§ 1. Paul Flynn (Newport, West)What new proposals he has to assist deprived urban areas. [89725]
§ The Secretary of State for Wales (Peter Hain)The Government have designated the 360 most deprived areas in Wales as enterprise areas to boost jobs and enterprise, and our child tax credit and working tax credit will help to eradicate child poverty and to make work pay.
§ Paul FlynnThat is absolutely true, but does the Secretary of State realise that, although the businesses in the rural part of my constituency that lost out financially because of the foot and mouth epidemic received generous grants from the Government, other businesses in the urban area that lost out because of closures and redundancies did not receive a penny? Does he also realise that the Government are about to spend more than £500 million keeping open post offices in the rural areas, and more than £100 million on closing them down in urban areas, and that the objective 1 map for Wales is heavily distorted against the interests of the cities, towns and valleys in Wales in favour of the least deprived areas? Is it not time that we had another look at our—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. The Secretary of State has heard enough to be able to answer the hon. Gentleman's question.
§ Peter HainI understand the points made by my hon. Friend, but, as he will undoubtedly be aware, unemployment has fallen hugely in his constituency. Newport has some of the fastest growing companies in the United Kingdom, and last year it was one of the places with the highest proportion of companies growing by more than 25 per cent. He will also certainly have noted this morning's survey, which shows that the Welsh economy is outperforming the British economy in key areas of output and new orders.
§ Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley)The Secretary of State must pay some heed to our deprived urban areas, 664 which are suffering greatly from an increase in crime and hard drug use. He must be well aware of the figures that show a 14 per cent. increase in hard drug use. Crack cocaine is responsible for 54 per cent. of all crime committed in urban areas. When a recent BBC poll asked people—64 per cent. of whom were Labour voters—whether they believed that the Government were tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, they said that they did not. Is it not time that the Government made our deprived urban areas safer places in which to live by taking a tougher stance on drug pushers and establishing a tougher sentencing regime, particularly for burglars?
§ Peter HainIt is nice to hear that the Conservatives want tough action against burglars, because they were responsible for burgling the Welsh economy and communities in Wales during every year that they were in power. Now, they are planning a 20 per cent. cut in public spending, which would reduce our effectiveness and our ability to implement exactly the kind of anti-crime measures that are needed in Newport and across Wales, and which we are implementing.
§ Alan Howarth (Newport, East)Given the importance of manufacturing to deprived urban areas, will my right hon. Friend ensure that during the transition period before accession to full membership of the European Union, the Governments of countries in central and eastern Europe are not permitted to operate regimes that allow their manufacturers to have an unfair competitive advantage? I have in mind particularly the steel sector.
§ Peter HainI understand my right hon. Friend's point, and the steel sector in Newport has indeed been a matter of great concern to its Members of Parliament and to the Government. It is important to recognise that we are undergoing a process of fundamental change. As he says, we are experiencing stiff competition from countries in eastern Europe, but also from countries even further to the east, notably China. However, Wales is doing much better than many of our competitors—in stark contrast to the Tory years, when we were doing much worse than the rest of the world.