HL Deb 24 April 1969 vol 301 cc548-53

3.11 p.m.

THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON)

My Lords, if it is convenient to the House, I rise now to inform your Lordships that the Report of the Committee under the chairmanship of Sir Joseph Hunt is being published to-day, and copies will be available in the Printed Paper Office after 3.30 p.m. I should remind your Lordships that the Hunt Committee was concerned with considering the situation in particular areas other than development areas where the rate of economic growth gives cause, or may give cause, for concern. A Statement is being made in another place this afternoon, but it is a very long one and I wonder whether it would meet the convenience of the House if I did not repeat it to-day but, following this brief statement, circulated it with the OFFICIAL REPORT. I should stress that we always firmly reserve the right of your Lordships to have repeated here Statements that are made in another place, but they do sometimes complicate our lives.

Following is the Statement:

"I should like to make a statement on the Report of the Committee on the Intermediate Areas under the Chairmanship of Sir Joseph Hunt which is published today.

"As the Report touches on the interests of so many parts of the country my statement will be somewhat lengthy and I apologise for this.

"The Committee was appointed in September, 1967, and Sir Joseph Hunt and his colleagues have prepared a very full report on a subject of great complexity. The Government warmly appreciate the Committee's work.

"Its principal conclusions and recommendations are as follows:—

  1. (i) The whole of the Yorkshire and Humberside and the North West Regions should qualify for an entirely new 25 per cent. building grant not linked to the creation of new jobs. They should also qualify for training grants and direct training assistance on the same basis as in the development areas.
  2. (ii) In selected growth zones within these Regions there should also be Government estates and factory building with supporting investment including link roads.
  3. (iii) For these two Regions and in the Notts./Derby and North Staffordshire planning sob-divisions there should be an 85 per cent. grant for derelict land clearance as in the development areas. The clearance programme should be speeded up in all these areas and in the development areas.
  4. (iv) The industrial development certificate control should be relaxed throughout the country by raising the exemption to 10,000 square feet.
  5. (v) The Merseyside development area should be de-scheduled and treated on the same basis as the rest of the North West Region.

Four members in three Notes of Dissent have expressed reservations about some of the Committee's findings

"The Government have considered these recommendations against the background of our assessment of general prospects for the regions in the recently published Economic Assessment to 1972, in the context of our regional policy as a whole and within the need to limit public expenditure.

"We are convinced that it is necessary to retain for the development areas and special development areas a large margin of preferences in assistance to industry. Although the massive increase in Government preferential assistance to industry—for these areas—from some £30 million in 1964 to over £260 million—is making a vital and growing contributions to overcoming their still serious structural problems, none of these areas is yet ready for de-scheduling. The Government do not propose therefore to accept the Hunt Committee's recommendation for the de-scheduling of Merseyside.

"Against this background we have considered carefully on the one hand the Hunt Committee's arguments for spreading limited resources over the whole of the two Regions concerned and on the other hand for concentrating these on a few areas where present and prospective needs are greatest. We have concluded that the better course is to concentrate assistance to industry with an employment link on a strictly limited number of smaller areas. For this reason, we have not been able to accept the Hunt Committee's proposal for a general building grant.

"The Government consider that the selection of areas to be given assistance to industry must be governed strictly by criteria of need, especially the level and character of unemployment and numbers of unemployed, the incidence of high net outward migration and the real scope for industrial growth.

"I turn now to our proposals.

" Assistance to Industry: Areas

"In indicating the areas to which in our view these criteria most clearly point I must emphasise that I describe them in broad terms. We shall take fully into account any further views of the Regional Economic Planning Councils. Consultations with them will be completed and the precise boundaries of these new intermediate areas will be announced after the Whitsun Recess. Thereafter we will bring forward the necessary legislation as quickly as possible.

"We have considered the problems of other areas, but we have concluded that these problems do not at present justify the use of financial incentives to divert industry to them.

"Assistance to Industry: Measures

"We propose to seek powers to make available to these intermediate areas certain assistance under the Local Employment Acts. This will not include the loans and grants, for general purposes, which are made in the development areas on the advice of the Board of Trade Advisory Committee. What it will include is:

  1. (i) Grants at 25 per cent. of factory building costs.
  2. (ii) Government built factories (both custom built and advance factories) on the same basis as in the development areas;
  3. (iii) The full range of development area training grants and other training assistance together with assistance for the transfer of key workers.

"The date from which firms will be eligible for this assistance will be announced later.

"We agree with the Hunt Committee that industry in the intermediate areas should be encouraged particularly in places which have real scope for growth. The studies made by Regional Economic Planning Councils have attached importance to the development of suitable growth zones and we will take Councils' views fully into account.

"There will be some additional expenditure on roads in the selected areas and proposals for the provision of new housing associated with industrial growth will be encouraged. There will also be an enlarged national programme for derelict land clearance for schemes certified by the Board of Trade as contributing to the development of industry in the area. For the North West and the Yorkshire and Humberside Regions, as a whole, in the areas selected for assistance to industry and in the North Staffordshire and Notts./Derby planning sub-divisions, we intend to seek power to make available to local authorities a capital grant of 75 per cent.

"I turn now to i.d.c. policy.

"The industrial development certificate control is operated flexibly and with sensitivity to industrial and local circumstances, but it remains essential to relate its operation overall to the priorities of our regional policy, particularly to the needs of the development areas. The Board of Trade will continue to operate the i.d.c. control so as to give the development areas and the new intermediate areas general priority. In the rest of the North West and the Yorkshire and Humberside Regions, the control will continue to be administered liberally except in the congested parts or places otherwise unsuitable for industrial expansion.

"We do not accept the Hunt proposals that the general exemption limit should be increased from the present levels to 10,000 square feet or that all control should be removed from moves to overspill towns. But we do see the need for a more flexible policy for such moves where planned development may be held up if the flow of industry to overspill towns from an exporting area is impeded. It certainly is our intention that all approved schemes for new and expanding towns should be properly supported by employment opportunities.

"When these measures are in full operation their cost will amount to nearly £20 million a year. This will be met out of the very substantial and growing sums being spent on assistance to industry in the development areas. Even so, expenditure in the development areas will remain very high and they will of course retain a very large and continuing preference over the rest of the country including the new intermediate areas.

"The work of the Hunt Committee and their proposals for the new intermediate areas which have flowed from its Report mark an important new stage in the development of Regional Policy. We are pressing on with the recovery of the development areas. We are responding flexibly to the changing needs of the different parts of the country. We will continue to seek, through our Regional policy to serve the interests of every region and of the whole country."