Urban Problems (Hansard, 16 February 1977)

§ 3. Mr. Peter Bottomley
asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to announce the findings of the ministerial committee concerned with urban problems.

§ 4. Mr. Silvester
asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to announce the findings of the ministerial committee concerned with urban problems.

§ 10. Mr. Steen
asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to announce the findings of the ministerial committee concerned with urban problems.

§ 16. Mr. Eyre
asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to announce the findings of the ministerial committee concerned with urban problems.

§ 17. Mr. Lawrence
asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to announce the findings of the ministerial committee concerned with urban problems.

§ Mr. Shore
I refer the hon. Members to the reply that I gave to the hon. Members for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Eyre) and Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) on 19th January 1977.

§ Mr. Bottomley
When the Secretary of State does announce the Committee's findings, will he beware of creating intense disillusionment and disappointment by offering no new initiatives or resources to these areas?

§ Mr. Shore
I shall be careful not to arouse false expectations. Whenever I have addressed myself to this problem in public, I have always emphasised the great restraint on total public expenditure in which we are bound to be operating for the next year or two at least. But I have also made it plain that it is not impossible, if we are prepared to redistribute resources, to find within existing totals of public expenditure some useful resources to help certain areas. But those areas will be highly selective and will be those that are in real need.

§ Mr. Steen
Does the Secretary of State agree that it was grossly unfair of the Prime Minister to blame Labour councils at a recent local government conference for the decline in the inner city areas when most of those areas have been represented by Labour members from time immemorial?

§ Mr. Shore
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has not blamed Labour councils for this. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertee (Mr. Steen) has made a rather foolish remark. For example, I am not aware that the cities of Liverpool and Birmingham have remained under Labour control and direction for many years. The parties have shared control over those areas. It would be foolish of us to blame each other in a party political way for the real problems that exist in the inner cities—problems that exist in other countries as well as in the United Kingdom.

§ Mr. Eyre
When speaking at conferences will the Secretary of State recall that under this Government the house improvement campaign, which is of vital importance to inner areas, has been cut to one-third of its 1974 level? Will he also state—since he acknowledges that small businesses have an enormous contribution to make to employment—when the Government will stop hammering small businesses, and how their problems are to be eased?

§ Mr. Shore
I would like to believe that a substantial proportion of home 478 improvement grants found their way into the inner cities when they were available on a lavish scale in years gone by, but I do not think that that was true.
We are concentrating municipalisation expenditure and Section 105 expenditure precisely within those areas of greatest need, including the designation of housing stress areas. The problem of small businesses is one that can be helped a great deal not only by planning policy changes by local authorities but by a possible improvement of the provisions of all kinds that local authorities are able to make for small businesses.

§ Mr. Lawrence
Is the Secretary of State not particularly appalled by the escalation in juvenile crime in areas of urban decline? Does he consider that the action of his right hon. Friend, who has just left the Chamber, in demoralising the police force at the present time is one of the best ways of solving the problem of juvenile crime?

§ Mr. Shore
That is not a helpful or serious question. The problem of juvenile crime is a serious and growing one. The whole House understands that. But this is not the proper place or occasion to debate that aspect of the matter.

§ Mr. Stan Crowther
In the current debate about the allocation of resources to new towns and city centres, will the Secretary of State bear in mind that the majority of people do not live in either? Will he accept from me that in the northern half of England, where many people live in industrial towns of medium size, there is a strong feeling that we have already failed to receive our fair share of national resources because of the competition from new towns? Will he ensure that his current preoccupation with city centres does not further deprive us?

§ Mr. Shore
I accept that the majority of people do not live in inner city areas or new towns, but the majority of people not living in those areas get the largest proportion of resources, in the form of rate support grant, allocation for housing, and so on. New towns must have the resources that are necessary for their existence and growth, and in the inner cities there is a large problem that must be solved.

§ Mr. Stephen Ross
I welcome the change of direction by the Government to the inner areas, but does the Minister agree that greater assistance should be given to self-help groups, such as housing associations? Will he give them every encouragement?

§ Mr. Shore
I shall do my best to give them all possible encouragement, but we must go beyond that and try to enter into some kind of closer partnership with the principal local authorities concerned to do the things that are needed.

§ Mr. Skinner
Money is what is needed—and lots of it.

§ Mr. Shore
I had better not say any more.

§ Mr. Newens
I welcome the steps that my right hon. Friend is taking in the inner city areas. Will he make it clear that this is not an alternative to new town development? Will he make it perfectly clear that it would be totally wrong for hon. Members to regard new town development, inner city redevelopment or the development of the smaller city areas as being mutually exclusive policies? Those who are concerned about housing should support them all.

§ Mr. Shore
I agree that they are not mutually exclusive policies. Anyone looking at the first 20 to 25 years of the post-war period will acknowledge the enormous part that new towns have played in relieving the intolerable pressures in the inner cities of our major conurbations. But in the somewhat changed circumstances we must now look at all policies that are relevant to the dispersal of population from our cities. Within that context I am reappraising the rôle of the new towns.

§ Mr. Skinner
Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that the real problem with which he is faced at the Dispatch Box today and every day will continue until he refuses to accept the views of the Opposition to cut public expenditure? Until he halts the cuts in expenditure and assists in building more houses and helps those who are providing the goods and services for the public utilities and for manufacturing, he will never solve the problem of the inner cities, the outer cities, the rural areas, the small and large towns and all the rest. That is the problem.

§ Mr. Shore
I do not agree with my hon. Friend. There is a remarkable thing—I do not agree with him on this occasion! Even in times when national economic stringency has not been pulling so tightly its cords around us as it is now—during periods of relative national affluenc—the problems of the inner cities have been growing and have not been dealt with. One of the things that we must do, regardless of the total resources available, is to use what we have more sensibly, in a more purposive and helpful way, to tackle what are revealed to be the very serious problems of our society.

§ Mr. Heseltine
Does the Secretary of State agree that in talking about deploying more public resources to the inner city centres he is perhaps missing the point? Does he understand that cities grew because there was a powerful economic reason for their doing so, and that the more that the State has encroached, the more that the planner has been regulated, and the more that controls have proliferated, so the attractiveness, economically and socially, of the inner city areas has declined? Until he recognises that because there are new severe constraints on public sector funds it is the private sector that will have to be given the incentives to return to the inner city areas, he will never realise the massive change in public attitudes necessary to restore the strength of our inner cities.

§ Mr. Shore
That is altogether too partial a view of what has happened in our inner cities. I believe that local authorities in inner city areas—I accept this point—have given, perhaps perfectly naturally, for the greater part of the postwar period absolute priority to housing needs, and have tended not to consider, to the extent that we would wish, the needs of employment and particularly of small firms in their areas. However, the hon. Gentleman must also realise that the inner cities have until very recently not had that extra increase in resources for dealing with their problems which I believe they have now been given, certainly since we started changes in the needs assessment of rate support grant which began in 1974. Secondly, local authorities have been tremendously impeded throughout most of the post-war period 481 by the appalling vagaries of land values and the high prices of land in their areas.