Orders of the Day — Environment, Transport and the Countryside

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:27 pm on 18 November 1999.

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Photo of Neil Turner Neil Turner Labour, Wigan 3:27, 18 November 1999

I am extremely grateful to be able to place on record my tribute to my predecessor, Roger Stott. I am uniquely able to do that because I knew him way back in the late 1960s when we were both in the Labour Party Young Socialists, fighting the good fight against the extremists. I followed him on to both the regional and national committees of that organisation, and it seems that fate has now determined that I should follow him into the House of Commons.

Roger was elected in 1972 for the neighbouring constituency of Westhoughton. I did not get to renew my acquaintance with him until boundary changes in 1983 put part of his old constituency into the new Wigan constituency and I became, at different times, chairman and secretary of his constituency party. He maintained the long and noble tradition—going back to 1918—of Labour representation from Wigan.

Roger was a Front Bencher for much of his time in the House and he was well respected by hon. Members of all parties. The tributes that were paid yesterday bore witness to that. He was an assiduous constituency Member and one of the first in my area of Lancashire to set up a well-resourced office to look after his constituents' needs. One of the first people whom he employed there was my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), now the Minister of State, Cabinet Office.

Roger had a hinterland, as the new expression has it. He was not only a politician. He had a great interest in cricket and was a member and regular attender at Old Trafford, whenever his parliamentary or constituency duties allowed, as well as at the Oval and Lord's. He was also the mainstay of the all-party group on cricket. His interest even extended to setting up a team in Wigan, which he called the Levellers, which was appropriate, considering that Wigan was the birthplace of Gerrard Winstanley. Just how important the game was to Roger is shown by the fact that he succeeded in inveigling me into playing cricket with him. That says much for his desire to play the game, but not much for his ability as a selector.

Roger threw himself into his job as an Opposition spokesman on Northern Ireland. He was extremely assiduous in trying to ensure that peace was engendered between the two Northern Ireland communities. He reached his real parliamentary fulfilment at that time. Even when his job no longer directly involved him in Northern Ireland, he continued his search for peace and for ways for the two communities to come together in understanding. The number of people who came from Northern Ireland to pay tribute to him at his funeral, and the realisation that his efforts had been recognised, was a source of pleasure to his family. It is fitting that half his ashes were scattered in Northern Ireland to make sure that his connection with the place would continue. It is equally fitting that his remaining ashes were spread in his Wigan constituency, which he represented so well.

Roger was a great advocate for Wigan. That was probably one of his easier jobs, because Wigan is a great town with magnificent people. It has an extremely long history: it is a pre-Roman settlement. Hon. Members should not worry that I will go through Wigan's entire history—I shall be brief. Wigan was a Roman town, called Coccium. It was continuously settled, as can be seen from the place names in the surrounding areas and in the town itself, by the native British Anglo-Saxons and the Viking settlers. After the Norman conquest, we had the honour to be one of the four boroughs in the Lancashire area. In 1246—over 750 years ago—we received our charter.

Lancashire is well known for the many great Catholic families who have lived there throughout its history. When civil war broke out in 1642, Wigan was, from the point of view of this House, on the wrong side, joining with the Catholic king, Charles I. There was suffering in the town after the parliamentary victory in the civil war. But during the Restoration, Charles II noted the town's contribution to the cause of the Crown and gave us our coat of arms, which bears the motto "Ancient and Loyal".

Coal has been mined in the area for many years, from surface pits and then from drift mines. That natural resource was exploited in the industrial revolution, first by canals, such as the Leeds-Liverpool canal, and the Bridgewater, the world's first commercial canal, and then by the railways, which opened up the town and its products—particularly coal—to the rest of the country.

Coal, cotton and engineering became the mainstay industries of Wigan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as was the case in many other Lancashire towns. In the 1930s, Wigan, like many other areas, was hit by the great depression. However, it allowed George Orwell—real name Eric Blair—to make famous the music hall joke, and our town, by writing about what we would now call the underclass in "The Road to Wigan Pier".

After the post-war boom of the 1950s and 1960s, the coal and cotton industries declined; that decline became precipitous in the 1980s. Wigan's go-ahead council faced up to the problem by making the creation and saving of jobs its first priority. It went out of its way to attract new industries into the town. Wigan has the Great Universal Stores, the Tidy Britain national group and the Tote. It also has Millikens, an American carpet company which brought to Britain cutting-edge computer technology for the carpet industry. When my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister came to Wigan to support me in my by-election campaign, he came to the Plaxtons bus factory, which was saved by local government money. The company has since expanded and now employs many hundreds of people to produce quality buses.

The Wigan Borough Partnership, formed by the council, is a partnership between the council, local businesses, the chambers of commerce, chambers of trade and the training and enterprise council. It has been held up by many Ministers, both Conservative and Labour, as a model of how local authorities should work with the private sector in regenerating the local economy for the people.

Of course, partnership is not new to Wigan. Way back in the 1950s, the county borough joined with Lancashire county council to bring the Heinz company into Wigan. I say that that was a partnership, because the factory straddles the border between the old county borough and the Lancashire county council—the Orrell urban district, as it was then. That boundary is still there, so half the factory is in the constituency of my neighbour and good friend, the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield. I can assure the House, however, that the factory's most famous product—over-indulgence in which could lead to effluence—is made in the part of the factory that is in my right hon. Friend's constituency, not in mine.

It is a tremendous tribute to the town, its people, its local businesses and the council that unemployment is now just slightly higher than the national average, especially considering the depredations of the 1980s and the terrible changes that were forced on us then. Of course, there are still pockets of urban deprivation and social exclusion. But the Government's working families tax credit, the increases in child benefit, the new deal and the introduction of the minimum wage have all put money into the pockets of ordinary people in Wigan. That money flows straight back into the local economy, increasing employment. The Government's measures are increasing the ability of local people to live decent lives, and also represent a significant boost to the local economy.

Wigan has moved a long way since receiving its charter in 1246; we still have our history. What about "Uncle Joe's mint balls, that keep you all aglow"? They are known and sung about around the world. And of course we have the famous Wigan rugby league team, probably the most famous team of either code in the world. It is known wherever rugby is played. It was the first rugby league team to be invited to play in the Middlesex sevens. In fact, it is the only one, but that may be because we won it. It was the first rugby league team to play a rugby union team, and the first to play at Twickenham. It has moved on and up. It now has a brand new home, which it shares with Wigan Athletic football club, which stands at the top of the Nationwide second division. I hope that that team will go on to become the champions and move into the first division, as a stepping stone to its premiership ambitions, in which I am sure it will succeed.

The brand new, joint use, all-seater stadium which seats 25,000 is in a triumvirate of stadiums in the Robin Park area. There is a council-owned, council-run athletic stadium, and a council-owned, council-run sports arena, which contains the northern centres of excellence for tennis and cricket. Hon. Members who helped me in my by-election campaign were very impressed by that collection of sporting facilities in the Robin Park area.

Wigan is not all urban: countryside surrounds the former pit villages of Crooke, Aspull, Standish and Haigh on the constituency's northern edge. They open out into wonderful countryside. Indeed, only an hour or so's drive from Wigan are north Wales, the Derbyshire dales, the north Yorkshire moors and the magnificent lake district.

That brings me to one of the reasons why I wanted to speak in this debate. It has always been important to working people to go out to the country. For people who were wage slaves in pits or mills for six days a week, it was important to be free men on Sunday. That is what the right to roam will enshrine in statute—the right of ordinary people to enjoy the countryside. The measures for wildlife protection, which will protect our ancient woodlands and meadows and biodiversity, are also important to ordinary working people. The council and voluntary groups in Wigan have worked hard on those matters, both in the town and in the surrounding areas.

I welcome the Bill that will continue the process of modernising local government. I am one of the few Members who is also a councillor, and I have been for 25 years. Modernisation is a four-part process. The Government have already begun on best value and an end to crude and universal capping. The further two parts—ethics and the management of local government—will be dealt with in the coming Session.

On ethics, most fraud in local government is committed by the public against local authorities. Only a very small amount of fraud or corruption is committed by officers or councillors. I do not deny the importance of rooting out such fraud, but it knows no party boundary. We ought to be careful not to throw party political stones as we all live in glass houses in that sense. A clear and consistent code of conduct is important to ensure that no one goes into local government or other public service purely for personal gain.

On management, some people see the introduction of mayors as a panacea. I am not among them, but I believe mayors can play a role and the community should have the ability to choose its own form of government. Splitting the executive from the rest of the council offers opportunities to local councillors, but there are dangers in that system, and we must be sure to handle change carefully. The form of management chosen by a council must be relevant to local people.

I am proud to follow Roger Stott into the House of Commons. I am honoured that the people of Wigan chose me as their representative here, and I am proud to support a Labour Government who are carrying out manifesto commitments that will make this country a better place for ordinary people to live and work.