§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Garel-Jones.]
2.51 pm§ Mr. Hugh Brown (Glasgow, Provan)Even after 21 years in the House I still find the business on a Friday quite baffling on occasions. However, I am not so naive as to think that the attendance in the Chamber 10 or 15 minutes ago was in anticipation of my Adjournment debate. I am content with the presence of the appropriate Minister, who will be replying. I shall be directing myself to the economic development that is needed in Easterhouse, and I am happy that the Minister and I have the Chamber more or less to ourselves.
It is 20 years ago since I raised an Adjournment debate on Easterhouse. Having committed myself to initiating another one, I thought that I should read what I said 20 years ago. I found that it was a good speech, naturally, but it made depressing reading because I am still asking for some of the things for which I was asking 20 years ago. That is one of the slightly depressing features of the debate.
I have already advised the Minister that I shall refer to a few figures that have been taken from various documents, including the Easterhouse local plan discussion document draft, the city of Glasgow district council joint social and economic initiative for Easterhouse, Strathclyde regional council economic trends No. 8 of April and the CES report. The last report is a rather interesting research survey carried out by Glasgow district council, which is one of the client groups. Lastly, I shall refer to figures that are contained in a document on health education in areas of multiple deprivation. As the Minister knows, I am putting these sources on the record as a matter of convenience. The area that will feature in this debate is described in the local planning document. It is smaller than those which form some of the joint initiatives between Glasgow and Strathclyde. The officials who, I hope, read the report of the debate will be aware of the difference. However, that is a minor matter.
The area that is the subject of the debate is defined in the local planning document. It has a population of about 40,000. I am aware that the Minister will not know all the details of the Easterhouse area. I say that in no disrespect, because I do not know all the details of parts of his constituency. However, it seems that many of those who have responsibility for making decisions—this comment is not confined to those in the Scottish Office—do not know the details of the areas for which they make decisions. In Easterhouse, there are 22 primary schools, four secondary schools, eight nursery schools, eight special schools and three community centres. That illustrates the size of the area or community that I am describing. However, Easterhouse lacks so many of the services and facilities that would normally be associated with a town of similar size.
What are the problems? One of the most intractable is unemployment. Until last month, the average level of unemployment in Great Britain was 13.7 per cent. The Scottish figure is 16.1 per cent., that for Strathclyde is 18.9 per cent. and in Easterhouse it is 31.9 per cent. Male unemployment in Easterhouse is more than 40 per cent. I am sure that the Minister knows that in Eastwood it is only 6.6 per cent.
598 I am not one of those members of my party who think that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet have set out to create unemployment. The Cabinet cannot solve the problem of unemployment, but that is different from accusing opponents of creating unemployment. However, the unfairness in the levels of unemployment and in the treatment of people is seen to be remarkable when the figures are put in that context. It is sheer chance that Eastwood is included in the Strathclyde report. I did not pick it out to embarrass the Minister, but it so happens that it has the lowest unemployment figure in Strathclyde, and it tells a story about the difference between even the areas in the Strathclyde region.
There is serious overcrowding in Easterhouse, strange though that may seem in a public sector housing scheme. The overcrowding is about the worst in the whole country. There are social reasons for that which I do not have time to go into in this brief debate. However, there are twice as many families of two parents and more than four children in Easterhouse as there are in the city as a whole. There are three times as many single-parent families in Easterhouse as there are in the city as a whole. As for infant mortality rates, 46 babies per thousand die in their first year in this area, and that compares with a figure of 11 in Bishopbriggs. Effectively, through our own collective indifference, the community is not prepared to give the opportunity even for life to some of the babies born of deprived parents in the Easterhouse area.
We have just concluded a long debate about the protection of unborn children. I wish that society showed more concern for some of the babies who are born but who, for reasons of social deprivation and others, do not live beyond a year.
The immunisation take-up rate is less than 50 per cent., yet the average is more than 80 per cent. What is more, 50 per cent. of all secondary school children in the area receive free school meals. Car ownership is extremely low. There are hardly any professionals. The health of the community generally is not good.
The health report says:
people in deprived areas may have a sense of apathy and isolation from the rest of society and indeed from services which are provided for them.I do not need a high-powered team of health administrators and sociologists to tell me that there is a feeling of isolation in the minds of people in such an area from the services which are available because in my opinion they are over-suspicious of authority.I think that I have established the need for urgent action, so what am I asking the Minister to do? Much has been done. I recognise that a lot of money has gone into the area. However, I quarrel with the Scottish Office about the decision on EEC poverty money. I know that it is only £95,000 a year for four years and that the official reply is that it is not worth the bother of inviting applications for that money from a large range of voluntary and statutory bodies. However, that could be indicative of the feeling of hopelessness in many communities. There are some professionally motivated agitators who fasten on to these matters—I am not one of them—because they recognise that here is money which is not being made available to add to some of the improvements already under way.
I recognise the existing efforts—for example, the successful urban aid projects, such as the Easter festival society, the Easterhouse project, the committee on drug abuse—the Scottish Office has given money to that— 599 the Scot-Bic initiative—about which the Minister knows—the Glasgow district and Strathclyde regional joint initiative, the development by Crudens and Barratts—the Minister knows I have no ideological feeling about that—and other things in the pipeline such as the Barlanark community trust, the Barlanark part-value co-operative and the Provan community amenity trust.
I am not complaining that within the traditional dishing out of money—whether urban aid or other grants—the area has not had its share. However, because of its problems, it is high time that we all address ourselves to what sort of new authority is required to deal with a huge peripheral scheme like Easterhouse.
There are urban development corporations for England and for Wales, but not for Scotland—although I am not complaining that anyone is discriminating against Scotland. Scotland has new town development corporations. Why should we not have something like that in this area? We need a new authority.
A new body—the Committee for Action in Towns—has been set up for areas of England and Wales to study the problems of city conurbations—for example, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle and London. Scotland has nothing comparable.
I am delighted that the Minister is to reply to the debate because I specifically wish to mention GEAR and SDA involvement. GEAR has been in existence since 1976 and will carry on for a couple more years. However, it is inevitable that its responsibilities will diminish over those two years. It has been in Motherwell, Coatbridge, Leith, Dundee and, in its last big initiative, in Inverclyde. The Minister knows that I have some experience in this area. It is right to ask the SDA to tackle the problems of a large peripheral area. It is a challenge to the Scottish Office. We should be first in the field, as we were with GEAR. The Secretary of State for Defence, when he was Secretary of State for the Environment, copied many of the initiatives in Glasgow.
The area development director of GEAR should be ready and, I hope, willing—with a little encouragement from the Scottish Office—to consider becoming more heavily involved. It needs encouragement. Direction is not the word, because that is not how these things are done. It would not be wrong for the Minister to give me a commitment at least to look at that possibility. I am not demanding that he does so, because I am too long in the tooth for that. It must be done diplomatically if we are to carry people with us—such as the authorities, the regions, the Housing Corporation, the health boards, and so on. All those statutory bodies need to become involved in the new structure that I think is badly needed.
The SDA is already involved through the Queenslie industrial estate. There is a need for industrial development, with special references to specific matters such as Springhill farm.
There is certainly need for the development of the shopping centre. I should have thought that, for phase two and associated developments, the SDA was ideally suited to become involved—perhaps with a mixture of private and public money. As I said, I am not making an ideological case. Commercial opportunities exist, and the SDA should be making a contribution. Indeed, we could even do with a bingo hall.
Sites are zoned for private housing. In other words, a combination of industry, commerce, the shopping centre and private housing development presents a great deal of 600 potential in areas which are within the remit of the SDA. In the old GEAR area the same opportunities did not exist. In other words, there is no dereliction to get rid of before rebuilding can start.
When, a couple of months ago, the Secretary of State for the Environment announced the establishment of city action teams, it was clear that that was another attempt by the Government to apply direction, guidance or initiative—call it what one will—to developments in England and Wales. I make no apology for the fact that I am indulging in some special pleading for an area that is recognised as being one of the—if not the—most deprived areas in the country.
I hope that the Minister will regard the special pleading in which I am indulging as a challenge to use the influence of the Scottish Office to make some progress in the area. I appreciate that the Under-Secretary has problems, not least with education authorities, and that this may not be the right time to be asking authorities to co-operate in a new initiative. Nevertheless, I urge him to give sympathetic consideration to the idea of establishing a new authority which could create tremendous opportunities in the area, and, above all, give hope to the people who Live there.
§ 3.7 pm
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Allan Stewart)I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Brown)——
§ Dr. M. S. Miller (East Kilbride)Before the Minister replies to the debate, will he permit me a brief comment?
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)Order. Does the hon. Member have the consent of his hon. Friend and the Minister?
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerSo be it.
§ Dr. MillerI support strongly the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Brown). As the Minister will be aware, I represent a town which has a development corporation. He will also be aware that in, for example, the city of Glasgow—the same can be said of other areas—large housing schemes were developed and built without satisfactory facilities having been provided. In other words, many such housing schemes were undesirable from the beginning, not from the housing point of view but because of a general lack of amenities.
In referring to areas such as Easterhouse, we are speaking of places equivalent to relatively large towns, but without the amenities that similar conurbations have. I hope that the Minister will consider seriously the request of my hon. Friend, who does not have a particular axe to grind in the matter, and help to make the area worth while for the people who live there. My hon. Friend pointed out that it has been done before in the Glasgow area. Let us develop in Easterhouse the kind of urban facilities that are needed.
§ 3.9 pm
§ Mr. Allan StewartI repeat my congratulations to the hon. Member for Provan on initiating the debate. He put forward in a fair way the problems of Easterhouse and provided the House with a great deal of useful information.
I shall start with the theme of the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller). The difficulties of Easterhouse, as 601 the hon. Member for Provan also said, are typical of the problems of housing estates everywhere. It is a sad irony that the Easterhouse estates were built in the 1950s and 1960s with the best of intentions to provide higher standards of housing for those who were displaced by the massive slum clearance programmes in the city centre. What seemed a solution then has become a major problem in its own right.
The hon. Member for Provan referred to the many reports and information about Easterhouse. I refer him to the Scottish Office central research unit's paper, published last October, which deals with areas of special need in Scotland. It classified every neighbourhood in Easterhouse as an area of special need, and placed 25 per cent. of Easterhouse in the worst 1 per cent. in Scotland for multiple deprivation. That analysis is intended to help local authorities to identify areas for priority treatment, and to help with the formulation and evaluation of area-based policies for tackling deprivation.
We have all learnt that there are no magic solutions to urban deprivation. As the hon. Gentleman knows, it is easier to talk than to achieve. We must encourage in Easterhouse a viable local economy, an adequate range of job and social opportunities, adequate local amenities and, above all, a more balanced community. To cover the spectrum of community regeneration, we need a wide range of responses from a wide range of bodies, such as central and local government, the voluntary and private sectors and the community.
The hon. Gentleman referred fairly to assistance to areas such as Easterhouse. Urban programme support for projects in Easterhouse has cost between £400,000 and £500,000 annually. That is significant in terms of total urban programme resources, and reflects the continuing commitment of the Scottish Office to support for Easterhouse. As the hon. Gentleman knows, a wide range of projects have been supported—a day nursery, a day centre for the elderly, the Easterhouse festival society and the Easterhouse summer festival. General emphasis is on improving the quality of life of the local residents and on fostering a community spirit. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we expect to be able to continue new local authority and voluntary sector initiatives in the Easterhouse area with urban programme resources.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the problems of housing and the distribution of resources available for capital investment in housing in the city of Glasgow. That is a matter for the district council. It clearly recognises that Easterhouse is a priority area.
Increasing the levels of public sector finance is not the only way forward for Easterhouse. A homesteading project, involving the sale and renovation of 216 houses, has already been successfully completed. That was a step towards varying the pattern of tenure within Easterhouse. The South Rogerfield development is a further private sector project. Private developers have moved in to commence the rehabilitation of tenement blocks in an imaginative scheme which also involves the new build of sheltered and general needs housing.
A variety of other possible ventures, either tried and tested in other areas or still at the planning stage, may contribute to improving the housing fabric and environment. There is a range of ways in which the private sector can be involved in rehabilitation and development.
602 The establishment of many forms of co-operatives has proved to be a successful way of involving the community in improving the area.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the provision of health services. The main element in the board's strategy to meet the health needs of areas of multiple deprivation has been the health centre building programme, and he will know that the health centre for Easterhouse was included in that programme and completed in 1983. I also draw his attention to the fact that the Greater Glasgow health board participates with the regional council in a joint working group on health and deprivation. The group has recently undertaken a review and monitoring exercise of the provision of community services to the greater Easterhouse area.
The hon. Gentleman concentrated on the economic problems of Easterhouse. To deal with his point about the poverty programme, I should say that my hon. Friend concluded, reluctantly, that the limited potential benefits to Scotland of the programme were not outweighed by the substantial disadvantages.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Scottish Development Agency, which is involved in two ways, first, through the Greater Easterhouse partnership. That is an experimental self-help scheme involving the private and public sectors, which seeks to combat economic, social and environmental problems by involving the local community. It is 50 per cent. financed by the business community, with the balance shared among the district, the region and the agencies. I welcome in principle the establishment of that partnership, which represents a potentially valuable addition to the framework of resources available in the area, with special reference to the wider initiative proposed by the local authorities.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to the agency's involvement in industrial premises. The hon. Gentleman referred to the Glasgow eastern area renewal project, which has been a considerable success. The Government have sustained their commitment to it. We are beginning to draw the lessons from GEAR, and evaluation will continue during the next few years. One main lesson is that it is impossible to overvalue the importance of a coordinated and strategic approach. The active co-operation of a wide range of agencies is crucial, and that was the main theme of the hon. Gentleman's speech. Secondly, it is vital to consult and involve local communities and businesses, because they are the people who live in the area. Thirdly, there is in Glasgow a strong civic pride that helps to unite the disparate interests of the public and private sectors and enables a strategy that seeks to harness the enterprise of local firms and other forms of self-help initiative. All this is bound to be relevant to initiatives in other areas. Future initiatives need not be carbon copies of the Glasgow project, because circumstances vary from area to area.
An important initiative has been taken by Strathclyde regional council and Glasgow district council, which are currently working out plans for a joint initiative in Easterhouse. It will involve taking action to reduce unemployment and poverty, improve health and housing conditions and improve the quality of services and facilities. Both councils have committed themselves in principle to the initiative, and I confirm that discussions are continuing with the local community to prepare a detailed programme of action.
603 In response to the general theme of the hon. Gentleman's speech, it is important to remember that the councils aim to involve a wide range of other bodies in the initiative. Both the Greater Glasgow health board and the Scottish Development Agency have already agreed to participate and to contribute resources to fund the initiative. The agency's involvement is important. The agency will consider carefully what the hon. Gentleman has said today and will approach the problems positively.
It is particularly pleasing that private sector involvement is also to be sought. There is every reason to expect central Government support in the form of urban programme funding and European Community assistance from the regional development fund and/or the social fund.
604 All the lessons of the GEAR project show that such an initiative based on pooling a wide range of activities and resources, so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, is the best way to tackle effectively the deep-rooted problems in areas such as Easterhouse.
The initiative is important. I can confirm that the SDA will be actively and positively involved. We are talking about priorities within exising expenditure programmes, but there is a general willingness in central Government to make available appropriate assistance and support for the benefit of the people of Easterhouse.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes past Three o'clock.