§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Patnick.]
§ 10.6 pm
§ Mr. Nicholas Budgen (Wolverhampton, South-West)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wonder if you would be good enough to give the House some guidance as to how you intend to call right hon. and hon. Members in the course of our important discussions on the Maastricht treaty.
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris)Order. I must tell the hon. Gentleman that, as he will observe, I am now a reincarnation of the Deputy Speaker, and therefore discussion on proceedings in the Committee is not in order. Mr. Beith.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerI make the point that the right hon. Member who has the Adjournment debate is a Back Bencher and has waited a considerable time for it. I will take quick points of order, but no more.
§ Rev. Ian Paisley (Antrim, North)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have always understood that the duty of the Speaker was to protect the interests especially. of Back Benchers. I have also understood during the 22 years that I have been here that the House represents England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and that it makes no difference where an hon. Member comes from; but I have also understood that all sections of the community represented here would be called in debates to give their view.
I should like to ask you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if it is worth while for hon. Members from Northern Ireland to come to the House for the debate that has been concluded if, on all the days that they have asked to be called, they have not been called, and if, when they are called, the Government gag them. Is there no way whereby an hon. Member can be reasonably assured that, if he sits through all the debates—I understand that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) wants to speak; I too have sat through all these debates—he will be allowed to speak?
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerI understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. This is a United Kingdom Parliament, and the Chair tries to choose hon. Members to contribute to all debates on that basis.
§ Mr. Budgenrose—
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerThe right hon. Gentleman has an Adjournment debate. The hon. Member has raised a point of order already.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerMr. Walker—with reluctance.
§ Mr. Bill Walker (Tayside, North)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance. If hon. Members wish to participate in debates, either in a normal session in the Chamber or in Committee, does the Chair, in its capacity of protecting the interests of Back Benchers and all aspects of Back Benchers' interests—in other 1161 words, whether they sit on the Opposition Benches or on the Government Benches—and in the interests of attempting to procure a balance, achieve that balance? If so, thus far no one from Scotland on the Conservative Benches has spoken.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerI have already ruled that I cannot comment at this stage on what went on in Committee.
§ Mr. BudgenOn a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. No, the hon. Member has had one point of order. I hope that this is a totally different one. Is it a different point of order?
§ Mr. BudgenWith respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I was unable to make my point of order.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerThe hon. Member made his point of order. I made it quite clear, and I make it clear to all hon. Members in the Chamber at the moment, that I am now sitting here as Madam Speaker's Deputy. Neither she nor I can comment on what has happened in a Committee of the House. Points raised then should be raised at the next meeting of the Committee and not in the Adjournment debate of another hon. Member.
§ Mr. BeithIt is a convention of the House that hon. Members respect the fact that another hon. Member has the Adjournment debate, because the time that they take is taken out of the Adjournment debate.
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise a matter that is important to my constituents. I am glad to have the attention of the Minister for Industry. He and I were elected to Parliament on the same day, and he will know that since then I have often raised the need for development area status in the area that we are talking about.
I am talking about the Northumberland coalfield area. I am glad to be able to make a further plea on its behalf before the Minister reaches his final decisions about which parts of the country shall have development area status now that he is reviewing the map. I appreciate that he cannot give me the answer that I want in this debate, because the map for the whole country will be announced at once at a later debate. He will then be obliged to take into account the results of the review of the disastrous pit closures plan, even though nothing in his tool kit of development measures could possibly cope with the deluge of unemployment that would result if anything like that original programme of closures went ahead.
I want to direct the Minister's attention to an area that is already suffering desperately from decades of pit closures. The Alnwick and Amble travel-to-work area lost development area status in 1984, since when I have been campaigning with local authorities to get it restored. At the same time, the Morpeth and Ashington area, which includes an adjoining part of my constituency around Lynemouth and Ellington, was reduced to intermediate status, and I supported a similar campaign for the area. Sadly, the employment situation in these areas has worsened during the period and their cases therefore become stronger. Pit closures have continued, and with the area having to compete with assisted areas, almost no new inward investment has been recorded since 1984.
1162 The area that we are discussing is the main part of the Northumberland coalfield. The Alnwick and Amble travel-to work area includes the town of Alnwick, which, although it is a market town, has depended significantly on coal mining, and Amble, which was once a busy mining and coal shipping town. The area also includes Seahouses, traditionally a fishing port with significant tourism, and remote and beautiful areas such as the Rothbury area.
The fact that the travel-to work area was so wide was one of the factors that led to its loss of development status in 1984, because it diluted the high unemployment figure in Amble and Alnwick, but unemployment has now increased throughout the area. Alnwick district council has submitted a strong and well-documented case to the review on behalf of the area.
The Hadston and Broomhill part of Castle Morpeth district, consisting mainly of a large housing estate built specifically to house people from the old mining villages, is also in the Alnwick and Amble travel-to work area. Castle Morpeth borough council pointed out in its submission to the Department of Trade and Industry some months ago how absurd it is that this deprived part of its area, which at that time had 12 per cent. unemployment, did not have development area status, yet the much more prosperous Ponteland part of the area, with 3.5 per cent. unemployment, had the full benefit of development area status.
Those figures have increased significantly since, but there is still a huge difference, with the most prosperous area having development status and the most deprived not. Castle Morpeth would like to keep its development status in the Ponteland area because of the potential for development at the airport, but it throws into sharp focus how wrong it is that the most deprived part of the borough should not have development status.
A recent study of the Hadston estate for the Northumberland coalfield task force, which was set up with the help of the Minister's Department, revealed that 38 per cent. of unemployed claimants had been out of work for more than two years, and that 55 per cent. of those interviewed had worked for a total of less than a year in the previous five years. This is a desperate problem of long-term unemployment, with resulting social problems in an area that the Government have wrongly excluded from assisted area help.
Immediately south of Hadston are the coalfield communities of Ellington, Lynemouth, Linton and Widdrington, which have the inadequate intermediate status because they are in the Morpeth and Ashington travel-to-work areas. The whole of the area has been hit hard by a succession of pit closures in recent years. At Shilbottle and Whittle collieries in the Alnwick area—although Whittle now operates as a small private drift—at Lynemouth and at nearby Woodhorn, Ashington and Bates collieries thousands of jobs have disappeared in the past decade.
The only remaining British coal pit in Northumberland, and potentially the only one in the north-east, is in my constituency, at Ellington, and it is no secret that it was on the closure list until days before that dreadful list was published. Closely linked with the fate of that colliery at Ellington are the Alcan power station and smelter, as well as the Blyth power station. More than half the jobs at Alcan have gone as production has been cut back. If any 1163 one of this complex of related industries were to go altogether, the whole structure could go, with the loss of more than 3,000 jobs.
PA Cambridge Economic Consultants have advised Northumberland county council that, if that happens, unemployment in the Morpeth and Ashington travel-to-work area would approach 17 per cent. That was the advice some months ago. On the latest national figures, that would be higher. A similarly sharp rise would happen in the Amble and Alnwick area.
Even on the most optimistic scenario, without such a catastrophe, they expected unemployment to rise to 15 per cent. in the Morpeth and Ashington area, and to more than 13 per cent. in the Alnwick and Amble area. In the meantime, since they made those forecasts, the Alnwick and Amble figure has reached 14.2 per cent.
Unfortunately, other industries on which this area depends face dramatic job losses. The Alnwick and Amble area has an exceptionally high proportion of employment in agriculture, forestry and fishing. It has been estimated that 800 jobs will be lost in farming in Northumberland following the CAP reforms, and at least a third of those will be in this area. Fishing and associated trades face certain job losses because of restrictions on fishing opportunities and the Government's deplorable decision to phase out the north-east salmon fishery. The building industry has been devasted in the recession. Indeed, the main source of new employment in the Amble area has been the prison service, one of the few industries that seems to have survived the recession in reasonable numbers.
From an employment point of view, this whole area from Alnwick to Ashington needs the same level of support, and needs it very badly. The DTI recognised that under the previous Minister, when it set up the coalfield task force. Europe recognises it; the whole area is eligible for help under objective 2 and under the RECHAR scheme, which was so long delayed by the argument over additionality.
A lot of work is going on to help the area through these schemes, through local authorities and by the efforts of industry. Other things are needed, like full dualling of the A1 and investment in education and housing, currently squeezed by local government spending restrictions, but much of this work will be undermined if, when the new assisted area map is announced, all or part of the Northumberland coalfield is left without assisted area status, competing with areas which do have it and can therefore offer better incentives to inward investors or existing businesses.
Many of the businesses already established within our area belong to groups and companies which have plants elsewhere in Britain or abroad, and their head offices or main boards may very well shift new investment to plants which are enjoying development status either in Britain or in some equivalent form in other countries. The Northern Development Company has made clear that the evidence of past investment is that the north of England will not attract inward investment without assisted areas status.
The main factors which the Government have said that they will take into account in making their decision on this matter are current rates of unemployment, persistence of unemployment rates above the national average, the proportion of long-term unemployed in the local work force, the likely future demand for jobs and peripherality and distance from markets. The Alnwick and Amble area 1164 and Morpeth and Ashington area both pass all those tests. Unemployment in both areas is at present more than 14 per cent., with male unemployment at or above 20 per cent. and as high as 70 per cent. on some housing estates.
Apart from the impact of limited amounts of seasonal work, a large part of the unemployment is long-term. The job losses I have described in mining, farming and fishing, and the fragile nature of employment in the Ellington, Lynemouth and Blyth complex, mean that we must prepare for future job losses on a large scale. The area could hardly be more peripheral: it is further from London and from the channel tunnel than any other part of England.
The case is so strong that I do not see how the Minister can, in all justice, fail to accept it.
§ The Minister for Industry (Mr. Tim Sainsbury)As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said, we were elected to the House on the same day. Therefore, it is a privilege to reply to his debate on what he sees as the need for assistance for his constituency. I know that he takes a great interest in his constituency, as I do in mine, and I sometimes envy the opportunity that he has to raise issues as he has done this evening.
The right hon. Gentleman understandably focused his remarks on the importance of assisted area status. It is especially understandable when one bears in mind the fact that the area, or part of it, had the status before 1984. As he knows, the current review of the future shape of the assisted area map was announced last June, and the criteria on which the review is based were set out in the consultation document.
We invited interested parties to submit their views and, as the consultation document explains, the primary base for the review is the range of statistical information on unemployment, which includes data on the current level, the persistence of unemployment rates above the national average in recent years and the proportion of the long-term unemployed in the local work force.
Other factors considered include demographic changes and the likely future demand for jobs in the area, taking account of the growth or decline in local industries—I shall deal with that point in relation to the mining industry to which the right hon. Gentleman referred—and other measures of economic performance, including activity rates and the important issue of peripherality to which he also referred. As he said, in England one cannot get further from the channel tunnel—I do not know what his hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) would say about the situation across the border.
The review is based on the existing travel-to-work areas, which are broad approximations of self-contained labour markets. It will be a year or more—I suspect more—before new travel-to-work areas are defined using the data from the 1991 census. The current map covered about 35 per cent. of the working population of Great Britain when it was designated in 1984. Of that, development areas covered 15 per cent. and intermediate areas the remaining 20 per cent. The right hon. Gentleman said something about the inadequacy of intermediate area status, but I do not think it is regarded in that way by many of those who have submitted requests for such status. It is a valuable and valued status.
1165 It is unlikely that the coverage of the new map will be greater than now, and it could be somewhat less. Coverage of the new map will, of course, have to be agreed with the European Commission, as it was in 1984.
The broad objectives of Government policy with regard to the assisted area map continue to be to reduce regional imbalances in employment opportunities and to encourage the development of indigenous potential within the assisted areas on a stable and long-term basis.
During the consultation period last year, more than 1,500 written representations were received from Great Britain, and, by the end of last year, Ministers at the Department of Trade and Industry had held meetings with more than 50 delegations, in addition to the delegations seen by my colleagues in Wales and Scotland during the same period.
I have received detailed representations, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, from Northumberland county council and Alnwick district council in support of development area status for the Alnwick and Amble travel-to-work area. Those representations cover comprehensively the effects on the TTWA of structural unemployment changes, especially in the coal industry which, as he said, had a considerable effect on the area some time ago. They also cover the difficulties faced by the area in attracting new industries because of the distances and the lower-than-average rates of small firm formation and participation in economic activity.
Before the previous review of the assisted area map in 1984, the Alnwick and Amble travel-to-work area enjoyed intermediate area status. At that time, Ministers decided that other areas had more pressing problems and that Alnwick and Amble should not be included in the revised map. Of course I am aware that that decision was, not surprisingly, not well received by the county council. That proves that intermediate area status is valued by local authorities and industries.
The current review, like that of 1984, is based on travel-to-work areas, which are the smallest areas for which reliable statistical information on unemployment is available. However, loss of intermediate area status has not meant that the area has been without assistance, and I shall say a few words about the situation since 1984.
First, there is the status of the area for European regional policy purposes. The various maps defining eligibility for European Community structural funds are separate from the assisted area map—which defines eligibility for aid from my Department—and are drawn up against criteria decided by the Community. I expect to receive from the European Commission at the end of this month proposals for new regulations governing, amongst other things, the selection of objective 2 areas—those suffering from industrial decline. The designation of areas under the new arrangements is unlikely to be completed until the middle of this year, and it will come into force from 1 January 1994.
As a result of its status under objective 2 of the structural funds, the Alnwick and Amble area has had access to individual project support from the European regional development fund and, subsequently, to the Tyne and Wear/south-east Northumberland integrated development operations programme—referred to as "TAWSEN". In addition, part of the travel-to-work area surrounding 1166 Amble is eligible under the TAWSEN RECHAR programme for former coal-mining areas, under which £11.5 million is available. So far, 53 applications have been received for more than £6 million of this, and £3.7 million has been approved for 27 projects.
A major beneficiary of European regional development fund support has been the marina development in Amble, which received a £700,000 grant in 1986. Other projects that have received support include the development of the employment training workshop at Amble, the second stage of the development of the Alnwick playhouse and improvements to tourism information throughout the area.
Secondly, the Rural Development Commission has operated a programme of advice for businesses and for the provision of premises in the Alnwick and Amble travel-to-work area. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is well aware of this, as, last month, he performed the opening ceremony for the scheme of 10 workshop units at Alnwick—units ranging from 550 sq ft to 1,850 sq ft—developed by English Estates for the Rural Development Commission. That was part of a programme that has seen the provision in the Alnwick and Amble area since 1984 of more than 54,000 sq ft of workshop units and 10,000 sq ft of factory units, at a total cost of about £2.5 million. Of the total of 108,000 sq ft of space in 61 units in the Alnwick and Amble travel-to-work area, 70,000 sq ft in 39 units is let, providing an estimated 280 jobs.
The Rural Development Commission also provides grants to return redundant buildings to productive business use; marketing and exhibition grants to help rural firms to achieve profitable sales; and quality assurance courses to help rural businesses to prepare to accreditation. A wide variety of projects have been supported in the area, ranging from the provision of a rural coalfields development worker based in Hadston to a grant towards a centre for voluntary organisations to provide a "one stop" service. Since 1989, the area has had £165,000 of funding approved under the rural development programme.
The Rural Development Commission has just begun a review of its rural priority areas. It has published its proposals for handling the review, which it expects to complete later this year.
Enterprise support for small and medium-sized businesses in the Alnwick and Amble travel-to-work area is provided by the training and enterprise council for Northumberland at its customer support centre in Alnwick, and includes access to business counselling services. The Northumberland TEC also provides a range of training support measures, including the business enterprise programme and business growth training.
From its total budget for this financial year of over £14.8 million the TEC has contracted to provide 126,000 weeks of youth training, or more than 2,000 places, and 42,000 weeks of employment training, or a further 1,200 places. I am glad to say that it has been distinguished as the only north-east TEC, and only one of three nationally, to achieve four bonus points in the TEC performance awards for 1991–92.
I congratulate the TEC on its achievements to date. I am sure that it will continue to make a major contribution to the development of the skills of the work force of the area. As I am sure the right hon. Gentleman agrees, the development of skills is particularly important when it comes to ensuring economic revival and the strength of the 1167 area's economy. I look forward in due course to seeing the Northumberland TEC's response to the invitation to bid for a one-stop shop.
§ Mr. BeithThe Minister referred to a number of bodies that are helping in the area. I hope he will note that every one of those bodies treats the coalfield area as a whole and works throughout it. Not one of them divides it into three separate categories of eligibility, as his Department has done up to now, and as I hope it will stop doing when it publishes its new map.
§ Mr. SainsburyI note what the right hon. Gentleman says, and I am sure that they, like my Department, are seeking to target their help effectively to where it is most needed. I recognise that the area, like the rest of Britain, has been experiencing difficult trading conditions in recent times, and I note from the submission made by the district council that the position of the area in relation to the whole of Great Britain is broadly the same now as it was in 1984.
I was also pleased to note, from the same source, its estimate of a net increase of 12 per cent. in the number of VAT-registered businesses in the area over the same period, even in the face of the difficulties to which the submissions, and the right hon. Member, referred. The Government will continue their efforts to dismantle unnecessary bureaucracy and encourage the formation of new businesses.
Despite its relatively small size—approximately 1,000 businesses and a work force of about 14,000—I am pleased to note from local press reports the successes achieved by businesses in the area. I understand that Phoenix Mountaineering, which was set up in Amble 11 years ago, has grown to employ 130 people and has, for the fourth season, been the supplier of ski wear to the British Olympic team. The right hon. Gentleman will join me in congratulating the company on that. The enterprise of local residents has been further demonstrated by 3 Bears Playthings of Rothbury. which recently received a European Community award under the women's enterprise initiative for creating employment opportunities for women in a rural area.
Understandably, the right hon. Gentleman referred to reductions in employment in the coal industry. I am very much aware of the importance attached by the local community to the last deep mine in Northumberland; as the right hon. Member knows, Ellington is not among the collieries currently under review. My officials in the DTI north-east regional office, and my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, in his capacity as Minister for the north-east, have had discussions with members of the local business community about the strategic interdependence of coal mining at Ellington, the activities of the port of Blyth and aluminium manufacture at the British Alcan smelter.
The importance of those activities to employment in the immediate area and beyond is recognised. As a result, I assure the right hon. Member that I am fully aware of the local situation and its effect on the local community.
The county of Northumberland has a proud history as one of the earliest areas in which coal was mined on an 1168 industrial scale. It is perhaps inevitable that there have been extensive closures in the last 20 years as coal reserves have become worked out or too costly to access. Northumberland county council has clearly brought out in its submission to me the position since 1980, with closures of six collieries, the last being Ashington in 1988. I recognise that the closure of the Ashington complex, like Ellington outside the Alnwick and Amble travel -to-work area, undoubtedly had its effects in the right hon. Member's constituency.
In recognition of the difficulties faced in the Wansbeck district of the Morpeth and Ashington travel-to-work area, my Department is supporting the work of the Wansbeck initiative. That body involves local authority, central Government and enterprise agency members and is aimed at the regeneration of the area, which includes the former Ashington complex. Substantial progress has been made in dealing with the residues of coal mining, and the plans for the Ashington business park mark the next stage in the reclamation of the area. When completed, those will provide landscaped amenity land and a 50-acre business park capable of providing 500,000 sq ft of accommodation.
The right hon. Member will welcome the efforts currently being made by the reconstituted Northumberland coalfields task force, in which my Department participates, to regenerate the area from Alnwick to Cramlington. It has set up a number of subordinate task groups, each served by a particular district. It is perhaps most appropriate to the subject of the economic regeneration of the Alnwick and Amble travel-to-work area that Alnwick district council looks after the business development group on which DTI, English Estates, British Coal Enterprise, the Rural Development Commission and other bodies are represented, and that co-operation is valuable.
I have carefully noted what the right hon. Gentleman said. I assure him that the points he raised will be carefully considered and taken into account with all the other submissions I have received, including those from Northumberland county council and Alnwick district council specifically concerning the area.
§ Mr. BeithI am sure that the Minister will remember that the relevant part of Castle Morpeth borough, and the parishes to which I referred, must also feature in his study.
§ Mr. SainsburyAs I said, I have carefully noted everything that the right hon. Gentleman said. He will appreciate that I cannot today anticipate the completion of the assisted area map review as a whole and make a specific announcement about a particular area. The review will be concluded as early as possible in 1993. Taking account of the coal inquiry, an announcement will be made as soon as possible after the necessary clearance with the European Commission.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-six minutes to Eleven o'clock.