister with
potential inward investors, and they want strong leadership, not only
at local authority level, but at regional level. This combination, in
which we bringing together the different strands of economic planning
with business-focused regional development agencies, alongside
political leadership through the leaders’ board, is the way to
convince people that we are serious about ensuring that our regional
economies are as robust as
possible. As
my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich says, the
right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon, who spoke the other day about
the contribution of North Yorkshire and the fact that plans had to be
in place to rescue inadequate tourism or whatever, ought to be
listening to what businesses, economists, and potential inward
investors are saying about the
issue.
Mr.
Curry: The Minister is making a distinction between
substance and form. My question is this: do we need this big,
overarching machinery to deliver the goods? The universities in
Yorkshire have a good reputation of getting together to deliver high
technology, and they are linked worldwide. The universities in
Sheffield, Leeds and York, which are very high quality, do not need a
regional strategy to know what they have to do, because they are
getting on and doing it.
The Minister
extolled “The Northern Way”, but even if it was as
successful as she said, that was done without a regional strategy. I do
not question whether it is desirable for people to know where they are
going, but I do not want everything frozen for five years while people
labour to produce a strategy that might be overturned by
events. By
the way, I was concerned about the low value-added in tourism in
Yorkshire. We need to increase that.
Ms
Winterton: Again, the right hon. Gentleman is wrong in
assuming that the universities do not want to be involved in the kind
of forward planning that we are talking about. I chair the Yorkshire
and Humber economic delivery group, which seeks to ensuring we have a
regional response to problems resulting from the economic downturn, and
is also looking to the future. Because of the way in which the
universities in Yorkshire have joined together, they have taken a clear
view of the region’s needs and said, “This is what we
need to do to help attract inward investment and ensure that our
graduates remain in the region.” They are looking at research
and development needs, and how universities play a part in local
industries. They are extremely
focused on the regional agenda, which is why they have come together in
such a way, as their region is one of the best in recognising the
importance of regional input.
The right hon.
Gentleman, as a Member representing a constituency in that area, really
ought to look a little closer and perhaps with a slightly more open
mind at the benefits we are gaining from the regional approach. I hope
that he will be pleasantly surprised by what is happening, but it is
incredibly disappointing that the hard work going on at a regional
level, often including Conservative councillors, is not in the
slightest way recognised by the
Opposition. 11.15
am
Ian
Stewart: I advise my right hon. Friend to be cautious
about accepting the Damascene conversion of the Opposition to localism
and local democracy. The right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon has
been leading a working party of sorts looking at localism—they
are no doubt attempting to be the new Labour-y Tories for the future.
My view is straightforward: it is a bit rich for a party that voted
against last year’s Local Transport Bill, thereby wishing to
diminish real local democracy, to start advocating local democracy in
this Committee.
Ms
Winterton: My hon. Friend is right to remind us that
during the passage of the Local Transport Act 2008, the
Conservative Front-Bench spokesmen were out of touch with what their
local councillors recognised as a good Bill that allowed local
authorities to plan properly according to local needs. As I recall,
local councillors wrote to those Front-Bench spokesmen asking,
“Why do you never listen to a word we say?” That is
another example of them not wanting to let go, and not recognising or
allowing the kind of economic development that is absolutely vital,
especially in these difficult economic
times.
Mr.
Jackson: I had hoped that there would be some consensus in
the debate. The right hon. Lady fails to recognise that we have
legitimate concerns about whether there is a diversity of provision at
regional level, which is dealt with in the clause. She will undoubtedly
be aware of a report by the respected International Journal
of Urban and Regional Research in 2006 that found, notwithstanding
the huge amounts of money that had been spent by the RDAs,
“scant allowance
for region specificities as they have all produced strategies that
reveal a remarkable generic resemblance”.
In other words, the RDAs
are not adding value that will help localities, but are in fact using a
template given to them by central
Government.
Ms
Winterton: It is quite wrong to say that the RDAs are not
adding value. The recent report to which I referred showed that every
pound spent brought £4 of value to the region. I can send a copy
of that report to the hon. Gentleman because he really ought to ensure
that he looks at the importance to the regional economies of the work
that is being carried out by the RDAs.
Finally, it is
important to stress that regional boundaries are a framework rather
than a straitjacket. As I have said, we support and encourage joining
up between local areas and cross-boundary work at a regional level.
There is flexibility in the Bill. I suspect that the amendments are
probing but, following my reassurance, I hope that they will be
rejected if pressed to a Division. I stress
again that this clause is one of the most important in the Bill; voting
against it would be to the detriment of the economic prosperity of all
our regions in the future. Dan
Rogerson: I was pleased that the Minister addressed the
issue in the amendment at the end of this long debate. We could have
had a shorter debate that would have quite clearly said that the
Liberal Democrats feel that the regional boundaries do not necessarily
make sense, although some might. I am not an expert on all regions, and
I would not seek to be, as these issues are for people in the regions
and their elected representatives to
decide. There
seems to be a fixation among Government Members that the boundaries are
right. I listened for the Minister’s defence as to why they are
right. She said that they are about the same size as the Länder
in Germany, but given that the Länder include Bavaria and
Bremen, which are of different size and population, that argument does
not stack up. If we are merely going to chop up the country to get the
population numbers absolutely right, the process becomes even more
meaningless. All that makes it obvious that we need more debate about
what the regions
are.
Ms
Winterton: How does the hon. Gentleman envisage the
reorganisation of all the boundaries happening? There should be
flexibility to work across and within boundaries, but at this point,
when there is a complete focus on getting through the economic
downturn, while still looking beyond it to what our regions are going
to look like, the uncertainty that would be caused by a huge
reorganisation would make that extremely unwise. How long does he think
such a review would
take?
Dan
Rogerson: The whole point is that that would be determined
by local people. If they think their region is right, that is fine, but
presumably the Minister must agree that it is pointless to put together
a regional strategy that people feel does not work and does not
represent any community of interest. It is very time consuming to go
through a process such as the recent regional spatial strategies and to
draw up documents that may or may not come into force, or have
influence over a particular area, when the people within that area do
not feel that it represents a real region.
I am sure that
there is the facility for cross-border working, but that leads only to
duplication. Rather than having cross-border working between borders in
areas that do not make sense, why not have regions that work, that
represent communities of interest and that recognise people’s
economic, geographical and cultural affinities to get a set of
strategies going forward that are right? It is crucial to get that
right now, even more than in the future.
In the wider
debate about whether there is a purpose to having a regional tier of
government and that way of doing things, the Minister came back time
and again to the idea that Government offices somehow represent
devolution, but in my book they do not. A civil servant who is directed
by a Minister, or as part of a Whitehall Department, does not represent
any form of devolution just because they sit somewhere out in a region
rather than in Whitehall.
Julia
Goldsworthy: Does my hon. Friend believe that the power is
the equivalent of having a bank branch in the town? The branch does not
determine local policy, but implements the main bank’s policy.
Government offices for the regions are there to do the
Government’s bidding in the regions, not to make
decisions.
Dan
Rogerson: I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention.
People who have been in banking for a long time might say that when
bank managers made direct decisions on whom to lend money to and there
was genuine devolution of such decisions, people made more sensible
lending decisions that we have seen in recent
years.
Ms
Winterton: It is amazing that the hon. Member for Falmouth
and Camborne says—I am surprised that the hon. Member for North
Cornwall backs her up—that a local bank just implements its
central bank’s policy. The point is that people are saying that
they want local branches with the ability to consider what is happening
in the local area and to interpret the central bank’s policy to
determine what is appropriate. I said about Government offices that
there is an important point that one can have a centralised
approach—that is what the hon. Member for North Cornwall and,
amazingly, the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne are now
saying—or the Government can be present in the regions. Michael
Heseltine importantly accepted that it was important have an approach
that recognised the particular issues that pertain within different
regions.
Dan
Rogerson: That remark shows that the Minister has not
acknowledged the debate that we are attempting to promote. How can the
Government have a policy appropriate to a region when that region does
not function as a region? As the hon. Member for Peterborough said, a
regional policy that seeks to reconcile the situation in Swindon with
that on the Isles of Scilly just does not work. They have completely
different economies and geographical circumstances. I am not saying
that regional policies should function at parish level. There are
natural communities, but we need more of a debate about what those
regions are and what represents a sensible
region. You
said, Mr. Amess, that we could have a stand part debate on
the clause, and perhaps we can return to whether regional strategies
are right. So far, we have not heard any justification for the current
regional boundaries or why they should be inviolate, so I shall press
the amendment to a
Division. Question
put, That the amendment be
made. The
Committee divided: Ayes 2, Noes
8.
Division
No.
33] Question
accordingly negatived.
The
Chairman: Before we move on to the next amendment, this
morning I have indulged hon. Members, and we have had a very wide
debate on the first group of amendments. I am still minded to have a
clause stand part debate later, but I have decided that it will be a
short
debate.
Dan
Rogerson: I beg to move amendment 100, in
clause 67, page 50, line 16, after
first ‘the’, insert
‘sustainable’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment 72, in
clause 67, page 50, line 19, leave
out from ‘(b)’ to end of line 20 and insert
‘must be designed so as to ensure
that the regional strategy as a
whole— (a) contributes to the
mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change;
and (b) is consistent with the
proposals and policies prepared by the Secretary of State under section
13(1) of the Climate Change Act
2008.’. 11.30
am
Dan
Rogerson: I shall attempt to be brief and bear in mind the
instructions that you have quite rightly given the Committee,
Mr. Amess. The amendments seek to put the principle of
sustainability at the heart of any regional strategy on any boundary.
We are concerned that, given the role that the Bill gives to regional
development agencies, which focus on delivering economic targets and
growth, important gains that have been made on sustainability policy
will be lost. We had such a debate during last year’s Planning
Bill Committee, which led to the Planning Act 2008, where it was felt
both in Committee and on Report that it was important that every effort
was taken to ensure that important principles of sustainability lie at
the heart of any legislation and any regional planning
process. The
Government’s planning guidance shows that there has been a
growing awareness of the issues, particularly in relation to climate
change. Amendment 72 centres on the mitigation of climate change and
the Government’s ambitious targets, which were approved by the
House last year, to tackle climate change. Adaptation is also
important; it is absolutely vital that any new planning development is
able to adapt to climate change, which is sadly well under way. That is
my view, and it is also the view of my hon. Friend the Member for
Falmouth and Camborne, who originally tabled amendment 72, as well as
the view of other members of the Committee who have added their names
to the amendment, which now stands in the name of the hon. Member for
Liverpool, Walton (Mr.
Kilfoyle). The
amendments are crucial, and I hope that the Government will accept
them. They will reassure people who have to engage with regional
strategies that the gains in relation to sustainability policy and
tackling climate change are included in the Bill, and that a core
function of the strategies is not only to address the economic future
of the region, but to address issues of sustainability and climate
change.
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