REGIONAL COUNCILS AND BOARDS (THE UNIVERSITIES) (Hansard, 28 April 1965)

§ Mr. Merlyn Rees (Leeds, South)

I wish to make it clear at the outset that I regard the developments which have taken place in regional planning, particularly in the last few months, as being one of the most valuable aspects of planning policy in general in this country.

Regional planning is a very long way indeed from the day of distressed areas and development areas. It shows concern for the regions, not just because they are areas of heavy unemployment. It is a concern for the South-East and the Midlands equally as much as a concern for Scotland and Northern Ireland.

My interest in raising this topic tonight is not only to make some suggestions but also to sound the Department and the Minister as to the ideas which it and he have on the subject of the relationship between the universities and similar institutions and the regional boards and councils. I wish to make it clear that I do not believe that universities are regional universities only. All our universities serve students from all over the country. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the universities could do much to serve the regional areas in which they are situated.

This is recognised by the fact that the Chairman of the Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Council, Sir Roger Stevens, is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds, and in the northwest region the Chairman of the Regional Council is the Vice-Chancellor of Lancaster University. It is possible to go right through the list of appointments to the regional councils and find vice-chancellors, professors of sociology and so on. This is a sign of the important part played in regional life by the universities. It is important to know just what are the views of the Minister on the part that representatives—and I concede that the members of the regional 588 councils are not delegates—of universities should play on the councils.

I am sure, to move beyond the question of regional councils, that the part played by the universities should not only be in respect of these councils but that they should carry out actual projects for the regional planning boards. And it is concerning these boards that I propose to concentrate my remarks.

I understand that the regional planning boards will be, in effect, in every region miniature Whitehalls, with civil servants in each region from the Department of Education and Science, the Ministries of Technology, Transport, Power, the Board of Trade and others. I understand that it was not unknown in the earliest days of regional planning to a degree, so to speak—when it came under the Board of Trade—for various faculties of universities to carry out projects for the Board. Indeed, I understand that at present the economics department of the University of Leeds is undertaking a market research survey on the journey to work for the Leeds Corporation Transport Department so that that Department can plan in anticipation of the needs of the community. I also understand that there is talk of a centre of transport study being set up at the University of Leeds. It was on the City of Leeds, of course, that Professor Buchanan concentrated a great deal of his investigation.

The whole general field of market research is important in so many ways. The universities are capable of carrying out detailed work of the kind needed. In America, the University of Michigan has a very powerful survey research centre which carries out research vitally important to industry in the United States in general. All I argue is that a similar centre or similar work carried out by the satistical departments, if that is apppropriate, at many universities, could be done regionally. Market research goes right across all Government Departments. In very many ways information could be provided. Professor Moser at the London School of Economics did that very valuable statistical work for the Robbins Report.

In more particular aspects, all universities can help regional planning. Perhaps the House will forgive me if I 589 concentrate on the University of Leeds, because that is the university with which I am far more concerned, with my interest in Yorkshire and Humberside. The faculty of science there runs courses in electronic computing. It could do work for the Ministry of Technology. It has, I believe, already done work for the D.S.I.R., and the D.S.I.R. might well be split into regions itself.

The university has done work for the N.C.B. It does work in fibre science. The faculty of economics produced in the Yorkshire Bulletin of Economic and Social Research a very valuable article by Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Sigworth on slum clearance, a subject not without significance in Leeds and many another northern city. The N.E.D.C. not so long ago produced a pamphlet on "Investment Appraisal"—"The Importance of Better Investment Appraisal" would perhaps be a better title. It would be extremely valuable if the economics department of a university, not necessarily Leeds, could do research into investment appraisal on a much narrower front in the area with which it is concerned.

When one talks of under-developed areas one often thinks of other parts of the world and the remote areas in this country, but it would be possible to find areas under-developed industrially very close to major industrial towns. The universities might well investigate the problems there.

The Institute of Education at the University of Leeds already does much research under the U.G.C. It should play a far more important rôle in teacher supply, which is not without significance when looked at regionally. The Institute could also play some part in the training of educational administrators, which could be extremely important in the regions. A report on the educational needs of an area in the light of economic change would be an important piece of research which would add to the stock of knowledge about a region. In the Yorkshire and Humberside Region, what I have said about Leeds applies equally to Sheffield, York, Hull or the new University of Bradford.

The planning boards will tend to look at the situation now and in the immediate years ahead, but it is very important to get long-run research under way—the influence of R. and D. contracting, for 590 example, on growth; labour use in industrial change. It is important that this research should be team-project work, akin to that which ought to be done nationally by an economic research council.

In each region there should be postgraduate schools in regional planning. Long-term planning is vitally important, and is suitable for the universities to carry out. Already, at what is to be the new University of Bradford there has been carried out a regional survey of the drift to the South, and the small proportion of growth industry, etc. It is a very valuable report, and I commend it. Equally valuable work has been done by the town planning department of the Leeds School of Art, but it is most important that all this research should be in greater depth, and the universities and similar institutions are the bodies to carry out the work. I hope that the Minister will do all he can to make the universities realise the importance of the regional planning councils and the regional planning boards. Why not meetings of the various Ministries represented on the regional boards with the heads of the university faculties in each region? Why not a regional planning bulletin or a journal containing articles giving advice and reporting on the research that has been done by the universities? Regional planning plays a vital part and will play an increasingly vital part in the economic planning life of this country.

A vast amount of money is now being spent on the universities. It is very much a capital goods industry. I concede that they are national universities but I believe that, properly used, the universities of this country can help the regions in which they are situated and it is for this reason that I raise this subject tonight.

§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State, Department of Economic Affairs (Mr. William Rodgers)

I find myself in the very happy position of being able to endorse much of what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) and I certainly share the approach which he has shown to this question of regional research. As he knows, the Government attach the greatest importance not only in this regional field but over the whole broad 591 sweep of planning to much closer relationships between Government and the universities and also between Government, the universities and industry. We think there could be a greater interchange of ideas and, for that matter, an interchange of persons as well. We want to bring the universities as closely as we can into all our planning and fully to use them in the formulation of policy. I think I can say that in the regional field where this is specially true, the universities are already playing a part, and we look forward to them playing an increasing part in our regional planning as our policies unfold.

Last December when we began to look at the whole question of the future of the South-East, and in particular to review the Study which was published by the previous Government, it seemed to me that if we were to have a fresh look at these problems there would be a considerable advantage in bringing people in from outside, and so I held a one-day seminar at which we were able to draw upon the knowledge and advice of people in particular from the universities, who we thought would have a useful contribution to make to policy-making.

The other day I was very pleased to have the opportunity of going to the inaugural meeting of the new Regional Studies Association which is to provide a forum for ideas on regional planning and to stimulate study and research. This is not exclusively a university body, but I think it can make a most valuable contribution in the separate regions and to regional policy as a whole. In so far as this is helpful, it certainly has my blessing.

I hope it will succeed in bringing people together and will help to increase this liaison which exists already between the universities and Government. Some of this liaison must obviously be on an informal and personal basis, and I think I can say that the Department of Economic Affairs in this respect, as in others, is most accessible to persons and ideas. I am always happy to hear from anybody from the universities or elsewhere who has got a contribution to make to the problems which we are trying to solve. There is certainly no 592 monopoly of wisdom in Whitehall or Westminster on regional planning.

As my hon. Friend has said, we have succeeded in our new regional planning machinery in bringing in a number of people with very distinguished positions in the universities. He mentioned that we have Sir Roger Stevens, Vice-Chancellor of Leeds University. Then there are Mr. Charles Carter, Vice-Chancellor of Lancaster University, and Professor Tress of the University of Bristol. All three of these are chairmen of our new councils. I should also mention Mr. Hunt, the Chairman of the West Midlands Council and ProChancellor-designate of the University of Aston, who has played a great part in educational work and further education in the West Midlands. There are also 18 other university teachers, and an additional 18 people who serve on the governing bodies of universities—I speak not only of the councils in England but also of the councils in Wales and Scotland. It can be said therefore that we have made a special feature of the university link on our councils.

My hon. Friend asked what special role we saw for the university people who were serving on the councils. He knows, and he made the position very clear, that members of the councils serve in their individual capacities. They are there on merit, for their personal qualities and their knowledge and experience of a particular region. We believe that people who have spent their lifetime in university teaching and research can bring to the council a special element of academic discipline, knowledge of their own studies and knowledge of what is going on in other faculties and other universities, which will enable our councils to do a useful job of work.

It is not only or even mainly a liaison role. They have a quality of experience rather different from that of those who have made their reputation or given their time in local government or on either side of industry. It is interesting that university people on the councils come from faculties of economics, sociology, architecture, building science, town and country planning, government, and from other disciplines, because regional planning, if it is anything, is essentially an inter-disciplinary exercise. It is not 593 simply something for geographers or economists. It is a field in which many people with different experience and approaches must work together.

Our new machinery is already establishing very effective relationships with the universities. I have already mentioned Mr. Hunt. He is very anxious to build up association with the universities and look closely at economic growth in the West Midlands. In the Yorkshire and Humberside region, the chairman of the board there, Mr. Onslow, when meeting the Press after his appointment, made a particular point of saying that universities could make a very useful and practical contribution to the work of the regional council and the regional board in the Yorkshire and Humberside region.

My hon. Friend mentioned the possibility of having "little Whitehalls" in these regional centres. This was a good way of describing what we hope to see. We want decisions increasingly decentralised from Whitehall. This means building up, in boards and councils, a network of relationships and experience which will enable decisions to be made further down the line and further away from Whitehall than has been the case in the past.

We certainly feel that the boards will need a research staff. There is a problem here though. We do not want to draw everybody away from full-time research and teaching in the universities. Our board chairmen are exploring the possibility of having consultants attached to the boards on a part-time basis, and here again we wish to have a positive relationship. In Leeds, Hull, Sheffield, York and Bradford, the Yorkshire and Humberside region is particularly rich in universities which have made a valuable contribution and will do more in future.

My hon. Friend was right to point out that we do not want universities to deal with problems exclusively within their own region. If we are to have research in depth it must be right across the national picture and not simply into the details, however important, in separate regions. There is a great deal to be done on the whole theory of regional economics. This should be done in a number of universities and there should be a division of labour on national issues. 594 There should not be universities in each region concentrating only on problems peculiar to their region.

I should like now to say something about the direct relationship of the Department of Economic Affairs with the universities in regional planning. There is an item in the Department of Economic Affairs Estimates for 1965–66 for special inquiries into regional economic planning and research projects. We have in mind that over a period, we may be commissioning further studies which will be able to contribute either nationally or in the separate regions to the solutions of our problems. Already, in Durham, Mr. Alan Odber of the Business Research Unit is doing some very good work, to which we attach great importance, on the growth potential of the North-East. In Lancaster, under Professor Sturmey—it is very good to see this in a new university which is just feeling its way—work is being done on a social and economic survey of Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire north of the Ribble. These are separate studies, but we think that they may be the beginning of further and more exhaustive studies in these universities and others.

The House will know of the research we have already commissioned into office location. This is a very important matter. If we are to keep office development out of the centre of London, we must find the locations which will be most attractive to developers. On this, as on other subjects to which I shall refer in a moment, there is a good deal of work still to be done.

The Department of Economic Affairs, although responsible overall for regional planning, does not deal with the separate executive responsibilities of other Departments. It is right that I should remind the House of the Research Advisory Group of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government which is doing valuable work on urban planning research, of the cost-benefit studies at Oxford and the network analysis at London being done for the Ministry of Transport—because transport planning is a very important part of regional planning—and of the work being done on the possible use of computers for regional planning by the Ministry of Technology. Having lately returned from a visit to Scotland, I must say how interesting it is to see the 595 relationship being built up between the Scottish Development Department and the Scottish universities, out of which, I think, much good may come.

While I am on the subject of Scotland, may I commend one publication which comes out of Glasgow University, the journal, "Urban Studies," which is most valuable for regional studies? I regard this as an admirable journal, and I read every issue. It is not concerned only, as might appear, with urban studies but with the wider picture about which we are concerned. It is very much to the credit of Glasgow Corporation that it has made an annual grant of£5,000 towards the work of the urban studies unit within the university which is responsible for publication of "Urban Studies."

My own personal feeling is that we still have not got enough journals which seriously look, as my hon. Friend put it, in depth into regional questions. It may be that we should have some journals within the regions. The Regional Studies Association, which I mentioned, is considering the possibility of a journal, and this will be one further stage along the road which we all hope to travel.

In the last six months, during which I have been particularly concerned with regional planning, I have found more unanswered questions than questions to which we have yet got fully convincing answers. We all have our guesses in regional matters, but guesswork alone is not enough, and I should be ready at any time, either in the House or elsewhere, to give a long list of subjects upon which research is still to be done. I might mention the factors governing migration, the factors governing industrial growth and decline, the incentives necessary for industrial movement—whether financial incentives are more valuable than the provision of infrastructure—and congestion costs, about which we all have views but about which many of us have little real knowledge. I have already mentioned office location. There is the problem of the optimum size of towns. There is the problem of employment structure and growth, the problem of industrial movement, and so on. These are all real hard questions related to regional planning, and we shall find answers to them over a period.

596 We need all the help that the universities can give us, and we wish to call upon their resources. I do not think the demands which we should like to make upon them are in any way incompatible with the universities' own proper concern for teaching and for pure research. The work we should like to see done would be an integral part of that normal university research and teaching function. It could be done to the mutual advantage of universities—without any infringement of their independence—and the Government and, therefore, to the country as a whole.

Perhaps I should say—maybe it could be regarded as a quid pro quo—that we on our part in the Department of Economic Affairs and generally in the Government will do all we can to give university research workers access to information. It is, I know, a longstanding grievance that people in the universities want to have information which is not available to them. There are problems—problems of confidential relationships between Government and business, for example. We must not break confidences. But we hope to be able to move some way in providing information not yet available. In particular, this summer we hope to begin a digest of regional statistics, for which many hon. Members have asked in the past. This is a gesture to show that there is a two-way traffic here. We will help the universities if they can help us.

Speaking personally, although there are many people now concerned with regional planning and research, and though there are a number of projects—those mentioned by my hon. Friend and myself and many others—under way, there is scope for a good deal more development of regional studies in the universities. The possibility has been canvassed of one or more centres specifically designed for regional inter-disciplinary studies in or associated with universities or institutions of equivalent academic status. The assumption is made that such centres would receive significant Government financial support. These proposals have very wide implications. All I would like to say is that I find myself very sympathetic towards them, and we in the Department are examining them very carefully to see whether some new and important departure can here be made which would help to move towards 597 a solution of the problems I have mentioned and would strengthen those within the universities who are carrying on these important regional studies.

I hope also that now that we have set up this new machinery in the six regions of England—and we shall shortly be looking at the best machinery to deal with problems in the South-East—and also in Scotland and in Wales, there will be increasing understanding that regional policies are concerned not only, as my hon. Friend said, or not even mainly today, with welfare policy but also with economic growth, and that regional policies are as important in the South-East of the country, in the west Midlands and the east Midlands, which are relatively prosperous, as in the North-East and in Scotland.

If we are to achieve a 25 per cent. growth by 1970, we must harness the full resources of the under-employed regions and at the same time deal with problems of congestion in those areas where congestion is now the main 598 characteristic: this is the case for more regional planning. We shall be doing what we can from the Department, but we place, as the House knows, a very heavy responsibility on the councils and the boards in the regions. While we shall he doing our part in encouraging the universities in the fields which my hon. Friend mentioned, the more the councils and boards can themselves take initiatives, establish better relations with the universities and draw in advice given by university teachers and researchers, the happier we shall be. We certainly take a very positive view of the part which universities can play in regional planning. We shall place no impediment in their path. As far as we are concerned, it is a partnership, and we believe that a partnership can be very fruitful indeed for the country as a whole.