§ 10. Mr. Beithasked the Secretary of State for the Environment why projects in Alnwick are no longer eligible for urban aid.
§ Sir George YoungOur policy is to concentrate traditional urban programme resources in the more extensively deprived urban areas with 20,000 or more population. Alnwick district has no urban centre of that size.
§ Mr. BeithMay we be told who dreams up the arbitrary lines and population figures so as to exclude from urban aid places which his officials have hitherto recognised have problems of social deprivation and unemployment just as great as those of areas of larger population? Will the hon. Gentleman recognise, when making future grants, the problems of areas such as Alnwick, whose problems were recognised in the past?
§ Sir George YoungI understand that even during the time of the Lib-Lab pact Alnwick did not receive any special treatment under the urban programme. The policy, which I am prepared to defend and which I hope the hon. Gentleman will support, is to concentrate the urban programme on areas which suffer from extensive deprivation. Having looked at the statistics for his constituency, I must tell the hon. Gentleman that the needs do not compare with those of other urban areas, where the need is far more extensive. There are small acute pockets of deprivation in Alnwick, but the scale of the problems is such that the local authority should be able to cope with them from its normal resources.