§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kenneth Carlisle.]
11.52 pm§ Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro)I welcome the opportunity to raise the problems caused by the removal of assisted area status from the travel-to-work areas of Truro and St. Austell.
I thank the Minister for staying so late to respond to this Adjournment debate. It is, however, an important matter, not only for my own constituents in Truro and St. Austell, but for many throughout Cornwall, particularly in the far west of the county, for, above all, Cornwall's problems need to be seen and tackled together. Because we in Truro and St. Austell are set in the middle of the country our position is unique, as I shall explain, but Launceston also suffers —and as a result of our suffering the whole of Cornwall is penalised.
The Minister may have some knowledge of our problems, having responded in the past to debates on the subject of regional development. However, familiarity will not, I trust, have bred contempt, and I have already let the Minister know that I seek some response to specific difficulties and suggestions, in addition to the general debate about the current definitions of travel-to-work areas in Cornwall.
Above all, the feeling throughout my constituency and Cornwall is that for the sake of bureaucratic simplicity local realities have been ignored — or perhaps there is simply no real understanding of the situation.
If the whole county had assisted area status it would stop this pointless softshoe shuffle by Cornish companies shifting across boundaries in search of the cash to survive or grow. Instead, it would give a single package to present to the outside world, which could be marketed and developed as a whole and which would work as a whole.
Nor is assisted area status to be taken in isolation. It is bound up with development in the county, and while to many of us it is a key issue, the Minister could at least mitigate its effects by acknowledging them and acting to avert the worst anomalies and difficulties. That is why I should like to take the opportunity of this debate to ask the Minister five related questions. I hope that the people of Cornwall will receive the constructive response that they deserve.
My first request is that the grants associated with assisted area status should be an extra sweetener to help to attract business from outside the county. My county is England's poorest, and that is why so much of it attracts special assistance. But why make it a mint with a hole? Truro and St. Austell are the only travel-to-work areas in England that are completely surrounded by assisted areas. That hole has cut off further development potential, not just for my constituency but for Cornwall as a whole. Surely the Government can see that that decision lacked logic. How can we tell people from Helston and Caniborne that their only means of communication with the rest of England is through an area where roads, water works and sewerage systems do not have the same financial assistance as their own? So we are left behind, always more expensive to tackle, so all too often put off to do another day.
It is a flaw that the Government have studiously avoided elsewhere. What about the Birmingham travel-to-work area? It is one vast area one could say the size of an 143 entire county. This travel-to-work area has assisted area status, but if one breaks down the unemployment figures there one finds areas with 8.5 per cent. unemployment in Elmdon or 5.0 per cent. in Knowle. But there are not holes in Birmingham's assisted area status map. Just as I would not be able to see the logic in leaving out parts of Birmingham, I cannot see the logic of doing so in Cornwall.
I have heard it said that it was precisely because Birmingham won this concession that areas like my own missed out. With assisted area status restricted to a defined percentage of the country, when the leafy suburbs of Birmingham were helped, civil servants were dispatched with scissors and tape to cut out other areas all over the country to make the percentages add up. If that is true, my part of Cornwall was one of the sacrifices.
Local industry is united in its belief that Truro and St. Austell offer the rest of the county an opportunity to draw in industry from outside. English China Clays, which is the chief employer in St. Austell, acknowledges the need for St. Austell to be given the opportunity to diversify, but it knows that this cannot be done without assisted area status. Truro and St. Austell could provide the kind of facilities and attraction to make Cornwall marketable, but only with the right support.
My predecessor, David Penhaligon, and the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Mudd) were among those who lobbied to put an industrial site called United Downs into the assisted area of Redruth. It was designed as the showpiece estate for Cornwall to attract business and jobs to service a wide area of west Cornwall. Instead, the stupidity of bureauracy ruled again, and United Downs is part of the Truro travel-to-work area, despite being closer to Redruth. That project was originally backed financially by this Government, but strangled even as it was being built in 1984, all thanks to a pen mark on a map rather than the logic of local knowledge.
Furniss Biscuits is a company with a long history that is based in Truro, but it is now being forced to move unnecessarily into Redruth if it is to receive the grants essential for its growth. It is a firm that provides bread-winning jobs for families in my constituency, not the part-time low-paid work that hides the real poverty of many in Cornwall from the official statistics. Do the Government seriously believe that by forcing a local manufacturer to pay the costs of moving simply to keep in business it will help the local economy?
My second request gives the Minister an opportunity to give some specific constructive assistance. Our local authorities are not sitting around waiting for money to be restored; instead, they have produced a draft application to the national programme for community interest, which will be judged by the European Commission later this year. What they need from the Government is support for their draft and a commitment to push the application through. It is a chance to bring some much needed money to help with the infrastructure of Cornwall, and an opportunity to get that money from Europe. It will give continuity and consistency to Cornwall's development.
I seek a particular commitment from the Minister that will allow funding to areas and projects serving those with assisted area status, such as the link between the A30 and Falmouth. This would be a step towards acknowledging 144 the fact that travel-to-work areas are not the be all and end all of the needs of a community, and would be a real gesture of support for our needs.
I should like to make a special plea that the national programme of community interest does not go the way of the article 15 application, for the development of our tourism, and disappear into the dark depths of the Treasury, losing all sight of deadlines from one year to the next, on the flimsy excuse of concern about local government expenditure. My county is well known for keeping within its means. It is now applying to Europe, but still the Government manage to block any move forward.
The Government can show signs of encouragement by helping our county with this application. However, until we have an improvement in roads through Truro and St. Austell the whole of south Cornwall will suffer. Without decent transport, communications, amenities and industrial estates throughout Cornwall, too much of Cornwall will stagnate in isolation. Those projects will develop only if controls on investment are relaxed. We are not a high spending area; our local authorities have historically been cautious in their spending. Greater freedom would not incur wild extravagance, but more houses and less homelessness, more jobs, and less joblessness. We cannot at present even get help to build a decent city hall in our City of Truro.
Today we saw the first planes flying in from Portsmouth to the new STOL port in the City of London. All Cornwall is keen to realise its potential at RAF St. Mawgan for increased freight transportation and the expansion of operations there by Bryman Airways. It is something that would be welcomed by everyone. Local industries are keen to have customs facilities there, but it is not covered by assisted area status and will, therefore, receive little support. I should like to ask the Minister whether there is any possibility of financial support for such development. I am sure that that would be a sign of support and encouragement to industries interested in moving into the county.
My third request is for increased funding for English Estates. I am told that English Estates finds it easier to let its units in Cornwall than in any other county in England—not surprising, perhaps, since it is virtually alone in providing such facilities. At this moment in the whole of the county of Cornwall there is only one site of 10,000 sq ft available. is that any way to encourage industry to move to Cornwall when we have nothing to offer but the land and the sky? If the Minister can tell me of any manufacturers who can move to Cornwall and build their own sites, I will write to them tomorrow inviting them to our county. However, I do not believe that he can do so.
The Department of Trade and Industry this year gave English Estates £3 million for the entire south-west region to be spent only in assisted areas. Of that, £2.35 million went to Cornwall, the rest to Plymouth. Next year, of the £2.4 million to be given for the south-west region, only £400,000 will be spent in Cornwall. The result is that any momentum that has been built up in Cornwall will now be lost by a massive reduction in building of industrial sites in the area, despite the fact that there is proven demand. Again, Truro and St. Austell have been struck off the development map. We do not have any industrial units to offer, and English Estates is ruled out of investing with us. I believe that makes no sense for our county and it certainly does not make sense for Truro and St. Austell.
145 My fourth request is for an assurance that the Plymouth regional development office will not be relocated at Bristol. I, like the Minister, appreciate that rumours such as that are often unfounded, but I have no hesitation in giving the Government the opportunity to dispel those rumours and reassure local businesses and councillors.
My fifth and final request is for a statement on the recent rumours regarding the whole shake-up of regional development in this country. I hope that the Minister will use this request to quell any fears of industries thinking of investing in areas of regional development and assure them that they will continue to receive assistance.
While preparing for this debate I read through the various attempts by hon. Members and hon. Friends to draw the Government's attention to the acute need for a change in the definition of areas eligible for assistance. I have to say I was rather surprised by the similarity of ministerial responses to speeches on this issue, each lacking any helpful response. As a result, I contacted the Minister's office last Friday with an outline of my speech in the hope that tonight we would receive some specific replies. I did that because the people of Cornwall are tired of the usual ministerial responses. They are tired of trying to build up industry in the area only to be beaten back by the Government's regional policy. The Cornish people, Cornish industry and local government deserve a decent reply.
§ 12.4 am
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. John Butcher)I thank the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) for the courtesies that he has observed in signalling some of the questions that he wished to raise this evening. I shall do my best to deal with them in the terms in which he raised them. I am grateful to the hon. Member for the manner in which he has presented his case. Given the candour of his delivery, I am sure that he would expect me to respond in a similar manner. I shall try to respond with equal courtesy and candour.
The hon. Gentleman has assembled a collection of facts and figures in support of his case for Government action to help those parts of his constituency which do not benefit from assisted area status. In so doing he would have the House believe that the areas concerned are suffering from a level of disadvantage on a par with that found in some of our most deprived areas. When we examine the hard data we find that that is not so. While neither I nor he would wish to minimise the problem of unemployment, neither St. Austell nor Truro has anything like the rate of unemployment to be found in other parts of the country. Indeed, Truro, in particular, gives a clear impression of prosperity, benefiting from its role as the principal commercial centre of that part of Cornwall, and from the many thousands of visitors each year, generating economic activity on a scale which would be the envy of many other parts of Britain.
The hon. Gentleman's remarks belie the fact that in many ways the Government are doing a great deal to assist areas such as his. I shall come back to this in a moment. First, a few words about the question of assisted area status, which is at the heart of the hon. Member's remarks. He will know, of course, that several other issues follow from that of status.
The assisted areas map was re-drawn in November 1984, and I acknowledge that, as a result. the travel-to- 146 work areas of Truro and St. Austell lost their assisted area status. Quite simply, the two travel-to-work areas did not meet the criteria which were established for assisted area designation. Our objective in revising the assisted areas was to ensure that the areas of greatest need received assistance. With this in mind we looked at a variety of objective indicators. Apart from the immediate unemployment level we considered industrial and occupational structure, for example, with a view to determining the areas where dependence on declining traditional industries was the greatest problem. Levels of long-term unemployment were, of course, a key consideration, and distance from main markets was taken into account. Having considered these factors we could not, in the circumstances, justify including Truro and St. Austell, and as the hon. Gentleman has made clear, this meant that these areas were no longer eligible for other forms of assistance from for example, the European regional development fund.
I must make it plain that my Department has no plans at present to review the coverage of the assisted areas map. I sympathise with those areas which lost assisted area status in 1984, but piecemeal changes in respect of individual travel-to-work areas would undermine the stability in the map needed for firms to be able to make sensible investment decisions. I recognise that the relative positions of travel-to-work areas have changed since the 1984 review but, based on the most recent figures — for September 1987 — the Truro TTWA's unemployment rate, 9.6 per cent. is below the average for Great Britain at 11.3 per cent., and well below the average for intermediate areas at 14.1 per cent. St. Austell's rate of 13.2 per cent., which is higher than Truro's, is nevertheless also below the intermediate area average. Indeed the unemployment rates of both TTWAs are lower than they were when the assisted areas map was altered in November 1984. Truro's rate, in particular, has shown a marked decrease —from 12.2 per cent. in November 1984 to 9.6 per cent. in September 1987. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Birmingham. The people of Birmingham would be delighted if they could report similar figures.
Truro's claim to assisted area status on unemployment grounds can hardly be described as a strong one. As I am sure the hon. Member will acknowledge, there are many non-assisted areas which suffer from levels of unemployment considerably in excess of both Truro's and St. Austell's rates.
I have spoken at some length about the unemployment level because, although one has to bear in mind a number of criteria when considering status, prime among them—as I am sure the hon. Gentleman agrees—must be the level of unemployment, which is a measure of social and economic activity, and the level of long-term unemployment. We try to regard them as the heart of the consideration.
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to say a few words about the way in which the Government's policies are having an impact on the unemployment and other problems he has described. We are creating an economic climate which is helping industry and commerce increase the national production of wealth. We are in our seventh year of growth at an annual rate approaching 3 per cent. Investment was at a record level in 1986.
Since 1980, the United Kingdom has grown faster, on average, than any other major European Community country and our productivity growth since 1979 has been 147 better than in any major industrial country — including Japan. In the three months to July 1987, output per head was nearly 48 per cent. up on the 1980 level. At the same time inflation has been substantially reduced — last year it was at its lowest level for almost 20 years.
We are encouraging the growth of the enterprise culture through lower taxes and the removal of price and dividend controls. We have introduced a whole range of measures to improve the responsiveness of commerce and industry through the restoration of incentives and the removal of unnecessary regulation and by enlarging the scope for enterprise through privatisation. We are emphasising to industry the importance of education and training. These are the steps we are taking to produce a climate which promotes enterprise and prosperity. They are at the heart of my Department's programmes.
There is a range of financial and practical support designed to help industry develop its competitive strengths and take advantage of the resulting opportunities. Support of this kind is available nationally and there is no reason why companies in the hon. Member's constituency should not benefit. There are subsidised consultancy services dealing with design, quality and marketing, which aim to introduce small and medium-sized firms to best practice and encourage them to make use of outside specialist advice by demonstrating the benefits of such advice. Information, advice and support for exporters is the business of the British Overseas Trade Board and the assistance given by the board is available throughout the country.
If the hon. Gentleman doubts the efficacy of such measures, I can only say that, during the past three or four years, I have seen many vivid examples of companies' prospects being changed by the implementation of the highest quality advice on design, quality and marketing. If it would be helpful, perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to bring a delegation from his chamber of commerce to my Office to discuss these matters, which I have mentioned as being the main part of our agenda. I have found that through promotion of these measures, it is possible to help some regions and travel-to-work areas.
The success of the Government's policies in tackling unemployment is apparent in all regions of the country. Unemployment is now falling throughout Great Britain. In Truro and St. Austell, as elsewhere, people are benefiting from the wide range of employment, training and enterprise schemes run by the Department of Employment and the Manpower Services Commission. And there are local enterprise agencies in St. Austell and in Camborne, which covers the Truro area. I understand that last year the West Cornwall enterprise agency assisted in the start-up of 87 new businesses and that it carried out, on average, 65 business advice consultations each month. I believe it has also set up a loan fund aided by RTZ plc with the aim of supporting small business development by making loans available to new or existing businesses for either capital or working expenditure. I am sure that that will be most beneficial in helping to extend further the enterprise culture in the area.
As the hon. Member will acknowledge. a large part of his constituency has been classified as a rural development area. This is a designated priority area drawn up by the Development Commission on the basis of a number of criteria, including unemployment rates, age structures, 148 access to services and so on. The Development Commission concentrates its efforts in these rural development areas with the aim of increasing the number and range of job opportunities in the countryside. Its main programmes include the provision of small workshops and support for small businesses through advice, finance and training provided through its agency COSIRA. The commission also provides some support for rural services such as transport and housing and encourages community activity and self-help. In the Truro area the commission has funded 53 units, providing 73,000 sq ft of factory space, which accounts for nearly 300 job opportunities.
In the farming and rural enterprise package announced earlier this year, the Government provide an extra £1 million to enable the Development Commission to carry forward an innovative package of measures to stimulate new job opportunities in the countryside and encourage the development and diversification of the rural economy. One of these initiatives is the private sector partnership scheme, ACCORD — assistance for co-ordinated rural development — launched in June. Its aim is to attract £2.50 of private money for every £1 from the commission. I am sure the hon. Member will recognise the value of these developments.
The Government also recognise that the Truro and St. Austell areas, along with many other parts of Cornwall, contain significant amounts of derelict land. Because of this, both areas were designated, in 1985, as derelict land clearance areas, thus restoring the availability of derelict land grants at the highest rates. Reclamation schemes carried out by local authorities in such areas are eligible for derelict land grant at the rate of 100 per cent. of approved costs; 80 per cent. is payable for non-local authority schemes. These are the same rates that apply to schemes located in assisted areas.
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will join me in paying tribute to the valuable reclamation work being done by Carrick and Restormel councils with the assistance of derelict land grant. Carrick council, in particular, has been active in reclaiming derelict land for a variety of uses, including industry and public open space and has a large scheme at Scorrier in the derelict land programme for the current financial year. There has been less activity in Restormel so far, but discussions are now under way about the possible use of derelict land grant to reclaim some former china clay workings in the St. Austell area. The Government are prepared to respond positively to the acknowledged problems associated with dereliction.
I welcome the hon. Gentleman's willingness to look beyond the boundaries of his own constituency, and I make it clear that I am well aware of the value of English Estates' factory building in the areas surrounding his own constituency. While my Department has this year increased the allocation of funds to English Estates, there is a very high level of demand on its resources in assisted areas throughout the country as the economy continues to grow. It is, rightly, for the board of English Estates to determine how money allocated in the south-west is best spent on viable projects that will do most to stimulate new and increased business activity which alone can provide secure jobs. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) has kept a close eye on the role of English Estates.
During the current financial year, English Estates will spend about £2 million in west Cornwall. The Truro office will continue its efforts to identify suitable sites for future 149 development. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands and supports the need for new and better sites, for future development. I hope that he will join us in using his best endeavours with local authorities in his constituency to ensure that sufficient sites of the right quality will be available, and that they will show enlightened flexibility in their approach to planning consents, so that the needs of industry and commerce can be met.
Despite the hon. Gentleman's inclination to point up the disadvantages as he sees them of the absence of assisted area status, there has, nevertheless, been some very recent welcome news on the investment front. He will, for example, be delighted that Clear Water Fine Foods of Nova Scotia, the new owners of Channel Foods, is to invest £3 million in the Truro company and has plans to recruit an extra 40 workers following a move to new premises in the Newnham industrial estate. He will also be aware that St. Austell-based Partech Ltd., which employs 20 people in the manufacture of quality control monitoring equipment, has announced plans to double its work force within the next 18 months.
This sort of activity is evidence, if any were needed, of the confidence in the local area brought about by the Government's prudent management of the economy and the praiseworthy reactions of local employers in the hon. 150 Gentleman's area to the new breeze. The hon. Gentleman asked specific questions about the organisation of the south-west regional office. There are no plans to close the Plymouth office, but good management requires that the tasks and resources are continually monitored. The change was made to give the best possible service to those eligible for regional development grant while maintaining the quality of all the other services provided from Bristol.
It is no longer possible to justify a free-standing regional selective assistance unit in Plymouth. Bristol-based staff handle the full range of the Department's services and instruments across the whole region, with no complaints from the private sector.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the A30. Although it is a matter for the Department of Transport, I recognise that this road is a vital communications link for industry and commerce in Cornwall, which includes the hon. Gentleman's constituency. The Government have a list of impressive improvements made, under construction and planned. These together with the improvements in air communications, not least to the London docklands airport, are doing much to reduce the sense of distance of Cornwall from the main market places of Britain.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes past Twelve o'clock.