Poverty (Hansard, 20 February 1989)

§ 7. Mrs. Clwyd
To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on his Department's strategy for dealing with acute poverty and deprivation in the Cynon Valley and other districts with a high percentage of low-income households.

§ Mr. Peter Walker
It is difficult to answer such a question in the short time available for a parliamentary answer. As this Government are carrying out massive programmes of expenditure in the Cynon Valley in education, health, housing improvements, factory building, derelict land clearance, urban aid, regional grants and training, I will, with permission, Mr. Speaker, circulate the details in the Official Report and place a copy in the Library.

§ Mrs. Clwyd
Does the Secretary of State's statement today show an increase of 67 per cent. in the money that will be spent in the valleys of south Wales? That represents £7 million, which is made up of £1 million for inflation and £2.6 million for the garden festival, leaving only £3 million for all the valleys of south Wales. Is it not yet another of the Secretary of State's hot air balloons? How will it help the people of Cynon Valley—the poorest district in Wales, the district with most of the problems that have been identified in the surveys conducted for HTV by the Cardiff business school, and the area where 60 per cent. of households have incomes of £4,000 a year or less? Has the Secretary of State read the last sentence of the Cardiff business school report, which states: If, as we are led to believe, Wales is drawing on a new era, nobody has informed Mountain Ash about it."?

§ Mr. Walker
Although I had intended to publish my detailed answer in the Official Report, in view of the hon. Lady's long supplementary question, I shall place my answer on the record now. Since January 1986, the number of unemployed claimants has fallen by 27 per cent. Since 1984 regional industrial support has been provided towards capital investment of £79 million, with associated forecasts of about 3,900 jobs. More than £11.5 million has been spent on a broad range of training measures. The Welsh Development Agency has provided more than 500,000 sq ft of new factory floor space. Land reclamation covering 600 acres and costing about £6 million has been completed. Economic regeneration in the area has been supported through the allocation of more than £5 million of urban programme resources. More than 6,000 houses in the constituency have been improved.
All those things cost tens of millions of pounds. The hon. Lady's old trick of quoting one item as an example for all the valleys has not come off this time. I hope that everyone will read the full reply.

§ Sir Anthony Meyer
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the very ambitious urban aid programme that was announced today will be warmly welcomed and that there will be special pleasure that Clwyd has not suffered at the hands of south Wales, although we should have liked to see more projects? Is he aware that there will be general satisfaction with the help that he has given to St. Asaph business park, which is one of the best developments to have emerged in Rhuddlan for a long time?

§ Mr. Walker
The urban aid programme to the Principality is of particular help to north Wales. Although 700 the biggest concentration of help is in the valleys, in total the programme will do much good, create many jobs and improve the environment throughout Wales. Our record compares unbelievably well with that of the previous Government who were responsible for such matters.

§ Mr. Murphy
Does not the so-called initiative for our valleys involve more fantasy than reality? What our valleys want are better schools, better hospitals and better housing. Does the Secretary of State not accept that our valley councils have lost more in rate support grant over the past 10 years than he has given them in new money in the latest package? Does he not also accept that much of his programme was going to come about in any event, that he has deliberately delayed the urban programme announcement, that six of our valleys are still not designated areas under the Act and that a proper revitalisation of the valleys would require massive and genuinely new investment spread over at least eight years, not advertising hype spread over three?

§ Mr. Walker
I do not blame the hon. Gentleman for making such a speech just before a by-election, but I am glad to tell him that tomorrow I shall go through every detail of the valleys programme and I look forward to the Labour party publishing beside each item what the Labour Government achieved in their last five years. I look forward to reading that comparison. I can only say that in dealing with derelict land, providing new jobs and building factories we dwarf anything that the Labour party ever contemplated.
Following are the details: Since January 1986 the number of unemployed claimants in the Aberdare travel to work area has fallen by 27 per cent. Since 1984 regional industrial support has been provided towards capital investment of £79 million with associated forecast of some 3,900 new and 900 safeguarded jobs. Over £11.5 million has been spent on a broad range of training measures, including YTS and wider opportunities for women. The Welsh Development Agency has provided over 500,000 sq ft of new factory floor space since 1979 and within its current programme the agency is planning to build a further 16 units. Land reclamation covering 600 acres and costing some £6 million has been completed or is under way or planned. Economic regeneration in the area has also been supported through the allocation of over £5 million of urban programme resource since 1979 towards schemes submitted by Cynon Valley borough council. In addition this morning I have announced more than a further £1 million for 1989–90. The Government have made a substantial investment towards the cost of improving the A4059 at Aberdare and Abercynon. Furthermore, the Welsh Office has supported the county council's proposal which led to the reopening in September 1988 of the passenger rail link to Aberdare. On housing since 1979, work on over 6,000 grant improvement projects, costing £19 million, has been completed in addition to enveloping schemes on 450 dwellings at a cost of £3.3 million. Schemes are in hand to improve an additional 500 homes at a cost of £4.5 million. In the last five years, £9 million has been spent on improving school buildings in the area, and an allocation of £800,000 has recently been made towards the cost of providing a 40-bed unit for the elderly at Aberdare general hospital.