Urban Regeneration

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 5:08 pm on 29 May 2002.

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Photo of Lord Greaves Lord Greaves Liberal Democrat 5:08, 29 May 2002

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Woolmer of Leeds, for initiating this important debate. I start by pointing out what seems very obvious when one looks at some cities, including the noble Lord's own city of Leeds—that is, that next to areas of quite successful regeneration are areas of dismal poverty. One has only to go down river from here to the Docklands to see the developments there, which are full of people we used to call "yuppies" and some people we now have to call "dinkies". People in those developments are living next to, or in, three London boroughs which are among the five most deprived local authorities in the country—Tower Hamlets, Newham and Hackney. If you take the tram from the middle of Manchester to Salford Quays, the same phenomenon can be seen very clearly indeed.

Within our major cities, and in many other urban areas, there are not only remaining areas of poverty, but areas of deprivation which would not have been so classified 30 or 40 years ago. To a large extent this phenomenon—typified by the areas to which I have referred—is due to a national policy which, for more than 20 years, has placed all the emphasis on economic growth, so sacrificing social progress in those areas. There has been a prescription of financial rewards for business and professional success, allied to increasingly punitive regimes—for example, in relation to benefits—designed to pressure people, whether sick or unemployed, back into work. That has led to inequalities in wealth in this country that are unparalleled in western Europe, and which were unknown in this country for over a century. Twenty years of under-investment in essential public services has created across Britain urban populations blighted by what may be described as multiple deprivation. It has created whole communities characterised by: high mortality; ill health; low educational achievement; poor housing; a worsening physical environment; inadequate youth services; high levels of crime and disorder; and bad transport services—all underpinned by low levels of personal income. And in many areas the situation is not getting any better.

It is not only a question of national policy needing to be addressed. The first important point that I want to make is that, without a national policy aimed at improving the lot of people in such areas, all the local initiatives in the world will constantly be fighting obstacles and difficulties. There are many examples of local good practice. There are also many examples of bad practice.

One of the problems of urban regeneration schemes in the kinds of areas that attract such schemes is the bewildering plethora of quangos which have grown up mainly in the past 10 to 15 years, and mainly at the expense of democratically elected local government. It might be termed the burgeoning "quangocracy". Perhaps I may point out three or four features of these new instruments of governance—as we must now call it—in such areas.

The first is their complexity. Much of local government has been moving—much of it at the instigation of my own party, but not always—towards a much more open and clear means of working, involving people on a far greater scale and making the work of their local authorities much more transparent than it used to be. But alongside that, as I have said, is a burgeoning quangocracy. Frankly, most people do not have a clue as to who does what, which organisation does what, or what the whole new range of names of such organisations actually mean. Some have names linked to national initiatives, such as Sure Start. People will say, "Oh, I'm going round to the Sure Start tomorrow morning"—whatever that may mean. Others have official, formal names: a local community economic development body may use that phrase. Many invent local names which mean nothing to anyone in terms of accountability, who is involved and so on.

A friend sent me some information about Leicester. He writes:

"Here in Leicester I have counted 11 city-wide and 10 locality partnerships or Action Zones responsible for the regeneration of separate public service areas which are now to be pulled together and co-ordinated through a Local Strategic Partnership"— which might make everything a lot simpler; or it might make it even more complicated. That august body, the local strategic partnership, will have just one member who is answerable to the electorate; namely, the leader of the city council. Overwhelmingly, these bodies meet in private. They are neither accountable nor subject to private scrutiny. If they are accountable, they are accountable to greater, better and higher quangos somewhere up the chain at sub-area, county or regional level. Their membership, often self-appointed, is largely drawn from the same hermetic pool of people employed in the statutory, business and voluntary sectors. Local politics has atrophied. It has been replaced by a new and exclusive quangocracy. That is my experience in Lancashire too.

The second feature of such bodies has been the creation of a new local élite. It is an unelected élite, many of whom were already there—people from colleges; those on training schemes; council officials—though not usually councillors; self-appointed community leaders, whose organisations may or may not be legitimate; and local businessmen. It is a new élite which builds on skills which were not previously needed. They are people who have a map by which they can personally navigate this extraordinary new system of governance and who have the skills of insider networking. It is almost impossible to remove such people because they do not have to be elected.

These bodies are accountable to further and larger quangos, not to local people—certainly not to democratic local authorities, which are often deliberately kept out of matters. In many cases, the wonderful word "partnerships" is used. But often, it is not a partnership between local people in any real sense; it is a partnership between people who already have power and influence in the community. Where the partnership is between those in the private sector and those in the public sector, there is a great danger that private sector ethics, the private sector ethos—about which I have no complaints in terms of the private sector—gets into and corrupts the public sector.

Noble Lords of a certain age and older will remember the Poulson scandal, which was all to do with inappropriate relationships between private sector people and public sector people and the way in which the private sector ethos and ethics were corrupted by commercial values of a certain kind. We shall have a lot of Poulson-type scandals in the coming years; many of them will be generated within partnerships which have been set up for the very best of reasons.

A great deal of good is done in many of these bodies. They contain a large number of people who are working for the good of their communities. But the structure in which they are now being forced to work is not appropriate. It will lead to tears.