Development Agencies (Hansard, 14 March 1994)

§ 2. Mr. Shersby
To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has to reorganise the Development Board for Rural Wales and the Welsh Development Agency.

§ The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. John Redwood)
The chairman of the Welsh Development Agency has recently announced the terms of his internal reorganisation of that agency and I have recently announced the new guidelines, which I have issued. The future of the Development Board for Rural Wales is under review.

§ Mr. Shersby
Is my right hon. Friend aware that those announcements are most welcome? Will he give the House an assurance that the standards followed by the Welsh Development Agency and the Development Board for Rural Wales in future will be those that the Committee of Public Accounts and Parliament have the right to expect?

§ Mr. Redwood
I strongly hope that that will be the case. I have asked the chairmen and chief executives of those agencies to take full account of the strong views of the PAC and the House of Commons and of my views. We want the highest standards. I wish to see the agencies uphold them and I trust that they will do so.

§ Mr. Flynn
What is the point if all the work of those two bodies is negated by the actions of privatised companies, especially British Gas, where, we are told, the number of jobs in Wales is about to be reduced from 2,903 to, probably, less than 1,000 because it is pursuing a policy which is profit first and in which safety and the regional need for jobs in Wales come nowhere?

§ Mr. Redwood
I have written to the chairman of British Gas saying that Wales offers a great deal and have urged the company to make full use of Wales for the location of its business activities. I have received a reply in which he admits that Wales is a good place in which to locate and assures me that there will still be a strong presence there. I am afraid that Wales cannot be exempt from the efficiency gains that British Gas will be making, any more than the rest of the United Kingdom can.

§ Mr. Jonathan Evans
Is my right hon. Friend aware of the concern expressed to me at the weekend by tenants of the Development Board for Rural Wales on the Ffrwgrech estate in Brecon? He will know that the development board must pursue a policy of maximising its assets, but the tenants are concerned that the whole of the estate is to be sold to an outside investor. Will my right hon. Friend tell the House that he will encourage the Development Board for Rural Wales to look first to its own tenants so that we build in rural Wales an economy in which, very often, local businesses own their own factories?

§ Mr. Redwood
I agree with my hon. Friend that it is better if tenants buy their own freehold premises. I wish to see the development board offer those premises to the tenants, but, of course, the tenants must make a fair offer in return. We wish to raise money by selling existing assets so that we have more money to spend on new assets to create new investment and new jobs for Wales. However, I will ensure that the chairman of the DBRW is aware of my hon. Friend's remarks. Like my hon. Friend, I want tenants to be given a fair opportunity.

§ Mr. Alex Carlile
Will the Secretary of State give his unequivocal backing to the public statement made today by the chairman of the DBRW that the interests of economic development in rural Wales are best served by having a separate organisation, the DBRW?

§ Mr. Redwood
I am reviewing the best way to deliver those services, so I wish to complete that review before answering that question.

§ Mr. Llwyd
Although I agree entirely with what the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) said about the British Gas situation and would very much like to associate myself with his comments, if there is to be a reorganisation of the DBRW will the Secretary of State consider the rent reviews? That has been a matter of grave concern, especially in my constituency where one third or more of the units are empty simply because the rack rents asked may be reasonable in Birmingham but are not in rural Wales.

§ Mr. Redwood
I quite agree that rents must be related to market circumstances. I have asked all the agencies with empty property to put at the top of their list the need to find tenants for those properties and, therefore, to find a market-clearing level of rent that enables those tenants to come forward. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. If hon. Members have other points that they would like to be taken into account in my review of the DBRW, they have a good opportunity to do that now or in writing this week.

§ Mr. Morgan
Notwithstanding the public admonition from the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) to the Secretary of State in his supplementary question earlier, as the senior-ranking Tory member of the Public Accounts Committee, does the Secretary of State agree that the executive reorganisation at the top of the Welsh Development Agency to which he referred in his answer is in clear breach of the undertakings given by him to the House on 19 October when he introduced the report by Sir John Caines and said that those recommendations would be accepted in full by the top management of the WDA? Does he also agree that, until the mess of that reorganisation is sorted out, it is unlikely that the WDA and the DBRW will be able to repeat the amazing sporting achievements of Colin Jackson and Steve Robinson over the past weekend?

§ Mr. Redwood
The hon. Gentleman did not say how he thought that was out of line with the Caines report. Of course, I will consider any allegation that the hon. Gentleman wishes to make specifically on that point. The chairman has announced his reorganisation. I believe that it will deliver more service for less administrative cost, which is something I should have thought that hon. Members would welcome.