DESIGNATION OF REGIONAL BOUNDARIES (Hansard, 10 May 1978)

§ Mr. Robert Hicks (Bodmin)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the designation by the Secetary of State of regional boundaries for economic planning and associated purposes. The Bill would make Parliament directly responsible for determining the number, the extent and the boundaries of our standard United Kingdom regions. At present regional boundaries are determined by Whitehall. Therefore, the Minister does not have to obtain the prior approval of this House. I believe that as a consequence, some of our regional bonndaries take little or no account of the characteristics or needs of the regions.

Under existing arrangements the regional unit is used as the basis of functions such as regional economic planning and the collection and dissemination of a whole range of statistics, such as housing, employment, income levels and so on, as well as numerous other functions.

I believe that it is a mistake that Parliament should have no statutory part in determining the number and extent and boundaries of the regions. This means in reality that all too frequently the regional divisions are drawn up to suit the convenience of Whitehall.

In many parts of the United Kingdom there exists a distinct expression of regional consciousness. In recent years this trend of preserving or establishing a regional identity has manifested itself in a number of ways. This is hardly surprising. We live in an age that has experienced unnecessary centralisation, an over-dependence upon London and a general movement of both economic activity and people from the peripheral and more rural parts of the United Kingdom to urban concentrations, particularly London, the Midlands and the South-East.

I believe that against this background any desire on the part of regions to reestablish their own identity should be encouraged. The need to recognise the genuine aspirations of belonging to and contributing to an identifiable regional unit is very relevant in the far South- 1186 West, particularly in Devon and Cornwall. At present Cornwall and Devon are lumped together in a so-called South-West region that extends to include Bristol and Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.

The two far South-Western counties have little in common with those areas with which they are now linked. The basis of their economies differs significantly. Cornwall and Devon are far more dependent upon agriculture and fishing, tourism and the service sector. Industry is far more scattered. Apart from Plymouth, there are no major concentrations of population and economic activity. Furthermore, under the existing arrangements, Bristol, the so-called regional capital, is nearer to London than it is to Bodmin.

But the problem goes deeper than this, because the so-called South-West region is dominated by Bristol and Severnside, Gloucester and Swindon and the like. Therefore, regional statistics such as income levels and unemployment figures often make nonsense of the true position in the far South-West. Consequently, distortions abound, much to the cost of Devon and Cornwall.

I should like briefly to illustrate the point with regard to the incidence of unemployment. When officials or Ministers in Whitehall examine this, the position might not seem to be as bad as it actually is, because the current unemployment level for the whole South-West region corresponds approximately, in percentage terms, to the national average. But if we take Devon and Cornwall alone, the regional figure hides this, because the actual picture is far from satisfactory. Unemployment in the last 18 months has been consistently almost double the national average. Indeed, Cornwall has been in the unenviable position of experiencing the highest unemployment percentage figure of any United Kingdom development area for the past 15 months.

This regional imbalance is repeated in a number of circumstances, including income levels, where again, taking the South-West region as a whole, income levels approximately correspond to the national average. But again, once we go further west, in my own constituency, for example, they are 14 per cent. to 16 per cent. below the national average.

1187 There is, then, little doubt in my mind that over the years, under successive Governments, Cornwall and Devon have suffered because Ministers and Whitehall in general have tended to look at the South-West region as a whole. As a result, our problems and our needs have been sacrificed in the far South-West for the sake of administrative regional tidiness.

It is for these very practical reasons, plus the fact that Devon and Cornwall represent, in my view, a very distinctive regional identity, that I wish to introduce the Bill today. It surely would be sensible for Parliament to become involved in the drawing up of our regions and deciding these boundaries. It would also indicate to the people concerned that this House recognises in a regional context that Bodmin has very little in common with Gloucester and Swindon, even if Ministers and Whitehall do not recognise it.