Regional and Industrial Policies

Part of Orders of the Day — Supply – in the House of Commons at 6:53 pm on 14 July 1982.

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Photo of Mr Nigel Spearing Mr Nigel Spearing , Newham South 6:53, 14 July 1982

The House must listen with concern to any hon. Member from Sheffield, with its industrial commitment, certainly to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Osborn) who has been concerned with one of its firms.

I do not wish and have not the time to take up the hon. Gentleman's points in detail, although I would fault a great deal of his logic. I understand, for example, that 50 per cent. of electricity costs are for transmission. They are not necessarily only dependant on the cost of coal, and as has been pointed out, miners' wages are not the only factor in that cost anyway.

I am pleased and proud to be the first member of his party to congratulate my new hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Clarke). He made an outstanding speech because of his humanity.

We must remember that the Beveridge report, "Social Insurance and Allied Services", brought out in the middle of the war, appealed to the hopes and fears of men and women everywhere. It was a report about security and now all regions of Britain are facing insecurity. I cannot help feeling that the Government, and many hon. Members who support them, are dismantling the post-war concordat that was reached between the parties as a result of that conflict, of which the Beveridge report was one element. The Beveridge report and the Education Act 1944 came out under a Conservative Government. The Government are certainly dismantling local government, of which there has been some mention today.

As a Londoner, I intervene briefly to point out one or two matters concerning London's regional policy. I understand the position of other hon. Members and shall not take long.

First, London has lost a third of its manufacturing industry in the past few years. It has 344,000 unemployed. Conservative Members who travel in official cars to the airport might notice at the Chiswick roundabout that a modern factory is being demolished. That was built in the last 10 or 15 years and now it is being replaced by an office block. I question the free enterprise economics that make such a thing possible, and I hope that Conservative Members will do the same.

The hon. Member for Hallam mentioned the Sheffield enterprise zone. He may have been illogical, because the main point of enterprise zones is the rate relief that they enjoy which cannot be replicated elsewhere. I do not think that they will be successful, but if they are I do not believe that they will provide a genuine solution. They are like a flush of blood to a sick patient's cheek—they are not fundamental.

While urban development corporations might be successful in certain parts of Liverpool because the conditions there may suit their methods of administration, I do not think that the one in London—perhaps the biggest feature of the Government's policy for London—is successful in the way that it was imagined it would be.

First, it takes over from local government and gives the Secretary of State considerable powers. It gives a planning board the powers of local authorities but without the requirement of proper meetings, minutes or, at the moment, good information services. Planning consents are no quicker than they were before, and I understand that that can be statistically illustrated. Planning delays are sometimes blamed on local authorities, but I suggest that they are often due to developers wanting too much cream rather than as a result of an awkward local authority.

My local chamber of commerce and the London chamber of commerce have said that the London Docklands development corporation is not very good at communicating. East London is an area of considerable unemployment. There are 14,000 unemployed in the London borough of Newham, 14,000 in the London borough of Tower Hamlets and 28,000 in the north docklands alone. Unemployment must be almost 35,000 or 40,000 in the area as a whole. However, the Secretary of State said that the urban development corporation would be dynamic and would attract industry just as the new towns did. That has not happened yet.

In East London there is considerable controversy about the corporation's work in relation to land and the building of private homes. However, I do not wish to go into the details or to overemphasise, in what is—I hope—a constructive contribution, the central factors in its establishment and operation. Nevertheless, if the Government are to have a successful regional policy for London they must pay attention to two factors. First, the GLC is planning a rapid transit system which could become part of a new deal for transport in London. Everyone wants that. Secondly, the royal docks cover an enormous area, equivalent in size to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens put together, and they are now available for development.

This week, I sent a short memorandum—which I also made public—to the Secretary of State setting out the concept of a trading estate, with road, rail and water transport connections. As some hon. Members know, there has also been talk of an airstrip in the docks. That would not necessarily cost any money. If it was founded on all-party agreement there would not be the controversy of the past and the estate could outlast the London Docklands development corporation.

In this sorely tried area of London the Government have an opportunity to ensure that there is proper transport and that the administration of the royal docks goes well beyond the remit of the LDDC. In doing so, they could show the way towards developments in other sorely pressed parts of the country. It is clear that industrialists and the work force will be confident only if there is agreement in both local and central Government about the policy for those areas. The Government have not provided that and unless they do so the regions that face such high unemployment will not get the social, human and physical infrastructure that is so necessary for their recovery.