HC Deb 17 February 1982 vol 18 cc375-84

10. 17 pm

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

Mr. Tony Speller (Devon, North)

Tonight we have debated the Canadian constitution and we have sought to pass residual responsibility to that great Commonwealth partner. I now seek help for North Devon, a relatively far flung part of our country where responsibility for the future still lies at Westminster.

We have three great natural advantages—the sea on our doorstep, Exmoor beyond our back garden and some of the best sand and surf in Europe. It is a lovely place in which to live and work. North Devon has had good industrial development, because that natural beauty is complemented by a hard-working and industrial-strike-free work force on modern estates that complement rather than conflict with the existing industries of agriculture and tourism.

InThe Irish Times of today it is stated that farmers of, for example, Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow are invited to notify farm losses caused by snow storms in January 1982 so that they may apply for emergency EEC aid. I cannot understand why farmers in places such as West Down and Westleigh in North Devon cannot make the same appeal. We were given to understand that there was no aid for our farmers in the United Kingdom, but the Government of Eire, through their Department of Agriculture, are inviting applications for aid. Many farmers are happy to claim damages when such invitations are issued. There was a considerable amount of damage, particularly to breeding ewes.

The adverse weather of this winter has revealed cruelly how thin is the veneer of successful and competitive production. In December there was snow and high winds and the national grid failed. In Devon and Cornwall we have only one low-output coal-fired power station, at East Yelland, so that when Hinkley Point flooded and failed, so did our electricity. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy will consider advising the Central Electricity Generating Board to refurbish East Yelland, where there is seaborne access for the coal, no planning problems and a skilled work force.

A month later, in January, many areas lost a working week, with no power, no telephone, neither local radio nor television because of damage to relay stations, no public transport and only four-wheel drive vehicles operating outside towns. The problem this time was blizzards. In Barnstaple, although the power did not fail, there was extensive flooding. As a result, one of the largest employers there, the excellent firm of Shapland and Petter, much of whose output is exported, was flooded at great cost both in lost production and in making good its premises. Once soaked, premises are not easily workable again.

On behalf of my constituents I pay generous tribute to the work carried out, often under extreme and genuinely dangerous conditions, by members of the public utilities and local government organisations, who strove unceasingly to restore power, water supplies and, sometimes most important of all, local communications. Many lessons have been learnt. I also congratulate the parishes and councils which are now getting together to prepare for our next "once in a lifetime" emergency, which is probably due next winter. The severe winter of 1978–79 cost the county of Devon a net £2. 2 million in snow clearance and frost damage alone. This winter will cost even more.

I also pay tribute to Mr. Kenneth Whittle, chairman of the South Western Electricity Board, who has been helpful in every way to me and to other hon. Members from the South-West. I pay tribute also to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Environmental Services and to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, who has special responsibility for electricity matters.

The working party set up by the Department of Energy to examine whether existing standards of power line installations are adequate will, we hope, help to prevent the breaks in supply which really bad weather always brings. Underground cables have caused few problems, but overhead power lines in areas such as Hartland Cliffs and Exmoor have to survive weather conditions unknown on Millbank.

The thrust of my comments tonight relates to the economic problems of North Devon. The Government have got on with the job of getting the North Devon link road started, the Barnstaple relief road under way and the Bideford bypass scheme to inquiry stage, after 20 years of major talks, but, alas, only minor works. British Rail has done its best to make our single line to Exeter mote attractive, and the RAF at Chivenor is now able and willing to handle civil aviation of the air taxi kind. We are full of potential and ready to grow, but we have major problems.

The Ilfracombe area, for example, has massive unemployment—more than 28 per cent. in January this year, compared with 21 per cent. this time last year and 17 per cent. the year before. It has full development area status, but this is of little avail in attracting or holding industry if the onset of extraordinary weather, by English standards, removes the electricity supply, most of the telephone service and all use of the road system.

At Mullacott Cross in December there were high winds and some snow. Power was lost from Monday 13 to Wednesday 15 December inclusive—three days out of a five-day week. In January there was a blizzard, with heavy freezing, and power was lost again, this time from the morning of Friday 8 until the late afternoon of Wednesday 13 January—virtually a full working week.

I refer specifically to the industrial estate at Mullacott Cross, Ilfracombe, as this is the principal site for factory development and one which Devon county, in liaison with the North Devon district council, intends to expand. Letters came to me from industry, agriculture, tourism and commercial interests right across the community, but the cross-section of extracts that I now give are all from firms at Mullacott Cross which have been induced to come and work among us in modern conditions but do not have I he modern facilities.

The divisional director of Selkirk Metalbestos, an American firm with a branch in North Devon, writes: My company is a major employer in North Devon. As a part of a large American Group, we have been extremely fortunate in that our business has continued to expand against the general economic climate. We have been successful in obtaining monies for investment of a significant nature. I refer particularly to our Mullacott Cross factory, which is currently some 40, 000 sq ft and is intended to extend to 60, 000 sq ft, and has provided additional employment in the Ilfracombe area, which, you will be well aware, is an extremely high unemployment area. This new site has already suffered some 6 days' loss of production due to lack of electricity supply. Continued investment by my Company will be dependent on security of power supply and I have been forced to contact the Water Authority to clarify the matter of poor supply to the site. That is a reasonable letter seeking assurances for an American firm which has located itself in an area in which the British Government encouraged firms to become established and in which firms are entitled to expect the basic facilities of any industrial estate anywhere in our nation.

JBD Plastics Ltd. is a much smaller, privately owned firm. John Davies, co-owner and founder, wrote on 11 January: For the second time in four weeks our electricity supply at Mullacott has been lost. In December we were without power for 48 hours and at the time of writing have been off for 72 hours with little chance of being reconnected to-day. As a company which produces around the clock 24 hours per day we lost £2, 400 recovery of costs in December and what would appear to be a further £3, 500 during our current shut down. Surely some action could and should be taken to ensure that adverse weather conditions do not bring industry to a complete and costly halt. In fact, the second stoppage totalled 110 hours and the eventual loss to Mr. Davies's firm was £4, 500—a great deal of money for a business rightly described by its owner as a small developing company born at a time when small businesses are the flavour of the year and quite rightly so. I feel sure that the smaller companies are going to be the key to greater efficiency of human and other company resources in the years ahead. As a small business man myself, my agreement with Mr. Davies is total.

My final quotation is from Venners Bakery, a local firm that has expanded into modern premises at Mullacott. Mr. Venner writes: Could you try to persuade the South Western Electricity Board and Devon County Council to lay an underground cable to supply Mullacot Cross with electric power. We have lost power on three separate occasions and it is proving impossible to continue trading under these conditions. Our competitors can produce goods and customers tend to stay with people who can supply them at difficult times. One direct result of this will be redundancies to help alleviate our losses. They are redundancies not through lack of business, but through the lack of provision to cope with weather which, although extreme by our standards, would be all in a day's work in, say, Canada or West Germany.

Those are three manufacturers. One makes asbestos pipes, another plastics and the other bread. In its letter to me, each firm specifically congratulates the public service workers, particularly the electricity board, on their efforts to get things moving again. These are not bitter men, but they are practical and intelligent people who must keep machines and men working or lose their livelihood and business.

They are typical of the mix of international, national and local firms that work hard, enjoy the life in beautiful North Devon and have an excellent relationship with staff at all levels. They are the sort of people who acknowledge recession as a challenge and a threat but never as an excuse for failure.

Given proper aid and economic infrastructure, they will prosper, and North Devon along with them. In the excellent North Devon Manufacturers' Association and the Confederation of Business Organisations we have all the seedlings of success exempt from the despair of older erstwhile industrial areas. Without hesitation I invite any firm looking for a green field site to come to North Devon, although in years to come they will find it hard to get staff to leave us, except perhaps on promotion, when they must move away from our good schools, helpful shops and superb environment.

I invite them to specify North Devon when they get in touch with Mr. Andrew Smy of Devon county council at Exeter, but I must first ask the Government to consider the development area status that puts the icing on the cake of industrial incentive.

I have said that Ilfracombe has 28 per cent. unemployment and is a development area. Barnstaple, with 11. 8 per cent. unemployment, and Bideford, with 14. 5 per cent., have assisted area status—a long name but with little actual aid or incentive to invest within the assisted area.

Our friends at Plymouth in South Devon have 15 per cent. unemployment—about the same as Bideford—and that is also a development area. It should be noted that Plymouth is a development area, whereas we are an assisted area. Falmouth, with 21. 9 per cent. unemployment, is a special development area, with more incentives than Ilfracombe and vastly better roads and communications.

Falmouth, with 21. 9 per cent. unemployment, is a special development area, whereas Ilfracombe, with 28 per cent. unemployment, is an ordinary development area. Plymouth is on the inter-city rail network, as is most of Cornwall. It has motorway and dual carriageway roads from London or Birmingham as well as a civil airport. It has a busy dockyard and ferry service to Europe. On the other hand, North Devon has a single track rail link to Exeter—a danger all the time, perhaps especially now.

There is just one mile of dual carriageway in my constituency, stretching from Brendon on the Somerset border to Hartland on the Cornish border. The same one mile has to cope with the north to south area. We have some summer steamers at Ilfracombe, and sometimes at Bideford, that go to Lundy Island, but they do little for our industrial potential. However, Plymouth is a development area—good luck to it, it is a fine city. It seems unreasonable that North Devon, with fewer facilities, has lesser status for Government investment. North Devon lost development area status in 1980 because unemployment, except in Ilfracombe, was below the national average. The Government must now reconsider the position and offer development area status to the whole area, with special status for Ilfracombe.

I am talking about an area with great potential. All that it needs is decent roads and investment in power and water supplies. When those facilities are provided the Government may take development area status away from the area and keep it, because it will not want it, but until then the Government should remove everyone else outside the metropolitan areas from development status or give North Devon as fair a crack of the whip as our better placed and better favoured cousins elsewhere in the West Country.

I plead with the Government to stop the nonsensical belief that Bristol is the capital of South-West England and to stop placing all the regional offices there. Bristol is a super place, but it is nearer London or Birmingham in travel time and philosophy than to Bideford, let alone Penzance. The prosperity of Bristol, when joined with the relative poverty of Devon and Cornwall, sucks up the statistics to a level that may cost us grant from Europe in time to come. Its relative prosperity hides from ministerial view the greater economic problems of areas such as North Devon.

I took great pleasure recently in escorting my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to meet the industrial and commercial interests of North Devon. He is now famous in the area as the only Minister ever to be pictured with a rabbit on his head following a visit to a factory that specialises in magic. We refer to him as the magic Minister. I do not know what rabbits he will produce this evening, but at least he has got the debate off the ground a great deal earlier than I expected at the beginning of the day. I noted that he liked what he saw and we liked him and his constructive attitude to the problems of small business. In my area small business is big business. Development area status would make it bigger and better at negligible cost to the Exchequer and would bring great benefit to our people.

10. 33 pm

The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. John MacGregor)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) on his admirable speech. He could have chosen Ministers from several Departments to reply to the debate and I am pleased that he has asked me to do so. I have long had a special affection for North Devon. My family and I had many happy family holidays there while based at Ilfracombe. I recall with pleasure the visit that I made last year with him, which filled me with nostalgia for those holidays, the lovely countryside and the rugged terrain. Therein lies part of the problem to which he has referred.

I was filled with admiration for the quality of the people of the area, to which my hon. Friend has referred and which he so well typifies and represents. It is characteristic of him that he should have been so quick to seek an occasion to bring to the attention of the House the problems that the terrible storms brought to his constituency. It is typical of the assiduous way in which he pursues his constituents' interests that he should link this debate to the many causes that he has championed on their behalf, with increasing success in terms of practical action.

I shall ensure that my hon. Friend's remarks on the subjects that are primarily for other Departments are passed on to my right hon. and hon. Friends, especially the issues that he raised about Irish emergency aid, which I shall convey to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. As my hon. Friend knows, money is to be made available from the European Commission disaster fund for agricultural and domestic losses. The South-West, Yorkshire and Humberside are to benefit. About £725, 000 was expected to be made available. The money has not yet been allocated following discussions between the local authorities, but the Department of the Environment's notification is expected to be dispatched within the next few days.

The severity of the weather, which affected large areas of the West of England and Wales in December 1981 and January 1982, was considered by many to be the worst in living memory. Wind speeds gusting to 85 mph were recorded in Devon and Cornwall and 94 mph on the Gower peninsula—the highest since records began in 1945.

The South-West Electricity Board had to deal with 150 incidents where 11 kilovolt power lines had been brought down and five involving 33 kilovolt lines which had collapsed with the weight of the ice on cables, pylons and poles. In some areas, power was restored within 12 hours and in the worst cases the delay was six days. It is not easy to assess the cost to industry of the power failures. However, the loss of power to the important Pottington industrial estate in Barnstaple on Friday 8 January 1982 had been remedied in time for the return to work after the weekend.

I accept that North Devon was much worse affected than other parts of the South-West Electricity Board area by the snow which fell from 8 to 11 January. The snowfalls in December had a much wider impact. In January, power failures affected all parts of Torridge and North Devon district. On 8 January, 16, 000 consumers in the area were off supply, but within 24 hours that total had been reduced to 9, 000 and by 12 January to 1, 500. All supplies had been restored by 14 January. It is important to note that the board considers that the conditions were among the most severe with which it has had to cope. Fallen lines were frozen into the snow and had to be hewn out with pick axes.

Two points arise. First, like my hon. Friend, I pay tribute to all those who did such heroic work in coping with the crisis and in restoring normality as quickly as possible. Secondly, I recognise that the conditions were quite exceptional. My hon. Friend said that this was all in a day's work in Canada and West Germany. It is not all in a day's work in Britain and we cannot gear all our public and emergency services on a clay-to-day basis to meet such particular conditions.

The 400 and 275 kilovolt supergrid system, owned and operated by the Central Electricity Generating Board in the South-West, was affected mainly by the "galloping" of conductors, a phenomenon that can occur under unusual conditions of wind velocity and low temperatures and associated problems in some of the substations. However, the loss of supergrid supplies in December lasted only for just over four hours. The CEGB is and has been actively investigating various sites in the South-West with a view to providing further generation capacity in that part of the country, but even had such generation been available, the overall loss of supplies to consumers would not necessarily have been significantly alleviated, since the cause of the vast majority of supply failures was damage to the distribution system over a very wide area.

My hon. Friend referred especially to Ilfracombe and to the rurally situated industrial estate at Mullacott Cross in particular which I know and recall well. It has some particularly difficult terrain. The whole area is supplied by means of overhead lines from far afield; hence an underground cable between Ilfracombe and Mullacott Cross would not have helped in the situation which arose. I assure my hon. Friend that the South-West Electricity Board is and has been investigating schemes to improve the security of supplies in that area.

Following the December storms, the Secretary of State for Energy asked the chairman of the Electricity Council to report on the effect of difficult weather conditions on electricity supplies. That report is being studied. At the same time, the Department's chief engineering inspector was instructed to review the technical standards under which overhead electricity lines are designed and constructed and work on that review is currently in hand.

All overhead electricity lines are designed to allow for the effect of bad weather conditions and factors of safety are included in such designs. However, the severity of the storms experienced on these occasions meant that the wind and ice loading on many overhead lines far exceeded their design criteria and it was for that reason that there were many failures—another sign of the quite exceptional situation.

My hon. Friend also referred to water supplies. The Department of the Environment acknowledges the problem in this area. As a result of a survey that the South-West Water Authority has been conducting, it is pursuing ways of improving supply, which it hopes to implement later this year.

My hon. Friend rightly stressed the importance of communications to North Devon. I am sure that he would distinguish between the exceptional blizzard conditions and the need for better communications in more normal circumstances to gain better access for industrialists to the major markets. I well recall in the 1960s the slow journeys for my family in getting to Devon as a whole. As he emphasised, the main routes have been vastly improved. Indeed, I saw that last October.

There remains the improvement in the chain's final link to North Devon, where there is now a good story to tell. As my hon. Friend rightly stressed, under this Government and with his energetic prodding, North Devon is now getting action. The Government fully accept the importance of major road improvements to the economy of North Devon. Therefore, they are committed to a number of schemes during the next decade which should fundamentally ease the constraints on industrial and commercial development. Barnstaple, Bideford and other towns will be relieved, to a substantial extent, from traffic congestion, especially that suffered during the summer months.

As my hon. Friend knows, the Department of Industry enthusiastically supported the views of local industrialists on the need for the North Devon link road at the public inquiry in 1979. Work on the first stage of that road, from junction 27 on the M5 at Stampford Peverell to Tivertort will commence in a fortnight. That 6. 3 mile road, with two-lane dual carriageways, should be completed in two years at a cost of about £12 million.

The preferred route for the scheme's second stage was announced on 20 February 1981. I know that there is some disappointment that the road is to be single carriageway, although it will have various overtaking points because of the gradients. I well understand the point about single carriageways. I make similar points in my constituency. My hon. Friend referred to a one-mile length of dual carriageway in his constituency. In the whole of my county, dual carriageway amounts to little more than that figure.

However, the road will be built to a high standard and is expected to bring relief to the existing A361 and meet traffic needs to the level anticipated at the end of the century. The scheme's second stage is estimated to cost £50 million and we hope to publish detailed orders later this year. Work on that 27-mile section is expected to start in 1986.

Consulting engineers have recently been appointed to carry out the detailed design on the nine-mile Barnstaple bypass scheme. Proposals in the form of draft orders under the Highways Act 1980 are expected to be published at about he end of 1982.

A further major scheme proposed for the area is the five-mile Bideford bypass intended to reduce the use of the town's famous Long Bridge. A public inquiry into that scheme is due to begin next month. Subject to the result of that, construction might start by the summer of 1984.

It is clear, as my hon. Friend said, that words are now being translated into action, which is under way on each scheme. We are pressing ahead with the planning and design, which is inevitably very lengthy in these cases. My hon. Friend will, I know, welcome the restatement in today's White Paper on roads that all the schemes are firmly in the programme. I know that he will support the high priority the Government attach to the provision of bypasses, both to relieve the pressure on communities affected by heavy lorries and to assist the free flow of commercial traffic.

My hon. Friend suggested that we might remove the assisted area status at some stage from all metropolitan areas. He knows that the Government are concentrating on the areas of greatest need. Proposals that we first introduced in 1979 will be fully implemented later this year and the areas receiving assisted area status will be reduced from 44 to 26. That will undoubtedly be of considerable benefit to areas such as Ilfracombe which retain development area status.

We have frequently said that we were prepared to consider evidence of substantial long-term structural change in an area's employment potential, relative to other areas, to see whether any change in assisted area status was justified. That assurance remains and I shall obviously continue to consider Ilfracombe's position in that light.

But we must look at broader considerations, too. I am deeply concerned at the current levels of unemployment in Ilfracombe, but I must consider, first, seasonal factors, although I recognise that Ilfracombe needs the expansion of stable all-year-round employment. Secondly, given the small area for industrial development, I have to consider whether the change from development area to special development area status—which is not all that significant—would make a major difference, bearing in mind the chain reaction effect on other areas that have similar claims but possibly much higher unemployment figures. The chain reaction may adversely affect Ilfracombe's relative position.

The area is already a development area, within the intermediate areas of Barnstaple and Bideford. The two intermediate areas are by no means out of line as intermediate areas. Within North Devon as a whole, we have to take account also of the fact that Barnstaple is a natural centre for development to provide employment for a wider area. Section 7 selective financial assistance is available to all three travel-to-work areas, and considerable aid has been given since 1979. I should be happy to give my hon. Friend the figures.

My hon. Friend rightly drew attention to the attraction of industry from elsewhere. Above all, the problem is that we do not have that many footloose industries, nationally or internationally.

Ilfracombe has considerable environmental advantages. My hon. Friend also drew attention to the excellent qualities of its work force. As the communications come right, that will be an increasingly attractive factor. I am sure that my hon. Friend and the North Devon Manufacturers Association, members of whom I met and who so well exemplify the ideals of self-help, will undoubtedly assist, too, to attract industry to the area.

North Devon is an area of small businesses. My hon. Friend is a small business man. We share a mutual interest. The Government have taken many steps to help small businesses. The English Industrial Estates Corporation development at the Mullacott Cross estate of small workshop units is in hand and scheduled for completion in August 1982.

All those factors, I hope, will increasingly help North Devon. I make a final allusion, which my hon. Friend will understand. We cannot conjure immediate rabbits out of the hat in Government policies—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKERadjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes to Eleven o' clock.