HC Deb 23 March 1978 vol 946 cc1815-27

3.0 p.m.

Mr. Bruce George (Walsall, South)

I seek to achieve two objectives with this debate. First, I want to convince the Department of the Environment that in view of Walsall's urban problems it should be included in the list of authorities scheduled to receive additional powers to assist industry under the Inner Urban Areas Bill. Secondly, I seek to improve co-ordinaion between Government Departments, particularly the Department of the Environment, and the metropolitan district of Walsall, especially with a view to attracting to the local authority a larger share of the money that may be available.

The Department of the Environment will have its own sources of information. I have raised in previous Adjournment debates the problems of Walsall's housing, hospitals and industry. The Minister will have studied the lengthy report that I submitted to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I wish to comment on the dossier provided by the Walsall Observer, which has mounted a vigorous campaign over the last six weeks, with my unequivocal support, to identify some of the deep-seated problems of Walsall and propose potential solutions. The articles in the newspapers, the photographs supplied and the readers' letters articulate the problem more forcefully and dramatically than tens of thousands of words from me or other local politicians.

The prosperity that Walsall enjoyed in the past has ebbed away. Two centuries ago Birmingham was described as a "little hamlet near Walsall", but the roles have been reversed with a vengeance. The decline of Walsall as an industrial town and the manifestations of that decline are apparent to the casual visitor and to the researcher, and certainly to me as one of its elected representatives.

My analysis in a previous Adjournment debate two years ago on industry in the West Midlands, and Walsall in particular, is even more pertinent today. Our problems are not identical with traditional inner cities, but to treat our problems as significantly different or to prescribe alternative solutions would be a mistake. Walsall exhibits many of the classic inner city problems, though these are compounded by factors unique to the Black Country and to the West Midlands.

To visit some of the factories in my constituency is like going into a museum of industrial archaeology. The problems of the decaying capital stock have been exacerbated by the low level of reinvestment. The over-concentration on automotive-related industries and metal manufacturing leaves us very vulnerable. Our traditional industries barely survive, and the fact that unemployment levels are not as high as for the whole region masks the seriousness of the economic deterioration. We have been singularly unsuccessful in attracting modern growth industries to Walsall.

A cursory glance at the photographs I have sent to the Minister—all taken within half a mile of the town centre—would detect the most telling evidence of the state of physical decay. If I had included pictures of Darlaston, Caldmore, Palfrey, Pleck, Willenhall, and other such surrounding areas the overall impression could have been even more devastating. The dereliction of buildings and car parks in open spaces giving a passable imitation of bomb sites show that not only must the town centre be revivified but the districts surrounding it, such as Darlaston, must have their economies, environment and housing significantly improved.

The housing problem in Walsall is very serious. Unless we can adopt a more effective housing policy, the Walsall housing department might become, 10 years from now, one of the biggest slum landlords in the country. The housing programme that has been adopted is inadequate. We are not building enough council houses or doing enough modernisation.

The GIA and HAA programme is derisory, and we are withdrawing support from the housing association movement which has done so much for Walsall in the last couple of years. Far more must be done in improving our council house stock and in modernising the private housing.

We are not fully utilising our precious land resources which ought to be reclaimed for housing and industry but which lie derelict. The Minister told me in a parliamentary answer that 3.7 per cent. of land in Walsall falls into the category of being derelict and that only 11 districts in England and Wales have a higher percentage. With some land there is the danger of subsidence due to limestone caverns. I must point out, too, the problems of environmental pollution. In fairness to the environmental health department I should explain that the levels of pollution have dropped, but according to the Warren Springs report environmental pollution in Walsall is too high. We have no right to expect Walsall to be able to rival Southport or Bournemouth aesthetically or in the purity of the air, but a good environment is conducive to attracting the new plant, investment and expertise necessary to stimulate our economy.

Walsall is an area of multiple deprivation, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security—the Member for Waltham Forest (Mr. Deakins)—told me that there was no single definition of deprivation against which the circumstances of particular areas could be measured. But he said that whatever criteria were adopted, Walsall came out as deprived. These problems of urban deprivation, the problems affecting the elderly, the 15,000 new Commonwealth immigrants, the one parent families, the low-paid and those on social security are particularly acute especially in some of the worst affected older urban areas of Walsall.

I do not want to rehearse the arguments I used last Monday on the problems affecting hospitals in Walsall. I simply stress that those problems are very severe. Even when the new district general hospital is built by the mid-1980s we shall not have equalised our provision of medical services with that of surrounding areas. We deserve higher provision of medical services than hitherto we have grown to expect.

I have been hammering away tot months about the quality and extent of social service provision in Wallsall. I exempt the local authority officers from any blame, but unless we as a town recognise and act upon the disparity between resources in Walsall and those of surrounding areas, the clientele of the social service departments will suffer even further.

In spite of progress in positive discrimination in education there are still very serious problems—an unsatisfactory pupil-teacher ratio in primary schools, outdated buildings and a very low level—13 per cent.—going on to further or higher education. The national average is 22 per cent. Residents perennially complain about the state of our roads. A West Midlands County Council report over a year ago showed that the roads in Walsall were the worst in the county. Youngsters are always complaining to me about the total lack of entertainment in the town. These are the considerable problems which show how serious Walsall's predicament is.

It would be wrong to paint a picture of unrelieved gloom, because some good things have happened over the last couple of years. But the cumulative effect of neglect and inertia in the last half century is obvious. There are those who deny that the problems exist, or who blinded by political dogma, attribute all the blame to one party or group. There are those—I hope that I do not come into this category—who may suggest a solution. I have no monopoly of expertise, but I think that the town is suffering from self-inflicted wounds and deep inertia, and I want to do something about it.

With the Minister's support I can do something about it. However, the problems are great. The sheer enormity of the problems created by early industrialisation have been too great for the local authority adequately to deal with. There appears to have been a reluctance to raise our own money or, even worse, to seek money actively from elsewhere. There is definitely a reluctance to spend any money. Indeed, last year I understand that we underspent our housing allocation by £1½ million.

The consequences of this are clear. The appearance of the town and our contemporary predicament are evidence of all this. When money has had to be spent by Walsall, usually the cheapest solution and almost invariably the least satisfactory solution has been chosen.

In Walsall there is a great attachment to local communities and, in some cases, deep resentment that Walsall has annexed other local authorities and communities. Therefore, this is a major factor in the reason why people do not owe to the town the loyalty that is owed to other areas or a very strong sense of community attachment.

A great fault of Walsall has been a historic and contemporary failure to secure a large enough slice of the central Government funds that are available. This is the first year in three that we have applied for urban aid, despite these problems. We have secured under the national average of grants under the job creation programme. We refused to apply to the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection in respect of its offer of a 100 per cent. grant for a shoppers' shop. We have withdrawn co-operation with the Housing Corporation, which has done so much. There is money available from many public and private sources that we have not actively sought.

I should like to see an officer appointed by the local authority whose single job it would be to find out what money is available to local government and private organisations and to go out and get it.

The local financial base has been too narrow. In the past, far too little has been generated by rates, and the rates paid by factories in the area have not always been sufficient to compensate for the additional problems that those factories have created. The rate support grant formula has been unfavourable to Walsall, and the commitment to major schemes such as land drainage has preempted locally determined scheme funds to the detriment of such things as attracting industry.

Among the solutions that I am pressing is a high-level committee of local authority officers and members to coordinate the attack on the urban problems, backed by a well-qualified research team, and co-opting, in addition, expertise from outside the local authority. I want to see better co-operation with neigbouring areas with similar problems. I want to see the industrial and employment objectives in the structure plan acted upon forthwith, particularly the appointment of an industrial development officer to work in conjunction with the Department of Industry, the unions and the very active chamber of commerce to achieve the objective of attracting industry back into our town. I want to see much closer co-operation between the various Government Departments—at central, regional and local level—and Walsall, with the officers, the community, the organised trade unions, the area health authority and the civic societies. We should all see the town's problems as a totality and not simply from our own departmental perspectives.

I ask my hon. Friend and his ministerial colleagues, in the next month or two, perhaps, to receive a delegation consisting of the three Walsall Members of Parliament, senior chairmen and officers of the local authority and the local leader of the opposition. to discuss ways in which policy co-ordination could be strengthened.

I reiterate the very important point that a component part of Walsall's urban demise is rooted in its decaying economy. The Department of the Environment offered £300,000 under the inner area construction scheme. The local authority acted swiftly and efficiently, and I must report the very great success in which we have allocated that £300,000. If we are capable of using that £300,000 to attract industry, we are capable of using more resources and greater powers.

Walsall has a long and honourable history, stretching back to the Middle Ages. It has so many assets. It has a skilled and experienced work force, good industrial relations and easy access to communications. The period of decline through which we are passing must be reversed. The problems of Walsall will not be solved exclusively in Walsall. The solution depends on improvement in the regional economy, the national economy and, of course, the international economy.

With the powers that I am seeking, we could make considerable strides in regenerating our local economy, which would be to the benefit of the town and its population and to the benefit of the nation as a whole.

3.14 p.m.

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

My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) has this afternoon raised a wide range of important questions affecting Walsall. As the House will know, this is by no means the first time that he has sought to highlight some of these problems, and he has presented his case with his usual care and thoroughness.

My hon. Friend has dealt with the inner city problems of Walsall. The problems facing Walsall, as he, I accept, understands, are not on the same scale or of the same severity as those of the authorities with special partnership and programme status. However, as my hon. Friend has so ably demonstrated this afternoon, that is no reason to dismiss Walsall's problems lightly or to think that they are not in need of special attention. Indeed, the Government have already recognised Walsall's needs, as my hon. Friend mentioned, by allocating it £300,000 under the inner city construction programme.

I understand, as my hon. Friend does, that the authority is spending this money on various industrial projects, which accords with the view set out in the White Paper "Policy for the Inner Cities" that industrial regeneration is fundamental to the long-term success of our inner city policy. Obviously, the injection of such modest sums will not go very far towards tackling their problems.

This programme was intended to provide a stimulus at the start of the new inner city policy, while the enhanced urban programme, the scope of which is to be widened from 1979–80 for non-partnership areas to include industrial, environmental and recreational provision as well as the traditional social projects, will give authorities an opportunity to experiment with new ideas and, in particular, to involve the local community in this work. I am very glad that Walsall has reversed its policy of recent years by submitting some applications for projects under the 1978–79 urban programme, which are currently under consideration within my Department.

The main thrust of any efforts to tackle inner area problems must, however, be made through the existing programmes of central and local government. Indeed, we have already made it clear that in the allocation of national resources we shall particularly bear in mind the special needs of authorities with inner area problems.

But, as my hon. Friend knows, resources are limited. We cannot give Walsall, or any other authority, all that it would like. Walsall must review its existing programmes, both to see whether they can be deployed more effectively and also to consider the possibility of giving an increased emphasis to tackling inner area problems. Clearly, this afternoon I shall not have time to discuss all the problems to which my hon. Friend made reference in his speech. I should like, however, to take the opportunity to discuss some of those which fall within the direct responsibility of my Department.

We fully recognise Walsall's housing problems. It is contending with a greater housing shortage than most West Midland authorities, and it is faced with temporary land shortages, particularly in the private sector. It also has some very difficult sites. It needs to rehouse families, with children, from tall blocks, and it has a large quantity of unimproved pre-war council property. In addition it has more than 3,500 sub-standard dwellings in the private sector.

We have already shown our concern. We included Walsall in the list of stress areas whose programmes we protected as far as possible against reductions in public expenditure in the course of 1976–77. Walsall's allocation of £18 million for housing investment in the present financial year, 1977–78, was historically a very high figure, which took full account of these problems. It is very disappointing that this allocation will probably be underspent by more than £1½million.

I am afraid that Walsall's bid for 1978–79 gave us concern for a number of reasons. As my hon. Friend knows, the council found it difficult to agree and to submit any proposals at all. I realise that the balance between parties on the council makes it difficult to reach agreement on a programme. But if housing investment programmes are to work, and if the major devolution of responsibility they imply is to be justified, members of all sides of the council must work together. It is just not good enough to turn in a series of unrelated proposals.

It was clear to us that the various strands of housing policy have neither been thought through as thoroughly as they might have been nor related one to another as well as they might have been. For example, the massive switch of public sector new building into building for sale utilising private funds proposed in the programme was not supported by any evidence about the need to make such a switch, the level of demand for such housing or the likelihood of adequate private funds being available. We welcome a fresh look at the way in which housing demand is to be met, but we expect some evidence of research to support changes in emphasis.

We also have doubts about the council's piecemeal and unco-ordinated approach to the much-needed improvement of large numbers of private houses and are disturbed by its decisions to discontinue environmental improvements in declared general improvement areas and to drop proposals to declare a housing action area.

Nevertheless, despite all these doubts we recognised the problems and gave a high priority to Walsall in the allocations made for 1978–79. In making our allocations we had to consider not only the needs of all authorities but the consistency of their programmes, the will to carry them out and the evidence of past performance.

Over the region as a whole, bids exceeded the finance available by 30 per cent. and it was inevitable that all authorities would receive less than they asked for. Revalued to 1978–79 outturn figures, we estimate Walsall's bid at £18.8 million and our allocation of £17 million amply demonstrated our conviction that the authority has considerable problems to tackle. This represents slightly more than 90 per cent. of the bid—a higher proportion than for almost any other authority in the region.

To this allocation must be added the money underspent in 1977–78 which the authority can carry forward to 1978–79 and the substantial support which the Housing Corporation will continue to make available to housing associations working in Walsall—support which the authority declines to make available, as my hon. Friend noted.

We shall continue to work with Walsall to solve its problems. We hope to persuade the council to tackle with greater vigour the problem of improving its 3,500 sub-standard houses in the private sector, to continue with its solid programme of council house renovation, to think out more clearly the need for new houses in both the private and public sectors and to devise policies to meet these needs.

Housing investment programmes impose a new duty on authorities—to look at the totality of housing problems in their area and to devise integrated policies suitable for all sections. I do not think Walsall has yet come to grips with that new duty, but I anticipate that it will do so and I shall ensure that my Department continues to offer the authority any help it can.

Turning to other problems of land resources and physical development, I should like to say a word first on derelict and waste land. One of the major problems we have to face in our inner areas is the large amount of land lying derelict and disused. The House will recall that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State recently wrote to the chairmen of nationalised industries and statutory undertakers about their land holdings in inner areas and what could be done to bring disused sites back into use.

This initiative will, we hope, help to focus attention on this crucial problem. But for Walsall industrial dereliction is indeed a major problem. In 1974 Walsall had 396 hectares of derelict land representing 3.7 per cent. of the district's area. This puts it among the dozen or so authorities with the worst derelict land problems in the country. Since then, 18 such schemes have been undertaken, at a cost of £424,500, which have released 86.5 hectares of land for public open space and other uses.

I understand that a further scheme costing £30,000 is currently under consideration. We would expect to be able to authorise any new schemes the council brings forward. But there remains a massive problem to be tackled, and the situation is not helped by the uncertainty over what might happen to the limestone caverns beneath the city centre.

On the planning side, I hope that some of the uncertainties affecting future development in Walsall will soon be resolved. The Secretary of State hopes to give final approval to Walsall's structure plan by the end of April.

I am also pleased to see that Walsall, along with the West Midlands County Council, is making good progress in the preparation of local plans for the district, and the proposed local plan for the town centre should help to settle some of the problems that are causing such local concern. The West Midlands County Council's further work on structure planning, which is expected to lead to a submission in 1979, should keep up to date the wider planning context within which Walsall operates.

I said earlier that the main thrust of any attack on inner area problems must be through main programmes. Yet one of the key themes of our inner city policy is that work undertaken in different programmes needs to be pulled together into a co-ordinated programme of work so that they reinforce and support each other. I was glad to hear my hon. Friend make that point.

Clearly, such a co-ordinated programme needs to start from a common basis of agreement on what arc the problems facing Walsall. I should have thought that the excellent analysis of these problems of deprivation in Walsall originally carried out by the district's planning department for the county borough structure plan and since developed and used, for example, in selecting areas for assistance under the inner cities construction package, would be an excellent starting point.

However, as always, it is not easy to turn sound analysis into quick and responsive action. Here perhaps my Department's regional office may have a useful role to play, for it is in close touch already with some of these problems and is also building up some general experience of the problems and possibilities of deprived areas throughout the region. It also acts as a focus for co-ordinating the activities, in this respect, of other Departments and agencies, including not only the social service departments but the Department of Industry and the Manpower Services Commission.

While Walsall has been perhaps less badly hit by the recession than some of its neighbours, there is undoubtedly some concern about its economic future—which is vital to its regeneration. If the council feels that this might be of help, the regional office will willingly respond. Perhaps this is an appropriate moment for me to respond to my hon. Friend's request for a deputation from Walsall to meet me after Easter and to say that I should be delighted to receive one. I hope my hon. Friend will bring with him his fellow members and leading councillors. It will give me an opportunity to explain in greater detail Government policies which are relevant to Walsall. Perhaps more important, it will give the council the chance to set out to me its proposals to tackle the problems.

I look forward to hearing of the initiatives that the council would like to take, and I hope that it will be able to present a framework of problems and policies, within which it can identify particular priorities for action. I am sure that such a meeting will be very useful and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for suggesting it.

As my hon. Friend will realise, we are also currently considering which authorities should get the new powers in the Inner Urban Areas Bill currently before the House. I can assure him that we are well aware of the claims of Walsall and that they are being carefully considered. along with those of a number of other districts.

Finally, I should like to pick up another important theme of our inner city policy—that of community involvement. In the White Paper we said that involving local people is both a necessary means to the regeneration of inner areas and an end in its own right. It is important, both to discover the priorities of local people and to help them to help themselves, for when people have a sense of confidence in where they live and work, they find it easier to take a pride in maintaining and improving the area. This in turn can encourage and stimulate local industry and employment, so that they all reinforce one another.

Nor should the contribution of private bodies such as trades councils or chambers of industry arid commerce be overlooked, particularly when it comes to the promotion of work and jobs locally.

There seems to be no lack of local interest in the problems of Walsall. if the recent campaign by the Walsall Observer "Wake up Walsall" is any indication. No doubt the council will not agree with everything said in that campaign, but the important thing is not to concentrate on points of disagreement but to seize the opportunity to encourage people to get involved in thinking about Walsall's problems and to see what measure of agreement can be reached. There is no simple recipe guaranteed to achieve this end and it is again another question that the council may find it helpful to discuss with my Department.

In drawing my remarks to a close, perhaps I might pick out the kernel of my reply this afternoon. It is that, although Walsall's inner area problems are not on the scale or of the severity to warrant it having a special inner city arrangement with government, nevertheless we recognise that Walsall has a range of inner area problems and that the general approach to tackling them is set out in the White Paper.

We would be glad to explore this further with the council and to offer what help we can, and this perhaps might be something we can discuss more fully if my hon. Friend brings the proposed delegation to see me as well as through direct contact with the regional office of my Department.

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