DEE ESTUARY SCHEME (Hansard, 15 May 1973)

§ Sir Anthony Meyer (Flint, West)

At this time of night I do not want to spend time arguing the case for the multipurpose Dee Estuary Scheme. As the Minister knows, this is a scheme for a barrage across the River Dee, which will provide water storage on a scale which will make it unnecessary to flood any more Welsh valleys. I was surprised to discover that the water storage aspect of the scheme has only lately been brought 1472 into it. The original scheme was envisaged purely as a crossing device. The scheme will provide vastly better road communications between Merseyside and North Wales.

Either of these purposes would in itself probably suffice to justify the capital cost, last estimated at £60 million but no doubt now substantially more. There is also the bonus of a substantial improvement in the Deeside environment, and expanded opportunities for recreation in the area.

I do not believe that there is any longer room for argument on the merits of the case. The point I want to make is that the inevitable decision to go ahead with the scheme ought to be reached and made public, not in three, six or 12 months' time but now. On all too many occasions Ministers have said that they intend to announce a decision on this matter "before the recess". Let them reach and announce their decision before the Whitsun Recess.

The evidence is accumulating that the Government's policies for regional development are working and that the areas of traditionally high unemployment are about to experience a revival of economic activity such as they have not known for decades, particularly if, as I hope, the Government decide not to abolish the regional employment premium. In the long term, I have no fears for the future prosperity of North East Wales, and Deeside in particular. Its geographical situation ensures that it can never be regarded as peripheral, and the excellent reputation of its labour force is a magnet to industrialists seeking to expand outside the congested Midlands or the South East. In the long run, Deeside cannot but prosper.

But the decision of the nationalised Steel Corporation to phase out steel making at Shotton has cast a temporary blight over the area. Shotton is far and away the biggest employer in an area where there are, anyway, alarmingly few employers. If it is to go into decline, the whole area will go into decline, and even the certainty of eventual expansion may not suffice to prevent a fall in the level of economic activity which could be irreversible. I have argued on other occasions, and I shall go on arguing, that the decision to phase out steel making at 1473 Shotton is a mistaken one, not merely because of the harm it will do to North East Wales but because of the risks which it involves for the whole British steel industry. But I have to face the possibility that the Steel Corporation will not come to its senses in time. In any case, there is bound to be a substantial drop in the number of jobs at Shotton if the works is to become fully competitive.

Whatever happens, therefore, there is bound to be a substantial reduction, perhaps a catastrophic reduction, in job opportunities in the area. I refer to "loss of jobs" and not "unemployment". I do not believe that there will be heavy unemployment, and I have done my best locally to dissipate fears of this. What there will be is something more insidious, no less deadly. As job prospects dwindle, more and more of the bright school leavers will think in terms of a career elsewhere. Fewer and fewer women will think in terms of getting a proper job. The unemployment figures will not look so very dreadful. But we in North-East Wales will have an older population doing less skilled jobs and bringing, not two large wage packets into the home, but one rather small one. Local tradesmen will feel the pinch, and local sporting and entertainment facilities will begin to wither away through lack of patronage. The whole area will begin to run down.

I am not painting an alarmist picture. It is beginning to happen. Already Shotton is running up against the problem that qualified school leavers do not want to go and work there. It is not surprising. There is something very demoralising about working in a contracting enterprise where one's best chance of promotion is for someone else to get the sack. There is now a real risk that the mentality of contraction will get a grip of Deeside.

I know that Ministers are doing all they can to bring in new jobs. I have no doubt that in the present atmosphere of burgeoning confidence in the rest of the country, they will have real success in bringing new good jobs to Deeside. But it is simply not possible, in the time available before British Steel intends to begin the process of rundown, to provide new jobs on anything like the scale required. New jobs may be provided in hundreds, 1474 but old jobs will disappear by the thousand. That is why I argue that, if the disastrous decision is to go ahead, it must at the very least be postponed by three years.

Postponement of the rundown will not do much, however—I doubt whether it will do anything—to transform the gloomy climate which now prevails in eastern Flintshire. Something must be done in the next few weeks. Indeed, something ought to have been done six months ago to transform the way the Deesiders think of themselves and the way the rest of the country thinks about Deeside. Something must be done to make Deeside into an area of hope and expansion instead of one of gloom and contraction.

That something lies ready to hand. A decision now to press ahead rapidly with the Dee Estuary scheme could have indirect effects greater and more immediate than the direct benefits to be expected from the scheme. It has little—indeed, it has nothing—to do with the number of jobs involved in the actual construction of the project. I am well aware that many of the construction workers will come in from outside the area.

The real value of an immediate decision to press ahead with the scheme is that it would forthwith label Deeside not as an area where one traditional industry was declining but as an area where an exciting new technological investment project was taking place, and an area attractive to footloose industrialists seeking to take advantage of the opportunities for expansion opened up by the enlargement of the Common Market. The area would be even more attractive precisely because of what I described earlier as a bonus from the scheme, namely, the improvement to the environment and the facilities for leisure made available by the two huge lakes which are inherent in the scheme. Deeside would thus be an area well placed for road communications, with a willing and skilled labour force, excellent facilities for housing of all types, including the boss himself, and now, above all, an area where things were happening. This, surely, is the recipe both for attracting good new jobs to the area and for convincing the school leavers of Flintshire that their brightest future lies at their own doorstep.

1475 I know that there are some misgivings that the scheme, by providing much faster road communications between North Wales and Merseyside, would intensify the present tendency for Flintshire to become a dormitory area for Merseyside. I think that these fears are mistaken. Certainly they are no argument against the scheme. They provide an argument for continuing the integrated approach to the scheme. It is vital that it should be developed in the interests of the area as a whole so as to foster balanced industrial development on both banks of the Dee.

I am not sure that this can be brought about effectively by co-operation between the various local authorities and Government bodies, not forgetting the water authority concerned, unless there is some active body in the middle with a rôle not merely as an intermediary but as an initiator, rather after the way in which the European Commission is intended to act as initiator between the member Governments. I believe that we shall need something like a Dee Estuary development corporation to ensure that the project not only goes ahead with a sense of urgency which has been dismally lacking so far, but that it is developed in such a way as not just to cause the minimum of upset and annoyance to existing bodies but so as to secure the maximum of advantage for all.

The scheme has hung fire for far too long. Its merits are incontestable. But every month's delay reduces its chances of restoring the economic health of North-East Wales. We must have a decision now.

§ The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Mr. David Gibson-Watt)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) for raising this very important subject and for the balanced speech to which he has treated us. It is a subject in which he has shown deep interest for a long time, and I welcome this opportunity of dealing with some of the more important issues at stake rather more fully than has yet been possible.

The proposals for the development of the Dee estuary are wide-ranging and imaginative. The project which has been 1476 mooted is a multi-purpose scheme involving water supply, a road crossing, amenity and recreation. It is also an expensive project. The indications are that a road crossing with three or four reservoirs and associated works would cost somewhere between £80 million and £100 million.

It is crucial that we should examine all aspects of the project critically and carefully. We cannot do that without all the information about the water supply aspects. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State announced to the House last August that the Government had decided that the water storage aspects should be examined in the light of the Water Resources Board's report on national strategies for water conservation. I emphasise the word "national" because there can be no doubt that a scheme of this size can only sensibly be considered in a national context.

We have not yet received the Water Resources Board's report, but it should be with us soon. I am advised that it is likely to be presented at about the end of this month.

Recent Press reports have suggested that the Dee estuary may find a favourable place in the recommended strategy, but I think it would be unwise to speculate on this tonight. Certainly it would be wrong to take decisions until we have had an opportunity to study the full contents of the report and to consider the question of the Dee in the wider context.

The intervening time has certainly not been wasted. A good deal of work has been done by officials of the Welsh Office and the Department of the Environment, in particular on the communications aspects of the scheme. The need for improved communications between North Wales and Merseyside is recognised by everyone. My hon. Friend and other hon. Members have repeatedy drawn attention to existing road conditions in that part of the country, particularly in the vicinity of the existing Queensferry crossing and on the A55 from the outskirts of Chester to beyond Holywell.

We are well aware of the difficulties, and plans for the improvement of the present road network in the area are already well advanced. The construction of the Chester southerly bypass and 1477 improvements of the A550 and A55 trunk roads will make a significant difference to traffic conditions in the next few years, and we have no reason to fear that the demands of traffic cannot adequately be net by these improvements until at least the end of the present decade. It is clear, however, that additional road capacity across the Dee is likely to be required sometime after 1980, and it is in that context that the highways aspects of the estuary project fall to be considered.

My hon. Friend has quite rightly referred to the problems at Shotton and mentioned the rôle of the Dee estuary project in helping to deal with the problems caused by the rundown in steel making at Shotton. The task force has been considering the possible contribution that a decision on the Dee crossing could make. I know that a number of representations have been made to it on this matter.

Although, as my hon. Friend has said, there is not a complete identity of view, it has been strongly argued by some that work on such a large project would in itself make a helpful contribution to relieving unemployment, that the prospect of improved communications with England and the main motorway network would be a powerful inducement to new industry, and that acceptance of the scheme with its vast capital investment— a point made by my hon. Friend—would give a great psychological boost to the area and do much to strengthen confidence in the future. I do not deny the psychological value of such an announcement. My hon. Friend placed particular emphasis on this point.

The Deeside area of Flintshire is one of the fastest growing areas in Wales. Between 1966 and 1971 the population increased by nearly 12 per cent., and all the forecasts are that growth on this scale will continue.

One of the problems is to evolve a land use strategy to deal with it. In this context we cannot ignore the difference in timing between the events with which the task force is concerned and the possible construction of a Dee crossing.

1478 I emphasise that, working on the basis of the British Steel Corporation's strategy that the main job of the task force is to consider measures to help counter the rundown in steel making before 1980. The Dee crossing could not possibly make any significant physical contribution to this effort. Even if an immediate decision were taken to go ahead with the estuary project, the detailed and complex planning and preparatory procedures—and the legislative procedures—would be bound to take up several years and construction work could not begin much before the end of the present decade. Certainly motorists could not expect to drive their cars over the Dee nor housewives to get Dee estuary water through their taps before the early 1980s at least. It is, therefore, unrealistic to expect the estuary development proposals to make a contribution to employment prospects in the short term.

The first task of the Government will be to decide in principle whether the undoubted benefits that would result from a major multi-purpose development of the estuary are sufficient to justify the large capital investment that would be required.

As I have said, a scheme of this complexity, involving as it does major questions of communications, water supply, urban and industrial development and environmental issues, including important aspects of recreation and nature conservancy, must be considered in a national context, and it is essential that we should take care to reach the right conclusion.

The decision will have important implications for the whole of North Wales and a large part of England for many years to come. We will reach an answer as quickly as we can, but we must get the right answer. I appreciate why my hon. Friend is so concerned, but let no one underestimate our determination to find the right answer.