CUMBRIA

HC Deb 06 December 1977 vol 940 cc1347-58

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Snape.]

1.56 a.m.

Mr. Michael Jopling (Westmorland)

I fear that you are getting bored by the sound of my voice, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I am glad to have this opportunity of raising the problems of the county of Cumbria. The truth is that since coming here as a Member 13 years ago I have taken every opportunity which came to me to resist the integration of my constituency of Westmorland into the influence of governmental agencies which were based in Newcastle or the Northern Region. I shall come to the reasons why I have taken this view in a few moments. For the record, I have absolutely no personal antagonism to either Newcastle or the Northern Region. Indeed, my own family's roots are in County Durham, and particularly in Sunderland, which is an area in which you also have roots, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I attended the university at Newcastle, a city for which I have greater affection than for any other provincial city. I live in and was brought up in North Yorkshire, which is also within the Northern Region. I can only repeat that I raise this topic with absolutely no antagonism at all towards the Northern Region.

I have always spoken against the anomaly of associating my constituency and Southern Cumbria with the governmental affairs of Newcastle and the North-East. I can recall raising this matter in meetings with the lamented Dan Smith, back in 1964 or 1965. I can remember raising it, to my great fury, with my own Government when they were in power in the earlier years of the 1970s, when there were proposals to reorganise the National Health Service. I can recall my pleas that Southern Cumbria, in particular, should be included with the North-West, because all the southern part of my constituency uses the general hospital facilities in Lancaster, so it seemed nonsense to put the health affairs of my constituents under Newcastle.

The reason why I have taken this view is that the southern area of Cumbria has no affinity to Newcastle and the North-West. The people who live in Westmorland never go to Newcastle and the North-East unless they have to, because of the present arrangements and the way in which governmental affairs are organised.

Secondly, the truth is that the communications between Newcastle and my constituency and Southern Cumbria are at the best terrible and in many cases nonexistent. If the Under-Secretary wants to test this out I recommend him to try the two-way journey between Barrow and Newcastle and back—270 miles—in one day. I guarantee that he will never find another journey, in any region, between a town which is an ex-county borough and a regional centre, which could involve him in travelling for a greater distance for a greater time. He could never find a more miserable car journey.

Thirdly, I base my reasoning on the fact that people in South Cumbria have no social ties with the North-East. There are no common newspapers or media links, and my people take very little interest in the North-East. They do not support North-East football clubs—they support Manchester United and Liverpool, and that is a good test of social links between one part of the country and another.

Compare that with the relations between South Cumbria and Manchester and the North-West. There are magnificent road and rail links, there are common media links of television and newspapers and there are close historic and social connections which shortness of time does not allow me to discuss.

I have been talking about the situation relating to South Cumbria. Since the formation of the new county of Cumbria it is not possible to take such a parochial view. If one takes the wider case of the whole of Cumbria, one sees that there is an improved case for associating that county with Newcastle and the North-East. In fact, Carlisle is a good deal nearer Newcastle than Manchester, but there are miserable east-west roads, and relatively miserable rail links compared with the main north-south railway line and the magnificent M6 motorway. Although the difference is greater in mileage between Cumbria and Manchester, it is smaller in time.

Even so, the Pennines provide not just the geographical barrier between Cumbria and the North-East but also a barrier which is largely concerned with a separate history and separate social connections.

To sum up the matter—the truth is that to append Cumbria to the Northern Region is an artificial union. It is more suited to administrative convenience than to natural association.

I should not have pressed my views on the House had it not been for the recent decision of the Cumbria County Council against membership of the proposed Northern Counties Association. It also decided to cease its membership of the North of England Development Council, principally based on North-East England. However, it decided to continue its membership of the North-West Industrial Development Association.

The county council has expressed a desire to oppose a gradual drift into closer links with the North-East compared with the North-West. This is the gist of my case tonight. I hope that the Under-Secretary will tell us that he will do his best to resist that drift.

Over the past few years it has become clear that Cumbria's first choice is to be considered as a region on its own. There is much merit in that. It has been proposed to the Government. There was a delegation from Cumbria a few years ago which saw the right hon. Gentleman, who is now the Minister of Agriculture. He turned down the request Reluctantly I accept that the concept of Cumbria as a separate region is a dead duck. I confine myself to considering how Cumbria should now be treated within the present regional arrangements, bearing in mind the Government's refusal to allow it to be a region on its own.

Cumbria's geographical situation, by its nature, position and treatment by Government agencies, is something of a hotch-potch. That is no surprise. It is probably natural and inevitable that it should be treated as something of a hotch-potch. It is strange that it should be treated in some instances as part of the Northern Region and in others as part of the North-West Region. The Department of Industry considers that part of Cumbria is dealt with by the Northern Region and part of it by the North-West Region. As for the Department of the Environment, Cumbria is dealt with entirely by the Northern Region. The North-West Regional Water Authority, based on Warrington, deals with the whole of Cumbria. Health is dealt with by the Northern Region at Newcastle. Electricity is dealt with entirely from the North-West. Gas is dealt with in the north by the Northern Gas Board and in the south by the North-West Gas Board. It is inevitably something of a hotch-potch. In considering how Cumbria is dealt with by various governmental agencies it is important to put on record that I am making no complaint about the service that comes to Cumbria from one region or another. I have many examples of my constituents and others within Cumbria saying that they receive a most helpful service from officials in various Government Departments, many of them making honest attempts to do their best to integrate Cumbria with either the North-West Region or the North-East Region.

It is the artificiality of the union between Cumbria and the Northern Region that promotes such serious problems. My request tonight is in the following terms: where a clear choice exists, please do not make decisions to put Cumbria into the Northern Region rather than the North-West Region. If there is a choice to be made, I hope that all Government Departments will choose to put Cumbria in the North-West Region rather than in the Northern Region. That is the desire expressed by the recent vote of the county council. It is the desire of the vast majority within Cumbria, and especially so in the southern part of the county.

I do not ask for a major reconstruction of our regional planning arrangements for Cumbria. I do not want Government action tomorrow to take Cumbria out of the Northern Region and to put it into the North-West Region. I hope that I have made that clear. However, when the choice exists I plead with the Government not to allow to take place a constant drift towards the Northern Region.

The key necessity on the part of the Government is to have policies that are not made for administrative convenience but in the best interests of the people of Cumbria. I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State will be able to give his agreement and support to that sentiment.

Recently, for example, civil servants in Cumbria employed in the Department of Employment have activated a vigorous campaign to resist the closure of their Preston and Barrow offices and for responsibilities to be shifted from Preston and Barrow to Newcastle. I was pleased to see a report in the Lancashire Evening Post of 23rd November 1977 in which the Secretary of State for Employment—the right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth)—has halted the plans and given an undertaking to the hon. Member for Preston, South (Mr. Thorne) that he is reconsidering the earlier proposals to shut the offices in Preston and Barrow. I very much welcome that move. It is exactly what I am asking for tonight to stop this drift away from existing links with the North-West and to attach Cumbria, against its will, to Newcastle and the Northern area.

I hope that this debate will clear the air. As I have said, I ask for no radical upturns. I am confident that the majority of people in Cumbria do not want dramatic upturns of that kind. They want their position in regional terms to be a natural one and, where choices can be made, to go for the North-West rather than the Northern area. If the Minister can assure us that that point of view will be considered sympathetically, the debate will have served a useful purpose.

2.11 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Guy Barnett)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) for raising this subject in the House tonight or, rather, this morning. I acknowledge in particular the reasonable and moderate way in which he has put his case.

The hon. Gentleman admitted to a long-standing interest in seeing his part of the country as part of the North-West rather than as part of the Northern Region. I welcome that, because, as he knows, there are some people who approach the subject of local government and regional organisation by demanding immediate and wholesale change. There really is no mileage in such an approach. I recognise, particularly from what the hon. Gentleman said towards the end of his speech, that he was not making that mistake. Indeed, he has put quite fairly what I am sure is the instinctive feeling of a good many of his constituents—that they do not belong with the other areas in the Northern Region. That is a feeling which we in the Department of the Environment must take seriously, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall do just that.

Incidentally, I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman said about officials from various Departments with whom he and others of whom he knows have had dealings. I thank him for his kind words about those officials, regardless of the regions to which they are attached.

I know that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the settlement of boundaries is always a difficult matter. One can quote many examples, but I think that the boundaries about which we are talking tonight are amongst some of the most difficult in the country. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman illustrated that point very well in his speech.

It may be helpful if I go over some of the case history.

First, there is the county of Cumbria. This new county was formed in the local government reorganisation in April 1974 from the old counties of Cumberland, Westmorland and the northern part of Lancashire—"Lancashire beyond the sands". Other possible county patterns were considered at the time, including one for a new county for the Furness area, South Westmorland and North Lancashire. These, however, had other disadvantages, and the decision taken—very much on a balance of arguments—was to create the present county of Cumbria.

Even so, Cumbria, though one of the largest English counties in area, has one of the smallest populations.

The decision then had to be taken: in what region should this new county be placed? At the time of the reorganisation of local government structure and revision of boundaries, some adjustments were made to the boundaries of regions in England. Generally, these were arranged to bring the regional boundaries into line with the new local government boundaries. It was considered very important for counties to be placed wholly within a region—that is, for counties not to be split between two or more regions. I think that at that time all agreed that was the right decision.

So far as Cumbria was concerned, the options were clearly to place it in the Northern Economic Planning Region or in the North-West Region. On balance—and again the balance was a difficult one—Cumbria was placed in the Northern Region. As the hon. Member appreciates, I was, of course, not involved then, but no doubt the obvious proximity of parts of Cumbria to the North-West Region, and the consequent wish of people to be in it rather than the remote-sounding Northern Region, was carefully considered before that decision was taken. One of the reasons for it, of course, was that it gave a better balance between the sizes of the regions in the North of England. This is an important factor which we must always take into account. Although it should never be the only argument adduced, it is obvious that we cannot look at any one change in isolation, without assessing as fully as posible the consequences of the change on other regions and their organisation.

The matter of the status and alignment of Cumbria was reconsidered in 1975–76 following a deputation from Cumbria which met my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) in September 1975. I think that that was the meeting to which the hon. Member referred. The hon. Member for Westmorland and other hon. Members supported this delegation, and two hon. Members—one from each side of the House—accompanied it.

Two particular matters were discussed by the deputation: the possibility of Cumbria being constituted as a separate economic planning region or sub-region and the possibility of establishing in Cumbria some sort of a sub-office of the Department of the Environment's regional office in Newcastle. Both these matters were thoroughly considered following the deputation, but the Government had regretfully to write to Cumbria to the effect that neither seemed practicable. I need not rehearse more fully here the terms of my right hon. Friend's letter, because they will certainly be familiar to the hon. Member.

The Northern Region, as at present constituted, is in fact among the smallest English regions in terms of population—and it is on population that the volume of administrative work largely depends. I noted that the hon. Member said that we ought not to be making these decisions for administrative reasons but because of the interest of the people. Yet we cannot ignore the administrative arguments. A separate Cumbria region would be much smaller still and could find a place only in a system of much smaller and numerous regions. A Northern Region without Cumbria would be obviously smaller than it already is; and the North-West Region already covers a very sizeable population, without the addition of Cumbria. I do not say that these are concluive points but they are relevant.

As regards a DOE sub-office in Cumbria, to be of value such a sub-office would have to be capable of settling most of the work that came its way without reference to the Newcastle office. But the range of work covered by the Department's regional offices is so wide—including transport as well as environment—that the necessary expertise could not be provided within a staff of the size the work load would warrant; and with the current pressure on Civil Service numbers we could not accept duplication of staff.

It is certainly true that there is considerable variation between the operational boundaries of public utilities in the North and North-West. These are mainly for good operational reasons. One example, which the hon. Member cited, is river flows, which make it inevitable that Cumbria should come within the area of the North West Water Authority.

But most Government Departments, in their regional organisation, follow the standard boundaries of the economic planning regions. These Departments include the Department of the Environment, the Department of Tranport, the Department of Employment and, with the small variation that the Furness area is still included in its North-West Region, the Department of Industry. Also, the newly-appointed Manpower Services Commission Regional Director will be responsible for the whole of the Northern Economic Planning Region.

I do not believe that there has been any neglect of Cumbria by those regional offices of Government which are based on Newcastle. Certainly the hon. Member did not make that point. In fact, many hon. Members and officers have gone out of their way to praise the amount of time and attention Cumbrian affairs are being given. So while I naturally accept that the hon. Member is speaking for some of his constituents when he says they would rather not be in the Northern Region, I hope that he will accept that this is not as a result of any action or lack of action by the regional offices of Government Departments. I appreciate the force of the argument that with the M6 and the main-line railway from Carlisle, some parts of Cumbria are more readily accessible to Manchester than to Newcastle. Nevertheless, there has been a steady improvement of east-west links, despite what the hon. Gentleman has said, and he knows the area better than me—within the region in recent years. I am thinking particularly of the A69 Carlisle-Newcastle and A66 Workington-Penrith-Scotch Corner roads. This improvement is continuing.

I should mention now the various ideas which are currently affecting regional government in England. I think it would be premature to form any views at this stage on how Cumbria might fare in any devolution proposals affecting the English regions. No such proposals have been formulated.

It is interesting to note that the Northern Economic Planning Council—which includes within its membership five members drawn from Cumbria—said in reply to the consultation document, we issued, "Devolution: the English Dimension": The Council recognise that in some districts of Cumbria there is a feeling either that the county should be given a separate regional status of its own or that, in whole or in part, it should be transferred to the North-West Region. The Council do not however recommend either of these courses. The north of Cumbria, at least, has developed increasingly strong links with North-East England, and it seems doubtful whether Cumbrians would have as much say in the decisions of a regional body based on the heavily populated industrial north-west as they would do in those of a body based on the present Northern Economic Planning Region. This view, too, is one which the Government will inevitably have to take into account.

Mr. Jopling

To use a quotation like that in the argument smacks of the old adage about the gentleman in Whitehall knowing best. I have explained to the House that Cumbria has taken a firm decision and I know that it reflects the majority view of the people of Cumbria.

Mr. Barnett

The hon. Gentleman's point is one which we shall take into account. All I am saying is that when the Economic Planning Council comes out with a statement like that—and there are five representatives of Cumbria on it—that, too, is a view that we have to take into account. But while I would doubt whether anything has changed since 1974 sufficiently to alter significantly the balance of the arguments, I will gladly put it on record that the Government are willing to look at particular aspects of the arrangements which seem to be causing difficulty. It is important that we eventually review the position in this way. The 1972 Local Government Act foresaw the need for us to keep re-examining our boundaries, and this we shall be doing.

Meanwhile, I believe that Cumbria has a special and an important contribution to make to the affairs of the Northern Region where it is situated. For Cumbria to play its full part in these affairs would, I believe, be to the best advantage both of the county and of the region.

I hope that, to a degree, I have been able to keep the options open and to recognise the points made by the hon. Gentleman. Equally, I hope that he will appreciate some of the arguments that I have advanced and some of the difficulties that inevitably arise over what is a difficult decision concerning boundaries and the region to which Cumbria should belong.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-four minutes past Two o'clock.