§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Coleman.]
§ 2.24 a.m.
§ Mr. Anthony Steen (Liverpool, Wavertree)When the Prime Minister, in September 1976, announced a major review of inner city policy, the whole country held its breath waiting for a major announcement—a plan to rejuvenate the ailing towns and cities of the nation. For the previous 10 years the Government had indulged in innumerable investigations. There had been 15 phases of the urban aid programmes, the community development projects, the educational priority areas, the neighbourhood schemes and the six town studies divided between urban guidelines and the inner city studies. There was a study on transmitted deprivation, the quality of life studies, the urban deprivation unit, the comprehensive community schemes, the Greater London Council deprived areas project, the area management trials and, last but not least, the EEC poverty programme, which is still going on. In all, £100 million of Government money was spent on these inquiries.
When, in April 1977, the Secretary of State presented the Government's proposals for reviving the inner cities, it was seen as the culmination of a long line of investigation and research. The Secretary of State said:
we have to shift the emphasis of Government policy and bring about changes in the attitudes of local authorities, of industry and of institutions."—[Official Report, 6th April 1977; Vol. 929, c. 1227.]428 He spoke about a unified approach to urban problems. Little did we guess that that meant a unified approach of all those in the public sector—in local and central Government—to the exclusion of private sector and industry, of even the unions, of the voluntary organisations, the insurance funds, the banks and the local people themselves.The Secretary of State spoke of the immediate priorities to strengthen the economies of the inner cities, with suitable firms being encouraged to establish themselves in the inner areas. He spoke of policies of population movement, and from what one can gather he meant that the people were to be brought back into the inner cities.
The White Paper that followed, presented to Parliament in June 1977, recognised that a halt had to be called to the outflow of population. Liverpool has lost 150,000 people in the 10 years up to 1976. That is 22 per cent. of its population. The plan then was to set up special partnerships, but after a year we learned from a parliamentary answer that the Secretary of State had chaired the second meeting of the Liverpool partnership committee. The right hon. Gentleman said:
The Committee discussed key issues and priorities. It agreed that to improve the quality of life for those who live and work in the inner city, so as to minimise the outflow of population, must be the overall objective. Measures to improve employment prospects would make the most impact. Other priorities in the physical and social fields were also discussed. Specific proposals will be developed for the committee to consider at its next meetings.The Committee also agreed on arrangements for consulting voluntary organisations—we are still awaiting those—as the work proceeds, including the establishment of a central information point on the partnership and the production of a newssheet.The Committee took note of a proposed submission by the City and County concerning the urban programme for 1978–79. They noted representations by the City and County Councils about the Inner Urban Areas Bill and the proposed new magistrates court 429 building in Liverpool."—[Official Report, 13th March 1978; Vol. 946 c. 27–28.]That answer was given nearly a year after the partnerships had been established, and a year after the White Paper. That was about two years after the Prime Minister had called for a complete review.To many people in Liverpool this has all been a very sick joke, a bitter pill, because they have been able to see little improvement in the inner city, and all the evidence indicates that things are getting worse.
The White Paper that was published in June last year called for a new approach to housing. It sought to put a stop to the bulldozer and to prevent local authorities from hoarding land. Great concern for environment planning, education, social services and health was expressed. You name it, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and it is in the White Paper. The aim was to revive the inner city, the Government's Utopian dream. But it is a facade. As we can see, there is no visible change in the environment in the city. The policy for the inner city is not failing; it never got started.
I want to give three instances to illustrate the view that I am putting forward on behalf of a great number of people in my constituency and others that the Government's much publicised urban revival programme is not happening in one of the most deprived and needy cities in this country.
I cite three examples, but I could cite a great many more. Take the case of the 100 houses which are to be built on a green field site known as Crawfords playing field, in the middle of a residential area in my constituency. It has from time immemorial provided a magnificent open space, just the kind of environmental improvement of which the White Paper speaks for the population that lives around it.
This has been on the plans of the local housing association, Merseyside Improved Housing, which, of course, is a publicly financed body. The plan is to build 100 houses, which will entirely destroy the environment and the amenity. The Liverpool City Council has gone along with this plan. It is giving planning permission. This will mean that the site will be developed and the 100 houses will 430 be built on it. This will destroy its tranquility and its advantages.
In one of the annexures to the White Paper, which sets out the policy and how everyone should go about it—
§ Mr. Robert Parry (Liverpool, Scotland Exchange)Will the hon. Member give way?
§ Mr. SteenNo, I shall not give way. I am sorry. It is because in the last debate that I had on Liverpool, when the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) was speaking, he refused to give way to me. If the hon. Member for Liverpool, Scotland, Exchange (Mr. Parry) will excuse me, I should like to try to finish the arguments that I am putting forward.
The important point here is that paragraph 21 of the annexure to the White Paper says:
The fall in population in many cities provides opportunities, as funds permit, for creating more open space in inner areas for recreation and visual enjoyment. Dual use arrangements with local schools may be possible. Not all environmental improvement requires a lot of extra resources.The paragraph goes on to deal with a great number of things that local authorities can do to improve the amenity and the environment.But in this case the local authority is not proposing to do anything at all to stop this butchering of a green field site from going ahead. Perhaps the Minister can explain how this can be when there are about 1,200 acres of unused land in the partnership areas alone in the inner city, and of those 1,200 acres, 800 are owned direct by the Liverpool City Council, a further 200 are owned by nationalised industry and there is very little land in that partnership area which is privately owned.
So we have the Liverpool City Council giving planning consent for a green field site in the middle part of the city, we have the inner city with vast tracts of vacant land in the city council's ownership, and we have a public housing association, funded entirely by the Government, building houses on a green field site which is of amenity value.
This, of course, is in direct contradiction to the principles expounded by Ministers in successive speeches and in the White Paper, and in many ways in the 431 Inner Urban Areas Bill. There is no point in talking about the wish to bring back houses to the inner city when in the next month or two a start will be made on desecrating a green field site and bringing population further out of Liverpool into the middle city. The green field site is not in the inner area, it is out of the partnership area.
Perhaps the Minister will be kind enough to explain how that squares with the Government's policy, bearing in mind that the Secretary of State is chairing the partnership committee in the area.
I should like now to turn to a secondary point flowing from that, namely, that the argument of the city council is that the families who will be living in these houses will come out of houses which are near to the site and which are to be demolished. Again, the Secretary of State has consistently stated, over and over again, starting at the habitat conference in Vancouver in 1976, that Britain has pensioned off the bulldozer, and that in the cities the bulldozer will no longer go on knocking things down. But in Liverpool it continues at an alarming rate. Hundreds of families are being displaced and pushed outwards as the bulldozer continues. This is a good example.
Therefore, instead of these houses being rehabilitated, which apparently is Government policy, that is not happening in Liverpool to the extent that it should be happening, and the bulldozer continues as the houses decline. If the Government were serious about the revival of the inner city, they would see that mortgage facilities were available for the pre-1919 houses, which at present are not within the local authority grant scheme. The older houses in the inner city will continue to be demolished, whereas the Government's policy is to revive them. Perhaps the Minister can deal with that point as well.
§ Mr. ParryI thank the hon. Member for giving way. He refused to give way 432 to me earlier because my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) refused to give way to him on a previous occasion. The hon. Member is attacking the Liverpool City Council. At present, the council consists of a Liberal-Conservative pact.
§ Mr. SteenI am grateful for that intervention, but the hon. Gentleman is wrong. It is a Liberal pact. There are Labour councillors and Liberal councillors, and the Conservatives are holding the balance of power. On this issue—the green field site—the Liberal and Labour councillors are united. That is what I have been told. I understand that they will not swap this green field site for some of the derelict acres of waste land. If the situation is otherwise, I stand to be corrected, but I am told by totally reliable sources that it is a Liberal-Labour pact—perhaps those councillors have not heard what has happened here—and the result is that this land is to be built on.
I must move on now to my second example, which makes nonsense of the proposals in the Inner Urban Areas Bill and concerns the development of small businesses in the inner city. I pass over the "fourteenth Budget" and the damage done to the small trader by an extra 2½ per cent. on the payroll tax—which has been mentioned quite a bit since that "fourteenth Budget'—and I turn directly to the case of Pine Engineering. Pine Engineering is a small, successful precision engineering company in Liverpool.
Mr. Pine has told me that his company is planning to move because its premises are to be demolished for a public building programme, inner roads, and so on. Mr. Pine's situation is in a constant state of flux, because the county wants to build the inner road and the Liberals on the city council say that they will not have it. There is constant uncertainty. But Mr. Pine knows that if he is forced to move he will not be able to remain in the inner city. The Minister should recognise that.
Inner city land is currently valued at between £30,000 and £36,000 an acre. Land in the outer areas of Liverpool is currently valued at £9,000 per acre. Mr. Pine cannot possibly transfer his business to one of the vacant derelict sites in the inner area which are owned by public authorities and nationalised industry, because he cannot pay at the rate of £36,000 an acre. The Inner Urban Areas 433 Bill will not do him the slightest good because he cannot avail himself of any of its provisions and it does not allow him to get finance to buy or lease land.
The most that Mr. Pine can do is to move into one of the Department of Industry's advance factories, which are being built, or one of the Liverpool City Council's advance factories, which also are being built. That is what is happening. One will find that existing businesses are transferring to the advance factories, and the amount of new employment and new industry coming into the Government's advance factories and those of the city council is minimal.
Thus, the Government's aim of increasing the number of jobs and raising the level of prosperity in Liverpool is not being realised because of the artificially high land values which have been attracted by the public open spaces. So long as the local authorities are allowed to hoard this land, as nationalised industry is allowed to hoard it, the artificially high land values will continue. As I said in the Standing Committee on the Inner Urban Areas Bill, until the Government do something about land values in a place such as Liverpool, we shall see small businesses moving out and job creation reduced, and the inner city will go from bad to worse and decline My third example is the Victor works of Lucas, which is in my constituency. This is to be closed, with a loss of 1,400 jobs. I was delighted to learn that the Government are to help in the building of a new factory and that Lucas is to be able to employ 400 or 500 of those men at that works. But—one would hardly credit it—that factory is to be built on a green field site outside the city boundaries, in, I believe, Wilson Lane, in Huyton, and no jobs will be created in the inner city.
§ Mr. Eddie Loyden (Liverpool, Garston)Wilson Road.
§ Mr. SteenWilson Road—I am obliged. How the Government justify the investment of millions of pounds in a factory outside the city boundary, which means that the jobs which could have accrued to the city centre will not be there—this is one of the problems of the inner city—I cannot understand, especially when the whole direction of their policy is supposed to be for the 434 revival of the inner city and the building of new factories. I wonder how the Government justify that, and how the city council allowed it to happen.
There is a population drift of 25,000 a year from Liverpool. Thirty per cent. of those living in the inner city want to get out. Unless new businesses are put in the inner city as a conscious policy, that drift will continue.
With the city council's aid, the Government are abandoning the housing programme which would revive the inner city, they are giving up the intention to create new jobs; and they are financing new industry outside the city boundary. What have the Government done to persuade the council that this is not the way to conduct their business? What does the Minister intend to do to halt this drift? To the people of Liverpool, it appears that he is simply shuffling the chairs around on the deck of the "Titanic".
§ 2.41 a.m.
§ Mr. Eddie Loyden (Liverpool, Garston)The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) has taken up a considerable time on this question, as he was entitled to do.
§ Mr. SteenOn a point of order. I have not given the hon. Member permission to intervene in this debate, and I was hoping that the Minister would reply.
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine)The hon. Gentleman may have noticed that I waited for a moment or two before calling the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden), to see whether the Minister was proposing to reply. As I saw no indication that he proposed to rise, I called the hon. Gentleman.
§ Mr. LoydenIt is necessary to describe the situation in Liverpool and refute some of the hon. Member's arguments. The decline in Liverpool has been in the private, not the public, sector. Those of us who have lived in Liverpool all our lives are aware of the tremendous changes in the city centre and in industry. Post-war planning of the city may have had many faults, but it was done on the basis of separating housing from industry. If industries of the size of the Lucas factory and the green fields site were sited in the 435 city centre, industry and housing would again be sited together.
This Government have done more for small businesses than any Government. Their role has been positive. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Scotland Exchange (Mr. Parry) would strongly resist the suggestion that major industries should be brought back to the city centre, thus jeopardising residential and environmental quality.
The small business concept of the Liverpool inner city area, which the Government have taken seriously on board, relates to firms employing between 20 and 50 people. The Lucas factory will employ 500 people in the first instance. The people of Liverpool and those representing inner area constituencies do not want major industries lumped in with housing again. This is a problem that we have tried to overcome.
As for amenities, one must consider where they are spread in Liverpool. There are many amenities in the areas represented by the hon. Member for Wavertree and by me, but there are few amenities of that kind in the city centre. He says that the amenities should be in one place and that houses should be built elsewhere. We want the amenities in the areas that he and I represent provided in the area which my hon. Friend the Member for Scotland Exchange represents. That would be an acceptable exchange. But to suggest that housing should be provided in an area where there are no amenities is a complete contradiction of the arguments which the hon. Member for Wavertree tried to establish in the first instance.
I may agree with the hon. Member about the problems of the inner city of Liverpool, but movements are being made in the right direction, although there needs to be a correction here and there. We are beginning to bring amenities into the area and are raising the quality of life and the environment of the city centre. We need to provide not industry but open spaces and amenities in the centre of the city, and that will not happen if the line argued by the hon. Member for Wavertree is followed.
§ 2.46 a.m.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Guy Barnett)I confess myself surprised at the choice of 436 debate made by the honourable Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) this evening. It seems to me odd that he should consider the Government responsible for the alleged shortcoming of a local authority, and therefore odd that he should expect a Minister to answer for the authority. I accept that we are linked with the Liverpool City Council and the Merseyside County Council in the Liverpool inner city partnership; I accept that the Government are working out policies for the inner areas of Liverpool along with those authorities, and that we all share in a responsibility for seeing that the policies are carried out. But on the generality of the hon. Gentleman's speech, I suggest that he should address his criticisms to those at whom they are properly directed—the Liverpool City Council.
Many of us know how deeply the hon. Gentleman is opposed to the concept of partnership. Ever since the Government announced their new policies for the inner areas, and the partnership for Liverpool in particular, he has been at pains to point out why he thinks it will not work. I hope that I am not doing him an injustice when I say that he gives the appearance of wishing that it will not work. Those of us who listened to the hon. Gentleman's comments on the Inner Urban Areas Bill, in Committee and subsequently in the debate on Report, will recall his concern for the welfare of his constituents and, in particular, that those with a contribution to make towards solving the deep-seated problems of inner Liverpool should have the opportunity to do so. Unfortunately, this concern was tempered with such criticism of the work that the partnership authorities were trying to achieve and the way that they had set about the task that it was unclear whether he was trying to improve the arrangements or entirely to overthrow them.
The problems of inner Liverpool need no description from me. They make Liverpool a natural choice for a Government involvement. These and all the related problems of social disadvantage made Liverpool a natural choice when the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) initiated the inner area studies in 1972.
The House will recall the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on 6th 437 April last year, when, at the end of a full review of inner area policies conducted under his chairmanship, he announced the Government's new proposals. Subsequent to this announcement was the publication of the White Paper, which, incidentally, took place a year ago today. That expands the statement and spells out in more detail what the Government propose to do.
During last summer, preliminary discussions were held with the Liverpool City Council and Merseyside County Council with a view to establishing the partnership arrangements. Both gave their wholehearted support, recognising that this was a positive additional thrust on the Government's part to help an area beset with difficulties. On 4th November last year, the first meeting of the Liverpool partnership committee took place.
What is this partnership? It needs to be emphasised that it is a mechanism for bringing central and local government together in a different kind of relationship. No longer does it allow each to say "This is your problem, not mine". Instead, it recognises that many of the problems faced are joint problems and best capable of solution jointly. The partnership has the job of preparing an action programme to be carried out by the executive authorities in the partnership. The programme is to be for three years, starting in April 1979, and to be rolled forward annually. This programme will be wide ranging, to ensure so far as possible, that the main programmes of central and local government are brought to bear in a more direct and co-ordinated way, to secure economic regeneration, the right policies in the housing, social and education spheres, and an improvement in the physical environment. It will also contain proposals for the expenditure of the specific annual allocation to Liverpool of £10 million under the urban programme.
I say this because, although it has been said before, it is clear that the hon. Member for Wavertree has still not understood the concept of partnership and the res- 438 ponsibility that lies with the individual authorities who make up the partnership.
I do not have time to cover the work that has gone on and the progress made. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the White Paper was published a year ago. The partnership has been in existence for a matter of months. Programmes are being worked out and I am confident that in due course progress will be made. Within a matter of months progress has been made in working out the programmes and co-ordinating all the statutory authorities directly concerned in tackling the deep-seated problems of Liverpool. This process has never been tried before and, despite the doubts of the hon. Gentleman, repeatedly expressed, I have faith in the possibility that the problems, as a consequence of this new initiative, will be tackled effectively for the first time.
Certainly I make no apology for the Government in this respect. I hold no brief for the local authority. If the hon. Gentleman expects things to happen much faster than they have happened, all I can say is that he lives in cloud-cuckoo-land.
§ Mr. ParryThe rape and destruction of the inner areas of Liverpool have taken place over a period when the Conservatives controlled the City of Liverpool and when a Conservative Government was in power. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) is not aware of the historical facts of the inner city of Liverpool.
§ Mr. BarnettI am grateful to my hon. Friend, who knows the city of Liverpool better than I can ever hope to. I know that he will recognise that it is a city with grave problems—
§ The Question having been proposed at Ten o'clock on Tuesday evening and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the debate without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
§ Adjourned at six minutes to Three o'clock a.m.