Westminster Hall
(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Defence Spending (Wales)
(13 years, 11 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mrs Siân C. James (Swansea East) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to secure this important debate, and to the Minister for attending. Wales has a long and proud heritage with the armed forces, and is home to the British Army’s most famous regiments, great ports, and RAF bases. Many towns are affiliated with Royal Navy warships and submarines. It is a world leader in the aerospace and defence industries, and from a strong cluster around Airbus UK in the north to GE Aviation, General Dynamics, NORDAM and British Airways in the south, manufacturers and suppliers employ thousands of highly skilled people in high-tech, highly paid jobs throughout the country. Wales is also an important recruiting area, and many young men and women in Swansea, and particularly in my constituency, join up.
That legacy dates back more than 300 years, and is strongly intertwined with our industrial past and communities throughout Wales. Indeed, the cenotaph at the heart of St Athan village is dedicated to the memory of
“the youth of all nations who fell that war might end, by the boys of the South Wales coalfield.”
That is an enduring tribute to the link between our nation’s proud coalfield communities, and the young soldiers who fought so selflessly to protect them. What gives that message even wider symbolism is the heartless graffiti and vandalism that has recently desecrated the memorial. Without wishing to make too blunt a point, it is difficult to ignore the parallels with the cruel disregard for St Athan shown by the coalition Government. They made an abrupt decision to scrap the plans for the St Athan defence academy, and I shall focus on that today.
The Government’s decision is a huge blow not just to the Vale of Glamorgan, but to the whole of Wales. The project would have led to the creation of thousands of training, support and construction jobs, and would have provided significant opportunities for local suppliers and the local community. The coalition Government’s decision to cancel the Metrix consortium project will mean losing up to 2,500 training and support jobs and up to 1,500 construction jobs, as well as the loss of a £700 million to £800 million defence technical college construction contract and the £60 million annual supply chain expenditure, and a £500 million annual boost to the Welsh economy from operational activities, and a large boost to local tourism.
Wales makes up 5% of the UK population, but contributes 8% of the armed forces. The Government pride themselves on fairness, so surely Wales should receive an equal proportion of military spending. South-east England receives £7.1 billion and Scotland receives £1.5 billion, but Wales receives just £390 million.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Blaenau Gwent contributes many servicemen and women to our armed forces, and we have had some great armed forces days in recent years. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: according to statistics that I have seen, Wales receives just £380 million in defence expenditure. Surely that is not enough.
Mrs James
I agree with my hon. Friend. Wales received the second lowest military investment of any region in the UK. Surely that cannot be right. The decision in the summer to award Gwent-based General Dynamics a £500 million contract to help to equip the Army with a fleet of new Scout combat vehicles was very welcome, and that should have been followed with an annual £500 million boost from St Athan. Together, they would significantly have redressed that unfairness. Instead, the coalition dithered, and that has cost us dear.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
On the defence technical college, does my hon. Friend agree that it is bizarre that, at a time when south Wales is likely to lose many thousands of jobs in the public sector, that private sector development will not go ahead?
Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
In addition to the issue of the unfairness, does it not seem that the coalition Government are determined to cut off their nose to spite their face, because they will lose the savings and efficiencies that the new academy would have created?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
I am listening with surprise to the hon. Lady, because she seems to be saying that we should make defence decisions based on employment in south Wales, rather than on the needs of the armed forces and the nation. Is that right?
Mrs James
I cannot agree with the Minister. I am saying—I thought I had done so clearly—that there is a disparity, which would have been reduced if the Government had decided to go forward with the defence technical college. It is not rocket science; a decision to build the college would have provided more equality and fairness. It would not have endangered front-line services, but would certainly have helped our forces, who serve so valiantly in Afghanistan.
Mr David
On that important point, if the Government were concerned about the well-being of the armed forces, they would have ensured that the technical college went ahead. That point illustrates that the Government are not concerned about the long-term defence of this country.
Mrs James
I thank my hon. Friend for that. What have we heard from the coalition? The Prime Minister and the Defence Secretary maintain that there is still a bright future for the area, and that a decision will be made in the spring. The Welsh Secretary insists that she is continuing to press the case for St Athan, but we have all witnessed the power that she wields in the Cabinet. There have been so many words, but so little action—there was the decision to close the Newport passport office, deferral of the electrification of the south Wales main line, and the fact that Wales was not included among the new superfast broadband pilot areas.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend include cancellation of the north Wales prison on that list?
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. Before the hon. Lady answers, I remind hon. Members that we are debating defence spending in Wales. It is not in order to discuss other projects that may or may not have been cut.
Mrs James
I thank my hon. Friend—and I include the north Wales prison on my list.
We are already witnessing the impact of the Government’s dithering, delay and abandonment. Last week, business confidence in Wales dropped severely from 22.4 points last quarter to 6.3 points. Scrapping the St Athan project was mentioned explicitly as a “significant dampener on confidence”. That is hugely worrying, and demonstrates the huge risk in the coalition’s assumption that the private sector will provide jobs for those in the public sector who become unemployed. For Wales, the stakes are even higher. Public investment plays a greater role in our economy than in England, and our business sector is much more fragile. As our Labour First Minister in Wales, Carwyn Jones, has said, the spending review is clearly regressive. The human and social impact could be both devastating and wasteful, and the real cost could be with us for generations. It further demonstrates how the Government are pursuing cuts with a scale, scope and speed that risk Welsh jobs, Welsh growth and Welsh recovery, and puts the squeeze on the most vulnerable in our society.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend agree that a strategic investment of the magnitude that we are talking about would have a major multiplier effect on inward investment in Wales? I am talking about not just visitors and tourism, but the clusters of aero-industry, and encouraging early rail electrification, which has been delayed. Such measures work together in harmony for Wales, and without them the opposite applies.
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. I am sure that the hon. Lady will not allow herself to stray when responding to that intervention.
Mrs James
Success breeds success, and if the scheme had gone ahead, we could be looking forward to a much brighter and more successful future. Wales still has a lot to offer British troops serving in the UK and overseas. Increasing the defence footprint in Wales will strengthen the Union and local communities. The benefits are wide and invaluable, but the matter is not being addressed by the coalition.
When asked about the equitable distribution of defence spending across the UK, the Defence Secretary stated:
“When I meet troops in Afghanistan, they do not ask one another whether they came from Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh or London. They are forces under the Crown and proud of it.”—[Official Report, 5 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 18.]
And rightly so.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
That is good stuff, but will the hon. Lady explain why over the past 13 years, two military establishments in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire have been gradually eroded, so that they are now approximately one third of the size that they were in 1997?
Mrs James
As we understand, things have been—and are—very difficult. There was an alternative, and under a Labour Government there would have been an opportunity for the defence technical college. As Welsh MPs, we lobbied long and hard for the defence technical college, because we knew that it would bring opportunities and investment.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
One of the big success stories of the defence budget in Wales, and the UK, is RAF Valley in my constituency. It is a centre of excellence for fast jet training, and has had hundreds of millions of pounds of new investment. That is now under threat.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend share my regret that over the past few months we seem to have lost cross-party consensus on protecting the interests of Wales, particularly in terms of defence? I pay tribute to the work of those hon. Members who, under the previous Government, fought to persuade military chiefs and the MOD that south Wales was worth investing in. That support has been lost, and it bodes badly for the future that there will be only one or two parties in Wales to speak up for the interests of Wales.
Mrs James
My hon. Friend is correct. I was part of that lobbying group, and we worked hard to demonstrate how we could provide a service that would have been world-beating, and that would help ensure the safety and future of our brave young men and women.
When I talk about those brave young men and women, I am thinking about people in my community. When we talk to families about how well their sons and daughters are doing, they tell me about the problems and challenges that they face as individuals and as part of the wider community. They are troubled about their future, and given that more than 60,000 people face losing their jobs, the decision on St Athan means that many people have little hope for the future. Those families deserve to be rewarded for the great contribution they have made.
The defence training academy is not only an economically sound investment, a socially beneficial plan and a strategically intelligent initiative, but fair. It is fair that a highly skilled work force should get the investment they deserve, and it is fair for our armed forces to be equipped with the best training and facilities possible.
Simon Hart
Are those brave young men and women the same brave young men and women who had to buy their own kit to fight in Afghanistan over the past few years?
Mrs James
We have heard such tales. I have been approached by families and relations, and I went to the bother of checking out every story. I found that such statements were just not true. There were opportunities for the families to do other things, but the troops had equipment of the highest standard. I can pass on letters that I wrote to Ministers and those I received in reply. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.
Mrs James
Well, the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) is entitled to his opinion, just as I am entitled to mine. It is fair that a community with a proud military history should continue its lasting legacy, and it is fair for Wales to get military investment to match its contribution to our armed forces. The Secretary of State for Wales repeatedly states:
“We have secured a fair settlement for Wales.”—[Official Report, 3 November 2010; Vol. 514, c. 904.]
and the Defence Secretary insists that the best decisions will be made for the defence of the UK. Neither has yet delivered on those promises, although that could change today.
Geraint Davies
Is my hon. Friend surprised that although Conservative Members complain about individual areas of underspending under the previous Government, they support massive cuts to the defence budget, particularly in St Athan? That is absolute hypocrisy.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
My hon. Friend says that the people of Wales know what to expect. Yesterday, I looked at the part of the Ministry of Defence website about defence in Wales. It said that the £14 billion investment in St Athan was still to go ahead. Would it be helpful if the people of Wales were able to look at that website and see accurate information? Perhaps when the Minister responds, he will announce that the website is in fact accurate.
Mrs James
I urge people to look at that website. We must have the most up-to-date information, and I hope that the Minister will give us good news today.
In my closing remarks, I will quote the memorial in St Athan. It says that the boys of the coalfield will
“dedicate themselves to complete the task so nobly begun.”
I hope that the Minister will return to his Department and dedicate himself to completing this task for St Athan, the people of Wales and our brave soldiers.
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. A large number of people are trying to catch my eye. I intend to call the Front-Bench speakers at 10.40 am, and I appeal to all those who wish to contribute to do so as briefly as they reasonably can.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate, Mr Gray, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. As a member of the Defence Committee, although not a Welsh MP, I take a keen interest in these matters. As the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) will acknowledge, the Committee’s report pulled no punches when it came to reviewing the Government’s attitude to the strategic defence and security review, and in reporting its conclusions.
I agree with the concept of a defence training college. One of the critical challenges facing the armed forces is the need to avoid duplication and streamline training processes. When the Defence College of Electro-Mechanical Engineering—DCEME—was formed in April 2004, it brought together a number of separate service training organisations, all of which delivered different forms of engineering. The aim was to exploit synergies, improve training delivery and increase efficiency and effectiveness.
The notion of a defence training college is sound. There is a lot of training duplication across the three services, and anecdotally, there are many common factors to basic engineering training programmes, although that is not always acknowledged by the different services. It is clear that St Athan should play a key role in delivering a harmonised service.
In theory, a further rationalisation to one site could reduce costs and save money. That should bring areas of expertise and excellence together and lead to greater co-operation between the services. However, it is not clear whether the work has been done by the three services to align their training requirements. There are always good reasons to compromise, and different services have different needs. Such matters need to be ironed out, and we must be clear what we are aiming for in this investment.
Huw Irranca-Davies
I appreciate the fact that the hon. Gentleman is taking part in the debate. It is important to have members of the Defence Committee in the Chamber, because this discussion is not only about Wales but about what is best for the armed forces. I appreciate his train of logic, which steers us towards the rationale of having tri-service training on one site—we hope that it will be in Wales, but please let it be somewhere—for the good of the armed forces. However, the hon. Gentleman is approaching a compromise.
I do not want to digress from the subject of the debate, but when the decision was taken on Sheffield Forgemasters, there was an undertaking that discussions would continue. However, nothing has happened. We hear that the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) is delighted that discussions are continuing on this matter, but yet we have heard nothing. Will the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen), or perhaps the Minister, illuminate us on what exactly the future holds for the tri-services and St Athan?
John Glen
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am confident that my hon. Friend the Minister will deal with that point; obviously, I am not in a position to verify it. However, I will point out that the defence academy at Shrivenham is a good example of successfully bringing together different service needs in delivering training. That defence academy has proved a resounding success. The majority of training there is postgraduate, with accredited civilian qualifications the result for many people.
Geraint Davies
The question was asked: where is the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns)? Given that this issue is so strategically important for his constituency and that he is the new MP for the constituency, and if he is saying things about discussions, why is he not here? Where is he?
John Glen
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I understand from colleagues that my hon. Friend is working in the Vale of Glamorgan today. Obviously, I cannot account for the movements of other hon. Members.
The concept of St Athan was good, but it was decided that the project was undeliverable by the Metrix consortium. It is clear that a huge number of courses across the services need harmonising.
Alun Michael
I am a little puzzled about the decision. What the hon. Gentleman refers to was clearly decided—he is right about that—but it does not seem to have been decided on the facts, which demonstrated savings for the armed services as well as efficiencies from the proposals, which were assessed very carefully before the decision to go ahead was made. So why was the decision made to change that? It had all-party support. There was careful examination of the benefits to the services. Where did the decision come from?
John Glen
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. No doubt the Minister will want to deal with the point about the logic of the Government when they made the decision.
What is confusing to me, as someone who has taken an interest in defence matters, is the extent of the investment at St Athan. Let us say that three services are coming together and, for example, work is being done on ship engines. How reasonable and cost-effective will it be to get engines from Portsmouth to St Athan? Is that the right option? To what extent will all that work be cost-effective? Presumably it would be helpful to have a driving range for tanks if people wanted to test the tanks on whose engineering they had been working.
How does the Minister reconcile the fact that, as the hon. Member for Swansea East (Mrs James) said, Wales receives the second lowest “investment” from the MOD with the arguably bigger imperative to achieve value for money for the MOD as a whole and for UK defence as a whole? Looking to the future, I am clear that defence training needs to be harmonised. That issue needs to be considered on two levels. Where would be the best place to site such a college from a UK defence perspective? In addition, such a decision should not be wholly based on relative under-investment in one region of the country or another.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
John Glen
No, I shall make a little more progress and come back to the hon. Gentleman in a minute.
If the best place is St Athan, there is a need to bring certainty to the decision and clarity on the time scale and scope of the project. However, I do not believe that money should be spent in Wales just because it needs the investment. That is just one part of the decision. It is critical to ensure that any consolidated training college addresses the broadest possible needs.
Mrs Moon
I am extremely pleased to see my colleague from the Select Committee on Defence here today and I pay tribute to the work that he does as a Member for whom I have a great deal of respect. However, what he is suggesting today is that the Ministry of Defence has failed over the past three years rigorously to examine the proposal for St Athan. He is suggesting that civil servants and Ministers have neglected to consider all the issues that he has raised. That is just not true.
John Glen
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I have a great deal of respect for her and her knowledge of this subject, but it was her party that was in government for several years and had an opportunity to bring this matter to a conclusion before the election. I wonder why it did not do so.
For me, the challenge remains the need to rationalise defence training and spending across the three services to the broadest possible extent. Let us consider leadership and management training. There are a huge number of locations throughout the UK. There are separate leadership schools and centres of excellence. There are vast numbers of adventure training establishments and music schools. I am frustrated that there is not enough clarity about taking the process that I have described to the furthest extent and perhaps giving greater scope for initiatives such as those that I am discussing.
Huw Irranca-Davies
I worry that what we have here is a softening up. The hon. Gentleman serves on the Defence Committee. Surely he has the ear of the Minister and speaks to him in the corridors, as we try to do as well. Our suspicion is that discussions will continue about St Athan till the cows come home on the pastures of St Athan and that we are being softened up for the tri-service academy not going ahead in any shape or form that we recognise. It will be dispersed somewhere else in the UK or to various other sites in the UK. That is what the hon. Gentleman is hinting at.
John Glen
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Obviously, not being the Minister, I do not have the ability to make those decisions. I am just flagging up the wider defence interests that are at play. A serious examination is needed of what is right for UK defence interests as a whole and the efficient delivery of tri-service support. I am making the case for that to be as broad as possible and for the right decision to be made for the UK.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Diolch, Mr Gray; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East (Mrs James) on achieving this very important debate about defence spending in Wales. The reality is that the trajectory of Government policy in recent years has seen a reduction in defence spending in Wales, and it is very important that we have a discussion about that. Hon. Members are here largely to express their concerns about the ending of the Metrix proposal for the defence training college at St Athan, about which the hon. Member for Swansea East spoke eloquently. It was cancelled in October by the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government in Westminster.
As with other areas of defence, such as the £10.5 billion contract with AirTanker Ltd, the Public Accounts Committee has pointed to the flaws in defence procurement and the difficulties in keeping a lid on projects paid for under private finance initiatives. Indeed, the estimated budget for St Athan, even before work really commenced, had increased substantially, from an original estimate of £12 billion to £14 billion, and that at a time when the recession hit and the necessary capital from land sales was not becoming available as expected.
We shall see in the spring whether St Athan will be successful again, depending on the new criterion being announced for defence training by the UK Government, which will of course have changed in the light of the strategic defence and security review and the downsizing of the number of UK troops who will require those training facilities. However, we can be sure of one thing: the scheme will not go ahead as previously envisaged.
While I am on the subject of St Athan, I need hardly remind everybody that the number of staff working at the site is falling, with 339 job losses having been announced this time last year. Further to that, a response to a parliamentary question a fortnight ago from the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), whom I notice is not here today, concluded that no further work would be done using the super-hangar to maintain and repair RAF aircraft at the base after 2010. Make of that what you will.
However, the topic of today’s debate is defence spending in Wales, and it is good that we can have a debate about that, because those figures have been made available to us. Thanks to the “UK Defence Statistics” annual publication for 2010, published on the Defence Analytical Services Agency website, we can see that the number of jobs as a result of defence spending in Wales under the last Government fell from 8,990 in 1997 to 4,900 today—a drop of 42%. In terms of service personnel, that is a drop of 13% from 3,300 in 1997 to 2,930 this year. In England, the figure has risen by 3%. For civilian personnel, it is a far more substantial drop of 62%, from 5,100 in 1997 to 1,970 today. In England, the figure has fallen by only 30%, which is less than half the fall that happened in Wales. The south-east of England has the largest number of service personnel, with almost 45,000, or, in other terms, 15 times the number of service personnel based in Wales. In percentage terms, those figures might be more striking. Although Wales has 5% of the UK population, only 1.7% of service personnel are stationed there and only 2.8% of civilian Ministry of Defence jobs are in Wales. Meanwhile, of course, almost 20,000 service personnel remain in Germany—seven times as many as in Wales—and there are almost as many service personnel stationed in Cyprus as in our country.
Unfortunately, this year’s figures do not include those for the estimated UK regional direct employment that is dependent on MOD expenditure, which were included in previous editions, such as, “UK Defence Statistics 2009”. In the past, those figures were provided through the MOD by DASA according to country, so that we could see what was taking place—a concentration of defence spending in England, away from Wales, Scotland and the other Celtic nations. The figures in last year’s statistics show that 92% of MOD employment is in England, which has 84% of the UK population, and that 1% of the employment is in Wales. There has been growing centralisation, with that figure rising from 89% of employment in England in 2003-04.
The figures are true for both equipment expenditure and non-equipment expenditure. However, our ability to be aware of those figures and scrutinise them is under threat. Instead of the Government’s being accountable for changes in policy, manpower and spending in different parts of the UK, they will simply no longer publish the statistics relating to them, and, indeed, they have already stopped doing so. That was the subject of a Westminster Hall debate in July secured by my friend, the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), after the Minister for the Armed Forces initially said on the Floor of the House that such country and region statistics would continue, only for a later note to confirm that he had misspoken and the series of statistics would, in fact, be discontinued. This is a matter of freedom of information, as much as anything else. In the United States, such statistics are available to state level, and in Canada, a Commonwealth country with a similar military and parliamentary system to our own, the Department of National Defence produces similar statistics, down to provincial and even constituency level. The simple fact is that we must have open books.
The coalition agreement says
“technological innovation has—with astonishing speed—developed the opportunity to spread information and decentralise power in a way we have never seen before. So we will extend transparency to every area of public life.
The Government believes that we need to throw open the doors of public bodies, to enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account.”
There are two specific commitments in the deal, first:
“We will require full, online disclosure of all central government spending and contracts over £25,000.”
and, secondly,
“We will create a new ‘right to data’ so that government-held datasets can be requested and used by the public, and then published on a regular basis.”
It seems almost self-evident that that transparency and openness necessitates continuing the series of national and regional data in the defence industry, so that we can easily see and scrutinise the amount of spending in the defence sector, inside and outside the UK. If we cannot see the effect on our countries of UK defence spending, how can we, as Members of Parliament, be effective judges of it? I hope the Minister will confirm that the UK Government intend to maintain the series of statistics in accordance with the spirit of their coalition deal. Diolch yn fawr iawn.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
It is depressing for the second time in a fortnight to listen to one or two Opposition hon. Members talking down the Welsh economy in this context. I listened with interest in the Welsh Grand Committee the other day, and nothing much has changed. Let us look at the context, and the Opposition may take some credit for this: 180 companies currently dependent on the MOD in Wales, 25,000 jobs, £220 million of expenditure and £250 million put into the local economy.
I am a beneficiary of that expenditure in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire; we have a great but small MOD establishment at Castlemartin camp. I am hoping for some good news, as the closure of certain tank training ranges in Germany might bring some positive benefits to the area. We have a small MOD establishment at Penally, upon which the local community heavily depends. We have an independent weapons training centre at Pendine, which is crucial to MOD development, not only in Wales but across the UK, and we have at least one very decent Territorial Army unit based in Carmarthen.
I should declare a slight interest in that I served in the Territorial Army for a number of years, and very good years they were too. I acknowledge the comments made by the hon. Member for Swansea East (Mrs James) about the colleagues I used to deal with back in those days. What a different place it was then—the most dangerous place I ever went to in the TA was Warminster. Now the regiment with which I served goes to a lot more dangerous places than that. Not only do the local soldiers contribute to the Territorial Army in west Wales, but so, too, do their employers, which let them off work without concern for what effect it might have on their businesses, day after day, week after week, and weekend after weekend. In the interests of the nation, they gladly let these guys go off to train. Those are all positive things, which the MOD and wider armed service community bring to our local area.
Geraint Davies
I am bemused. Surely the hon. Gentleman should be calling for greater investment on behalf of his constituents to bring jobs and prosperity to his constituency rather than supporting cuts. I cannot understand this.
Simon Hart
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He troubles me, because, surely, defence of the realm is the most important thing on which to base our decisions in this context. Delightful though it is, this is not a job creation scheme. This is about defending the nation in the context of an extremely complicated and rather depressing financial background and the £38-billion black hole in defence procurement spending, with which we were left.
Geraint Davies
Is it important today to back the deficit and cuts generally, ignoring the difference between investing in our strategic interests for the future to defend our country and spending? Clearly, this is all about cuts and not the interests of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents.
Simon Hart
I could not disagree more: the point I made about Castlemartin is valid in this context. Of course I have been in touch with the Secretary of State for Defence and the Minister about the future of that depot and others.
Simon Hart
No. It is simply not possible to have this conversation as if the UK economy did not exist. We have to operate within the context of the wider economic circumstances in which, for whatever reason, we have been placed. That is where we are. Of course the decisions have to be taken with local interests in mind, but, ultimately, as the Minister said earlier, surely this has to be about defence needs in that wider context.
Simon Hart
The choices are almost too tempting. Who was first? I believe the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was the patient one.
Chris Bryant
I had almost given up on the hon. Gentleman, but now I am on my feet I am grateful to him for giving way. He referred to the completely fallacious figure of £36 billion—or he may have inflated it to £38 billion. The National Audit Office made it clear that if there was a gap at all, it was of £6 billion. He should not perpetuate these myths.
Simon Hart
The hon. Gentleman will be pleased that I am able to quote. The black hole of £38 billion in unfunded procurement commitments to which I referred is from an MOD brief, post-SDSR defence SB, from 19 October 2010. If that is good enough for the MOD, it is good enough for me. I am sorry that it is not good enough for him.
Mr Robathan
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful case. The figure is not fallacious; the MOD budget was projected to be overspent by £38 billion over the next 10 years.
Mr Robathan
It is not drivel. My hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) knows that the previous Labour Government were planning cuts across the board, throughout Government spending, of 20%. Hearing people defending such matters does not go down well.
Simon Hart
I thank the Minister for his intervention.
Let me turn briefly to St Athan. It is not my normal habit to come to the defence of my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), but he is actually in the Vale of Glamorgan today, where he is working hard on behalf of his constituents.
Simon Hart
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), I am not, sadly, in possession of the diary of my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan. [Interruption.] I wish I had not bothered to do this. However, nobody can doubt my hon. Friend’s commitment to the future of St Athan. [Interruption.] I would love to continue, but if anybody wishes to intervene, they can do so.
Simon Hart
I am sorry that it took such a long time to give way to the hon. Gentleman—it is nothing personal.
Chris Ruane
What could be more important to a Member than defending a £20 billion investment in their own constituency?
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. Before the hon. Gentleman answers, let me say that it is a long tradition of the House that we do not discuss Members who are not present in the Chamber unless we have given them notice that we intend to do so. This particular discussion is not necessarily central to our debate on defence spending in Wales, and I suggest that the hon. Gentleman returns to the main topic under discussion.
Simon Hart
Absolutely, Mr Gray. I apologise for coming—unnecessarily, as it turns out—to the defence of my colleague.
Simon Hart
No, I want to make a wee bit of progress. Fun though these exchanges are, they will come to an end in the very near future.
The facts are these. As I said earlier, one of the depressing features of the Welsh Grand Committee—I will be reprimanded again in a minute—is the extraordinary denial about the past 13 years; it is as if they never existed. The truth is that Metrix simply could not deliver what we hoped on time or on price. If there is a difference between the previous and the current Governments, it is that the current Government are not prepared to go down the road of signing off, willy-nilly, contracts that we can justify neither financially nor in the context of defence.
Huw Irranca-Davies
I genuinely thank the hon. Gentleman for his clarity and honesty, because we are seeing a complete volte-face from the Conservative party’s position before the election, when there was cross-party sign-up and support for the Metrix bid and the MOD’s analysis of it. The hon. Gentleman has now made it clear that the bid did not stack up—not in terms of the MOD’s priorities, but in terms of spending, and that is a tragedy. We now know that if we argued for the Metrix bid for St Athan, we would not have the Conservative party’s support.
Simon Hart
I thank the right hon. Gentleman—I think he is right honourable—for his contribution.
Simon Hart
It is only a matter of time. Despite that, I do not agree with a word that the hon. Gentleman said. The Government faced some extremely difficult choices—hon. Members have heard that expression before—in the context of not only defence spending, but every other form of inward investment in Wales. The evidence speaks for itself, and the Minister will no doubt put us right. We should also not allow ourselves to be tempted into believing that this is somehow the end of the road for St Athan, because it has been made perfectly clear that it is not. However, we will hear more about that, and I do not want to steal the Minister’s thunder.
I said that this would be a brief contribution, although it has been slightly longer than I had intended. However, as an ex-serviceman on the very fringes of the military, I think it is simply nonsense to believe that decisions can be taken on the basis purely of local need or local economic considerations, rather than the nation’s overall defence needs in the overall context of the UK economy.
Simon Hart
No. I am coming to an end.
We are holding the telescope to the wrong eye if we think the nation can proceed in that way economically or in a defence context. I am delighted that we are facing up to that issue, because Labour Members have not done so before. That depresses me, and every intervention by a Labour Member has simply confirmed my fear that they are prepared to take decisions with no possible concern for the economic, local or defence consequences.
Simon Hart
No. I will finish now. I am sure that the hon. Lady will then have the floor.
To end on a lighter note, there is one decision on which I commend the previous Government: they ensured that the Welsh Guards regimental goat, William Windsor, survived their various assaults on the armed services in Wales. However, it is all very well the hon. Member for Swansea East referring to the many letters that she may have received from satisfied servicemen’s families. I do not know what world she inhabits, but I can assure her that, in the world that I have been inhabiting, I have had personal contact year after year, month after month, and day after day with people who are in the service of our country abroad who have been begging for some small improvement in their lot. They are deeply frustrated by the inactivity or incompetence—I do not know which—that, I am afraid, epitomised 13 years of Labour rule for those who happened to be armed servicemen.
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. A further seven or eight hon. Members are trying to catch my eye. According to my elementary arithmetic, that means that they will have three or four minutes apiece. It would be courteous if hon. Members could keep the length of their contributions down to something of that order.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I want to distance myself slightly from something that the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) said. This is a serious debate, and Labour Members do not see it as fun. Wales is strategically important for defence training and the security of the whole United Kingdom, and Labour Members are proud of the investment that has gone into enhancing that capability over the past 10 years. The best pilots in the world are trained in Anglesey, and they are there because of the strategic importance of its RAF base. Those facts do not bear out any of the hon. Gentleman’s points.
I pay tribute to the Welsh personnel who serve in the armed forces and who serve overseas. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Mrs James), whom I congratulate on securing the debate, I think it is important also to mention those behind the scenes who are involved in setting up operations. Similarly, it is important to mention the Territorial Army, and that is one thing on which I agree with the previous speaker; Wales makes one of the greatest contributions of volunteers, and I pay tribute to them. I am sure that the Minister will join me in that.
Defence spending in Wales is vital to defence training in the whole United Kingdom and to the important role that that plays in NATO. The United Kingdom is part of NATO, and plays an important defence role in that context. However, we need commitment and sustainability for the future, and that is what the debate is about.
I am concerned that the strategic defence and security review was conducted in a hurry. It was done just before a comprehensive spending review and was, frankly, caught up in it. I would rather that decisions had been made in the cold light of day, based on strategic defence requirements, than in the heat of a comprehensive spending review. The strategic defence and security review must be bolder and look at broader issues. It must look at least a quarter of a century ahead. I welcome the Government’s five-year review, which is important, because things change. The threats to the United Kingdom change considerably, and we do not know where they will come from in the next three to four years, let alone the next 25 years. I therefore agree with the idea of a five-year review.
It is important that the Minister tells us what impact the departure, in my constituency, of 5,000 air personnel from the RAF would have on defence spending and defence personnel in Wales.
Albert Owen
I will give way briefly, but I am aware of the time constraints.
Albert Owen
Actually, I have lobbied on these issues. If the hon. Gentleman knows me, he will know that there is no difference between my criticisms of the Labour Government and of the current Government when I think that they are wrong. I think the current Government are wrong to have carried out the review so quickly. There is a window of opportunity to review things in five years, but that might be too late—that is the risk. We should have taken about 18 months to have a proper defence review. Whichever party was in office, the comprehensive spending review would have had to be done, and there would have had to be cuts, but we could have seen things in the cold light of day and had those strategic defence reviews in the future. That is my point.
I am conscious of the time, and had wanted to speak a bit longer than I will now be able to, because the subject is very important to Wales and my constituency. As the Minister knows, RAF Valley is in my constituency and is a centre of excellence for fast jet training with Hawks. There has been huge investment there in the past 10 years. Only last week a new building was opened, which will house the new Mk 2 jets. They are fantastic equipment and I am proud that they are British and will be part of our defence training.
The search and rescue headquarters is also based at RAF Valley. I was not 100% keen on the decision of the previous Government about part-privatisation, but I did understand the need to harmonise Navy and RAF helicopters, and, indeed, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency search and rescue, and bring them together. That decision—with billions of pounds of private investment coming into it—has been put on hold, and that will have a considerable impact on defence expenditure in Wales and my constituency. I am concerned about it and would like the Minister to clear up the matter of whether we shall continue with a part-privatisation, or whether there will be full privatisation. The uncertainty is affecting the morale of people employed in my constituency, who include a very famous member of the royal family, Flight Lieutenant Wales; that has got some attention.
The base is strategically important for search and rescue. If the part-privatisation had gone ahead, RAF Valley would have been the first base for such training in the whole United Kingdom. That would have been massively important to the local economy of north-west Wales, and the rest of Wales. I want some answers from the Minister about that, if possible. It is hugely important, and the base is there not because of job opportunities but because of Anglesey’s strategic importance to the United Kingdom. The base has an excellent record.
As to the strategic defence review itself, the impact that the loss of 5,000 personnel from the RAF alone will have on Wales is important. I do not believe everything that I read in the newspapers, but I was very concerned—I want the Minister to deal with this if he has the opportunity—to read an article in The Sunday Times of 28 November with the headline “Cuts leave RAF with fewer jets than Sweden”. I do not know much about Swedish defence, but I know that Britain trains and provides the best fighter jet pilots in the world, and I want that to remain the case. The article continues to say that many of the smaller NATO countries—and on the graph we are one of the smallest NATO countries with military fighter attack—would use a NATO base in Texas. I am happy to acknowledge the contribution of the Americans, but I do not think that their pilots are as good as ours. We need European and British involvement in NATO, and I cannot see why we cannot enhance our bases here, and get more Americans and Canadians. Canadians, Indians and Saudis come to RAF Valley now to train.
Billions of pounds have been invested in strategic defence. Hundreds of millions have been invested in the past 10 years in RAF Valley. I want that to continue. There are 1,500 personnel there, both civilian and military. It is top quality. It is a centre of excellence, not just in this country, but in the world. The search and rescue headquarters has people coming from all over the world, including Hong Kong, to see what we do, because we do it best. I am concerned that the strategic defence and security review, coupled with the comprehensive spending review, could undermine that and have a huge impact on strategic defence, and on local economies in Wales.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this feisty and entertaining debate. I thank all hon. Members who have taken part and congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East (Mrs James) on securing it.
As hon. Members can probably tell, I am not a Welsh speaker or, for that matter, a Welsh Member of Parliament. I represent Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, one of the finest naval bases in the country. I am struck by the fact that no one seems to have mentioned at any length during the debate the financial position that the coalition Government found they were in when they came to power. [Hon. Members: “ Oh!”] I know that it is something we would all like to try to ignore, but unfortunately it is an issue that must be tackled. Whether hon. Members believe it or not, when the Government came to power they found that they had a £38 billion shortfall in the Ministry of Defence budget. At some stage that had to be dealt with. I realise that there are some who may feel that we do not need to tackle that issue at this stage of the game, but the civil servants who gave the coalition Government advice are the same ones who were in post prior to the general election, and they gave that advice to the Labour Government.
Albert Owen
I think that we need to kill this myth. We are talking about strategic defence for the next 25 years, not an economic cycle. Is the hon. Gentleman honestly saying that the Government are setting their priority for the defence of the nation within that five-year cycle?
Oliver Colvile
I wrote, during the run up to the strategic defence and security review, my own submission, in which I said that we certainly needed to re-order our priorities, and that defence was No. 1 of the two issues that I thought were important, along with long-term care for the elderly, which I still think is a very important issue for us to deal with. However, we are where we are. None of us came into the House to vote to cut defence expenditure. I for one will continue to campaign to ensure that my constituency stays firmly up in its position alongside other such places.
Before I go any further I pay tribute to the Welsh servicemen who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq, and those who have served in the Falklands, along with many Royal Marines from my constituency; no one should underplay the contribution they made.
Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport has, in the past 10 years, had similar concerns about what would happen to it to those outlined by hon. Members. Frigates were potentially to be moved to Portsmouth—
Oliver Colvile
If I may say so, Mr Gray, there is a similarity with some of the issues that affect Wales.
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. Similarity is not enough. The debate must be about defence spending in Wales, and not about Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, close as it is to the hon. Gentleman’s heart.
Oliver Colvile
The issue of where in the United Kingdom public expenditure will go must be taken as a whole.
Nick Smith
With respect, the hon. Gentleman is the second Government ringer who has been brought into the debate this morning. We need to talk about the defence of this country in Wales, and not to hear about his constituency.
Oliver Colvile
Fine. What I will say is that Wales has a significant part to play in the defence of our country, as have other parts of the United Kingdom, including my area. I should be interested to hear from the Minister not only what action he will take on issues to do with various bases in Wales, but what activity there will be in Wales to ensure that there are combat stress facilities, and similar things. We should not be talking just about investment in defence procurement and infrastructure. We need also to ensure that our servicemen and women, who have done such a good job for our country, have the opportunity to be well looked after, when they have done their time with the services. I ask the Minister to consider that and set out what is being done.
Debate on the subject will continue for some time, and I welcome the decision to have regular reviews. I will be fighting from my perspective, and I have no doubt that Opposition Members will do so from theirs. It is up to us to see who shouts loudest and puts forward the best case for the Government to listen to.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Mrs James) on securing the debate. Even in a debate about defence spending, we cannot talk about defence without paying tribute to our brave men and women fighting overseas. I stood, like many other hon. Members, at cenotaphs in St Fagans, Pontllanfraith and Cefn Fforest in my constituency, and Maes-y-cymer, where we paid tribute to our war dead. We should always keep them in mind when we talk about defence.
I want to focus on the effect of defence spending on the wider economy. The defence footprint in Wales is massive and hugely underestimated. I often liken it to the car industry. There is no Welsh car but our supply chain, which manufactures components for cars, has a massive effect on the car industry. About 2,300 people work in defence in Wales; £250 million is spent by the Ministry of Defence with firms in Wales. My hon. Friends the Member for Swansea East (Mrs James) and the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) discussed St Athan, the training college, and made an important point about RAF Valley. A delay in one thing has a knock-on effect on the economy. With the promise of an MOD contract, firms ask to borrow money from banks. The bank manager will ask when the contract is arriving. They wait and wait, but still nothing. What happens is that the firm goes to the wall, the contract is eventually awarded by the Government, but there is no firm to produce the components needed.
That strikes at the heart of the problem with this Government at the moment: a real lack of understanding of economics. The idea that the public sector and the private sector should be separate is absolutely wrong, and if anywhere that can be shown to be the case, it is in the defence industry. Ian Godden, the chairman of ADS, the British aerospace and defence industry body, has warned that the British defence industry will halve in size from 10% to 5% of the UK’s manufacturing output. The main customer for the defence industry is the Government, who have the power to shrink or grow the sector. Unfortunately, they have made the decision to shrink it. It is not about cutting an aircraft carrier or a tanker; it is about cutting investment for the future. That is the problem with defence cuts.
Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman appears to be making the case for defence spending to be used as an economic development tool, which contradicts the comments made about the need for a strategic defence view of the world. In the context of arguing for defence spending as an economic development tool, can he justify why for the past five years—between 2003-04 and 2007-08—defence spending in Wales was less than 1% of the total under the Labour Government?
Chris Evans
I will come to that point when I discuss General Dynamics in my constituency.
This is about the knock-on effect on the economy. If a major defence contractor comes to a constituency—as we have been lucky enough to experience in Islwyn with General Dynamics UK—the knock-on effect is amazing. GDUK came to Islwyn, because Government encouraged it to invest in the community, and we are glad that it is there. If we look at the knock-on effect, a ground-breaking innovation centre—the EDGE facility at Newbridge—has been set up to enable small and medium-sized enterprises to transform innovative ideas into products fit for market. The centre acts as a springboard for new IP—intellectual property—providing a collaborative environment where the MOD, Britain’s leading universities and high-tech SMEs are able to conduct rapid testing of new advances in technology.
That is the reality of defence. GDUK is a Welsh success story. The battlefield communication, Bowman, was developed in my constituency. The company has sent technology all over the world and has invested in upskilling its workers. The company takes the view that that would have been impossible without the support from Government for its successes. The fact is that once the technology is cut, it never returns. That is what we need to see when we are talking about defence. I have kept my comments short in order to allow other speakers an opportunity to make a speech..
Mrs Moon
It is highly appropriate that you are chairing this Committee, Mr Gray, given your knowledge and experience in the field of defence.
As a newly appointed member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, I have recently discussed with members across Europe their view that the British defence and security review was rushed. That is not just an impression in the UK, but across NATO, where there is concern at the result of the cuts for European defence.
We are here to look specifically at the impact on defence in Wales. I recall a statement of my mother’s that she threw at me many a time: “Decide in haste, repent at leisure.” That is the situation with the strategic defence and security review—a decision that is going to impact dramatically on our sovereign capability, our skills capability and our financial—
Oliver Colvile
The Labour Government were in power for 13 years yet, after the initial period, they failed to produce a review. Why did they not have a review much sooner, as the coalition Government have had?
Mrs Moon
The Labour Government held a number of reviews, but not full defence and security reviews. There was a constant review of our capability, which had to take place because of our involvement in Afghanistan. I do not think anyone can say that the Labour Government failed to review and assess constantly the needs of our armed forces.
I want to focus on the issues of sovereign capabilities and skills capabilities in the defence industry in Wales. I am particularly concerned that we are not looking at the impact of cuts on our long-term capacity to protect our troops with the equipment and the platforms that they need. Prime contractors are represented in Wales, as colleagues have mentioned. Defence manufacturers based in Wales include EADS in Newport, General Dynamics in Islwyn and Thales Optics in St Asaph. For every job created by the industry, 1.6 jobs are created elsewhere in the economy. It has been calculated that a £100 million investment in the industry creates 1,885 jobs throughout the UK economy, 726 of which will be directly in the defence industry.
I want to focus on the role of SMEs in the defence sector in Wales, and to make the case for supporting and nurturing them in the months and years ahead. According to research from the Defence Industries Council, there are more SMEs in the UK defence industry than in the French, German, Italian and Spanish industries combined. Interestingly, General Dynamics—in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans)—said in evidence to the Select Committee on Defence:
“GDUK believes passionately in building a strong supply chain based on British companies, and in particular SMEs; and we practise what we preach. 70% by value of our work on Bowman is undertaken by British companies.”
The Bowman programme is based in south Wales. In the same evidence, GDUK stated:
“We took a deliberate decision to concentrate that growth on south Wales. Following the recent signature of the contract for the Demonstration Phase of the Scout Platform, we expect the size of our work force to grow steadily over the next three years, again with much of that in south Wales.”
We have to remember that the impact of the growth of General Dynamics will rely strongly on 70% of SMEs being financially capable of surviving the current round of cuts and insecurity around contracting coming out of the MOD.
Guto Bebb
It would appear that we are again receiving a lecture about the role of defence spending in economic development. I am bemused by the fact that between 2003-04 and 2007-08, defence spending in Wales fell from £430 million to £390 million under the Labour Government.
Mrs Moon
The hon. Gentleman is trying to turn the whole debate. I am frightened by the debate, because the Government seem not understand that our defence capability relies on the defence industry being able to provide the equipment, and on our having the skills and the sovereign capability to provide our troops with the ability to defend this country.
Mrs Moon
No, I am not giving way again; our time is severely limited and I want to make progress.
I have made contact both with SMEs that form part of the supply chain of equipment to the MOD and with the large companies that I mentioned earlier. In my constituency, I have TB Davies, AMSS Ltd, Spectrum Technologies and TES Aviation, all of which are not only vital to the economy of Wales and of my constituency but provide the skills base that allows the MOD to provide the platforms needed by our armed forces.
It would be irresponsible not to consider the implications that the loss of the skills of the SMEs based in Wales would have for our prime contractors; we should remember that 70% of the work of those main contractors is allocated to SMEs. If we do not protect those SMEs, if we do not consider that skills base, if we do not consider our sovereign capabilities, we will put the defence of this country at severe risk.
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Mrs James) on securing this debate. I put on record a point that has been made by Members on both sides of the Chamber: we should continue to pay tribute to our armed forces personnel for the job that they do, often in extremely difficult circumstances. Of course, they are backed up and supported by civilian personnel, who provide their own area of expertise.
We had a full debate on the strategic defence and security review on 4 November. The last thing that we want this morning is a re-run of that debate. That is not what today is about. It is a real opportunity to show just how much defence spending means to Wales as a nation. I hope that Labour colleagues, at least, will accept that as a Celt, I recognise what defence spending means in Wales, and in Scotland and every other part of the United Kingdom.
Nick Smith
Does my good friend agree that what we heard from Members on the Government Benches today was a shameless misrepresentation of Labour’s position? Labour in Wales is standing up for the defence of our country, while recognising that employment is important to our constituencies. All that we had from the other side was a couple of defence ringers, who did not properly recognise our emphasis on our country’s defence.
Mr Brown
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I hope to cover some of the points that have been raised this morning, and I shall comment on that.
It is pretty clear that military establishments and bases are dotted across the entire UK. It must be recognised that those facilities become part of day-to-day life in those communities, whether through a sense of pride in being associated with the defence of our country, or simply because of the employment opportunities that they may bring. Frankly, whatever the reason, it all matters.
I want to quote from the debate of 4 November, because comment has been passed on the manner in which the strategic defence and security review came about. The quotation, from Hansard, is:
“The strategic defence and security review was an opportunity to reshape the UK’s military force in that changing global security landscape. Unfortunately, according to the Royal United Services Institute, 68% of the defence and security community felt that it was a ‘lost opportunity for a more radical reassessment of the UK’s role in the world’.”—[Official Report, 4 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 1074.]
Many of us, including all Labour Members, have said that it was far too quick. The previous full review under the Labour Government took some 15 months to complete.
Chris Bryant
I hope that my hon. Friend will make it clear that there has been another loss of opportunity in relation to the St Athan defence technical college. We supported it not primarily because we wanted investment in Wales but because we wanted to improve training for our armed forces. So many of our young men and women go into the armed forces, and we wanted to make sure that their lives were protected and that they had the best training possible.
Mr Brown
Absolutely. I shall come to that later, but I have to say to my hon. Friend that I could not have put it much better. Until now, at least, there has been more than a fair degree of consensus on what was to happen at St Athan. It is somewhat disappointing that we are not getting the same feeling today.
Mr Brown
My hon. Friend is an extremely knowledgeable member of the Select Committee, and is exactly right; indeed, the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) indicated the same thing at the start of his speech. It basically made sense, and the Select Committee gave it full backing.
Mr Brown
I clearly picked up from the start of the hon. Gentleman’s contribution that St Athan, and what was previously proposed on a cross-party basis, made sense. However, Hansard will show what was said.
We see uncertainty in the questions that are being tabled, whether on departmental redundancies, rescue services or the level of savings. This morning, in contributions from both sides of the Chamber, we have heard that that uncertainty still exists. We need to be clear about where we are going with St Athan. I am not convinced that the Minister will be able to tell us today, but indications are that we might hear in the spring. For all concerned, I sincerely hope that we will have a clearer idea by then.
A question was asked about what that uncertainty does for communities. The debate is about defence spending. It is about investment. It is about the future of our armed forces, and what we are best able to do to serve those who serve the nation in difficult circumstances. They do not need uncertainty. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) made the valid point that small and medium-sized enterprises in many communities play a vital role. Uncertainty about where we are going can destroy SMEs, a point made also by my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans). Delays lead to economic uncertainty.
The figure of £38 billion was mentioned once again. I wish to make it abundantly clear that that sum was never to be found in any document. The figure that was spoken of came from page 22 of the MOD major projects report of 2009, which mentioned £6 billion over 10 years. The only way that that £6 billion could become £38 billion was to assume that there would be no increase in Britain’s defence budget until 2021. That was never going to be the case under a Labour Government, and I sincerely hope that it was never going to be the case under any coalition Government. In fact, there was a 10% rise in defence spending between 1997 and 2010. In this country, defence spending consistently formed 2.5% of GDP—one of the highest levels in the world, so it is not that we scrimped at all.
I appreciate that I need to allow time for the Minister to speak. I am only sorry that I cannot give him more time. Members on the Opposition Benches have been clear this morning: they want more certainty on the matter. Let me finish with something that was said by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile)—he and I sat together at a dinner a couple of weeks ago. There was almost an admission from him that this rushed strategic defence and security review was financially driven; it was not in the best interests of our country, our defences or those who serve in foreign lands.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
This is the first Westminster Hall debate to which I have contributed in the past five years. It is a pleasure to be here and to be under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East (Mrs James) on securing the debate. She spoke about the effects that choices on defence spending can have on regions of the United Kingdom, and I hope to return to her words shortly.
There has been some suggestion that the Government are, in some way, anti-Welsh; that they have their daggers out for Wales. That is absolutely not the case. Let me give my own credentials. My great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were doctors in Islwyn, in Risca. My grandfather was headmaster of Llandaff Cathedral school.
Mr Robathan
I am just saying that I am not Welsh- [Interruption.] Rather, I am not anti-Welsh. The name Robathan is Welsh. In fact, in Islwyn, there are many Robathans in the telephone book. I had a great-uncle in the Welsh Guards, and another great-uncle who was killed at Gallipoli.
Mr Robathan
The hon. Gentleman is always full of hot air. If he could listen for a bit, he will hear what I have to say about some of the comments that have been made. I also had a great-uncle in the Welch Regiment who was killed at Gallipoli. I would rather not be accused of being anti-Welsh. I can promise that I have spent more time on the Brecon Beacons in the driving rain and snow and in Sennybridge than most people in this Chamber, possibly with the exception of you, Mr Gray, and my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart). I have also climbed from Capel Curig adventure training camp. Those are all the military assets in Wales that I have used in my life. I would rather not hear the suggestion that we are anti-Welsh. This is the first Welsh debate in which I have taken part, because I am not representing Wales.
Let me pay tribute to all the civilians who work for the MOD and in defence projects in St Athan and elsewhere in Wales. I should also like to pay tribute to all the armed forces who are based in Wales or who are from Wales. Indeed, I support anyone who supports the defence of the United Kingdom from wherever they come.
I have been surprised by this debate because I have found it extraordinarily narrow and partisan [Interruption.] Did the hon. Gentleman say because it is Welsh? I find it astonishing. The hon. Member for Swansea East compared the desecration of war memorials in her constituency with the fact that we are not proceeding with the Metrix bid at St Athan. I can see no relationship there at all; I do not believe that her constituents or people outside will, either.
Hon. Members have spoken about the SDSR, but let me be quite clear about it. Across Government, we have faced the worst financial and economic crisis that anybody in this room has seen in their lifetime. [Interruption.] It is no good groaning. The hon. Member for Rhondda was a Minister in the previous Government and he knows that it is true.
We are currently borrowing £143 million a day. In terms of defence in Wales, that would buy, every week, three Type 45 destroyers. [Interruption.] Do they never go to Welsh ports? It is not fallacious, as the hon. Member for Rhondda said—[Interruption.] Gosh, he witters. It is not fallacious that the defence budget was overspent by £38 billion; it is true.
Let me turn briefly to some of the remarks that have been made. First, the hon. Member for Swansea East quite reasonably wants to hear about St Athan. One of the biggest decisions that the Ministry of Defence had to take was on the defence training rationalisation programme. We have heard at length about its cancellation. Put simply, that project, in the guise that it was in, was never going to be made affordable. Despite strenuous efforts by the Department—under both the previous and current Administrations—it became clear that the bidder, Metrix, was unable to deliver an affordable, commercially robust proposal within the prescribed period. On that basis, the Defence Secretary decided to terminate the project.
We continue to believe that individual technical training co-located on fewer sites, as my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) mentioned, remains the best solution for the armed forces, but not necessarily for St Athan. The SDSR committed the Government to continuing to look at options from pre-training across the services.
Chris Bryant
This is a serious point. Many of us believe that bringing together all the forces for technical training is an important part of what was suggested in the past. It has worked extremely well at Shrivenham. Who would ever have thought that the Royal Navy would be prepared to leave Greenwich? It has, and it has worked. Is the Minister still saying that he wants to achieve purple training in, we hope, St Athan or elsewhere?
Mr Robathan
As the hon. Gentleman will understand, I have to be very careful not to commit myself to things that we are reviewing at the moment. None the less, we do see a need and a sensible way forward for more purple training on some issues. Some of that may take place in St Athan and some elsewhere.
I can assure hon. Members that St Athan is still being considered; a substantial amount of training continues at St Athan.
Geraint Davies
Will the Minister give us some indication of the time frame in which we will get clarity over whether there will be a joint establishment and where it will be? Will it be in a year, two years, three years, or does he just not know?
Mr Robathan
The review does not have an end date, but I expect it to be within the next few months.
I appreciate that the cancellation of the DTR was not something that the hon. Member for Swansea East or the people of south Wales wanted to hear. The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) pointed out the rocketing costs of the DTR in St Athan. He said that in two years they had gone up from £12 billion to £14 billion. He mentioned the job losses. He said that almost half the people who were employed by the MOD 13 years ago are now not employed. He also talked about the Red Dragon hangar. The previous Government decided to build that hangar. It cost £107 million and it was to accommodate the refurbishment of 48 Tornados and Harriers. The repairs and refurbishment were cancelled before the hangar was completed in 2004; it was a complete waste of money.
The hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) talked about the Metrix decision being made in the context of the SDSR. He is wrong. It was separate from the SDSR and not part of our overall view. He also talked about RAF Valley. I can reassure him that RAF Valley plays a very important role in pilot training—fast jet training. If there are changes, we will keep him informed. He is also welcome to write to me, and I will write to him if changes come up.
The hon. Gentleman talked about Texas. I have to say that the weather is generally better there than in Anglesey.
Albert Owen
Will the Minister tell us the position with regard to replacing Sea Kings with Sikorsky helicopters? The £7 billion contract is important.
Mr Robathan
I am afraid that I do not have the time, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman.
In conclusion, the previous Government let down the United Kingdom. They let down United Kingdom defence and they let down Wales. I was told today that Labour was standing up for defence. It has not been standing up for defence in Wales but for narrow partisan interests. Frankly, it is a scandal. We will not make defence decisions based on regional party political advantage, or on the advantage of the Principality; we will make a clear-headed assessment on what is best for our armed forces, the United Kingdom—including the Principality—and its defence.
Football Grounds (Regulation)
(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to have this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. When I submitted my request for this short Westminster Hall debate, the title had the words “Keep Scunthorpe Standing” in it. The Table Office informed me, in its own inimitable way, that that was sloganeering and would need to be improved. Hence the title that we have today. Nevertheless, it is on Scunthorpe United that I wish to focus my attention. I should certainly declare my interest as a season ticket holder at Glanford Park, albeit in the seated Grove Wharf stand.
Before I go further, let me take the opportunity to praise all associated with Scunthorpe United. It is a small club that, despite a recent run of results that we would rather forget, is punching above its weight. It has, in Steve Wharton, a chairman who, like his father before him, has run the club sensibly and in a businesslike manner that some might say could be a model for other clubs up and down the land.
Scunthorpe United is not a club that changes its manager every five minutes. Instead, it grows managers out of its coaching personnel. It has been well served by Brian Laws and Nigel Adkins, and it is now being well served by Ian Baraclough. They have built good teams out of scarce resources, and the players are to be applauded for their achievements in recent years. Having said that, the “team” of a football club includes all the other staff who work day-in, day-out, to make all the backroom activities happen, and those other staff at Scunthorpe United are also brilliant.
Scunthorpe United is a club rooted in its community that does excellent work in education through its “Study United” programme, and it takes on apprentices each year as part of an ongoing commitment to sports development. It also has loyal and dedicated fans, such as David Beverley and his colleagues, who have been working with the Football Supporters Federation on the “Keep Scunthorpe Standing” campaign.
Currently, the rules state that once a club has been in the championship for three years, its stadium must become an all-seater stadium. Everyone fully understands the awfulness of the Hillsborough stadium disaster of 15 April 1989, and the recommendations for all-seater stadiums were a key component of Lord Justice Taylor’s excellent report into the disaster. There have been many significant strides forward in ground safety since that time. Thankfully the world—in terms of stadium safety—is a different place today.
The hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) made an excellent speech yesterday introducing his ten-minute rule Bill, in which he very ably set out all these issues. As he explained, it is perfectly possible for the United Kingdom to have safe standing in the same way that the Bundesliga does.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing this issue to the House. AFC Bournemouth is doing very well in the first division at the moment, and this issue concerns AFC Bournemouth, too. There is a change in technology, which I hope the hon. Gentleman will recognise, that makes things very different from how they were at the time of the terrible events at Hillsborough, to which he referred. I hope that that change in technology is something that we might be able to embrace, and I hope that we will say, “Can we actually introduce this now?”
Nic Dakin
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I compliment AFC Bournemouth on the good season that it is having. He is right to draw attention to changes in technology and stadium management, and more modern methods of properly policing football grounds and ensuring fans’ safety. Those are the issues that we need to look at. The rules on all-seater stadiums need to be revisited for modern times. There should be no compromise on safety, but there should be common sense. If Scunthorpe’s standing capacity has been safe for all these years and appropriate safety management is in place, there is no strong argument for replacing it with seating.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, although it is very important to have safety, it is surely not impossible to marry safety with the finance available? Finance has to be a key factor for any football club and any football ground at the present time.
Nic Dakin
I absolutely agree with the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. Safety is crucial and should never be compromised, but there also needs to be a sensible way forward. In these difficult financial times, that is very important. The Glanford Park terracing has stood for more than 20 years. It is under threat solely because the football team has been successful. It is my contention, and that of the Football Supporters Federation, that Scunthorpe United and its supporters should not be penalised and lose the safe standing option because of the club’s success.
If the current rules are adhered to, a very small club will have to spend significant amounts of money during these difficult financial times to convert the safe standing area into seating. That would mean that the club would have the invidious choice of paying even more for a larger seating area, to maintain the maximum ground capacity of around 9,000, or reducing the ground capacity significantly.
Seating the Doncaster road end would reduce Glanford Park’s capacity by about 1,000. That would mean fewer tickets would be available for big games, such as the recent Carling cup game against Manchester United or the forthcoming FA cup visit of Everton. In turn, that would mean more disappointed fans and less revenue for the club. There is a danger that such a move would harm the club because it would be forced to divert its limited financial resources and energy into redeveloping the stand; that money would be better spent on improving the team or enhancing the experience of supporters.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and, as he is obviously aware, Glanford Park is in my constituency and I am delighted to work closely with him on this issue. However, is there not an even more important issue here? We talk about localism a lot; this issue is about what the fans want, and what the fans of Scunthorpe United are saying very clearly is, “Let us make our decision about what we want, and let us keep our terraces.”
Nic Dakin
The hon. Gentleman is exactly right in many respects. It is important to listen to what local people and local fans are saying. However, we would not and should not compromise safety. Nevertheless, it comes back to looking at this issue in the modern circumstances of today and recognising that Scunthorpe United’s stadium is a 9,000-capacity ground, with average crowds of 5,000. I will just make a little more progress now before taking any other interventions.
The Football League, in its letter to the Minister for Sport and the Olympics of 22 October, stated quite clearly:
“Football League clubs, particularly in Leagues One and Two, are evidence that standing at football is safe when managed correctly.”
That is a very helpful statement.
Mr Ellwood
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for being generous in taking interventions. It is important that safety is stressed. Cost is also critical. AFC Bournemouth is in dire straits, as are many other football clubs. The solution of allowing standing by using new technology would help. However, the point that I wanted to underline—I want to ask the hon. Gentleman if he agrees with this—is about the atmosphere that would be created by having standing capacity. Every time that a goal is scored or play builds up towards a goal, everybody ends up standing up anyway. There is a sense of atmosphere in standing areas that will encourage more people to come through the gates, which will help the gate receipts and the running of the club, from a cost perspective.
Nic Dakin
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the atmosphere in grounds, which is an important part of the football experience. Scunthorpe United is a well-run football club, which stays very carefully within its means. The club moved to the purpose-built Glanford Park in 1988, where the affectionately named “Donny road end” has always been a safe standing area.
That small club, with a ground capacity of just over 9,000 and average gates of around 5,000, is being caught up in safety rules designed in another age for much larger grounds. If the club remains in the championship for another year, the safe standing capacity will have to be removed and replaced with seating. That will cost money at a time when resources are scarce; it will reduce the ground capacity, and it will take away choice and enjoyment, as the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) has pointed out, from those fans who prefer to stand. Moreover, once the ground has become all-seater, it will not be able to revert back to having a standing area, even if the club spends the rest of its life in the lower divisions.
Cardiff City was allowed to retain standing for six years in the championship league. Why should Scunthorpe United, the smallest ground in the league, not be given a similar dispensation? There are much larger grounds in the lower leagues, such as the Carlisle United grounds, that are not affected by the rules. Will the Minister examine the experience of safe standing in other parts of the world, including Germany, and review the current requirements for all-seater stadiums in the premiership and championship leagues?
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate; it is only right and proper that the issue should be debated fully. Will he explain or tease out the assurances regarding ground safety that he outlined that will ensure that we never return to the circumstances that resulted in the Hillsborough disaster of 1989?
Nic Dakin
My hon. Friend asks an important question. Lord Taylor’s report was thorough and found many causes for the problems that occurred. Standing was not one of them, but none the less, all-seater stadiums were seen as an important part of the solution. We must consider the experience around the world, particularly in Germany, whose strong record of safe standing demonstrates that it can be done. I agree with my hon. Friend that there should be no compromise on future safety in the interests of standing; we should ensure that any standing is safe standing. However, I draw attention to the fact that Scunthorpe United’s ground has always had standing and has always been safe.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has secured an excellent debate. I echo his comments about Scunthorpe club being a role model. On the point just raised, I have every sympathy with what he is saying, but I am extremely nervous. Since Lord Justice Taylor’s report, safety in grounds has been improved and transformed. The prospect of a change makes me nervous.
Nic Dakin
As I have said all along, safety should never be compromised, but we need only look across to the Bundesliga to see an example of how one of the best leagues in the world manages safe standing alongside seating, using modern technologies. I agree with hon. Members’ comments. I welcome the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) that this is the right debate to have, but in no way should we prejudice safety in this debate. That would be wrong.
My second question to the Minister is this. Will he review the requirements that apply to small grounds such as Glanford Park, and allow the Football League to use its discretion, where local circumstances and common sense allow, to provide dispensation for small clubs such as Scunthorpe United to retain some safe standing capacity? Scunthorpe has had safe standing for its whole history, during which three England captains have played for the north Lincolnshire side: Kevin Keegan, Ray Clemence and, of course, Ian Botham. I thank everybody who has attended and contributed to this debate. Up the Iron!
The Minister for Sport and the Olympics (Hugh Robertson)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on securing this debate and on how he has conducted it. I pay tribute to him for his work on a number of football issues since his arrival in the House, and I join him in paying tribute to his club, which has done exceptionally well. It is a proper community club in every way, and he is absolutely right to pay tribute to the current chairman and his predecessor for their running of it. It is an example of the sort of football club that we all want to encourage, and I wish Scunthorpe the best of luck for the remainder of the season.
Having said that, I remind the hon. Gentleman, as will the hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe), that the Minister’s powers in this area are limited. I can ask the Football League to re-examine the issue, but I could not sign an order forcing it to, even if the hon. Gentleman convinced me to do so today. The issue concerns not only many of his constituents but supporters up and down the country. As he correctly stated, the current rules go back to the Taylor report, published in the aftermath of the unnecessary loss of life at Hillsborough. He is absolutely right that that tragedy is the backdrop to this debate, and as he will know, many in his party as well as mine feel strongly about the issue. The Minister for Sport who preceded the hon. Member for Bradford South was among those who felt strongly that there should be no return to safe standing.
Having considered the basics of the case, I think that it is now generally accepted that most football grounds, for a vast number of reasons, are safer and more comfortable than they were 15 or 20 years ago, although I understand why many supporters miss the tradition, the feel and the atmosphere that some grounds had before. I checked the injury statistics for the past few seasons collected by the Football Licensing Authority. They suggest that spectators are less likely to be injured at all-seater grounds than at those that retain standing accommodation. I am aware that those statistics rely on self-reporting, which is always a dangerous statistical basis, and therefore might not provide a wholly reliable indicator of the relative injury rates, but I think that it is generally accepted across football that standing still presents a greater risk of injury, although the extent of that risk is open to debate.
Seating also offers higher standards of comfort, as is probably self-evident, and provides spectators with their own defensible spaces, which can only contribute to encouraging families and increasing the diversity of those attending football matches in recent years. I am sure that we all support that. I know that no one is suggesting that we should return to the arrangements in place 15 or 20 years ago, but I am not convinced at this stage that a compelling case has been made to change the policy on standing areas.
Mr Ellwood
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the tone in which he is responding to this debate and for acknowledging that the power does not lie with him, but I hope that he will also acknowledge that there were other factors leading to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. Yes, seating was one, but there were also crowd control issues, and there were no spill-over areas. The many changes that have been implemented and are now displayed every Saturday or Tuesday night mean that standing or seated, we can avoid what happened on that day. I hope that new technology might allow clubs not in the premier or championship leagues to consider piloting that idea in certain parts of the stands.
Hugh Robertson
I do not believe that the presence of all-standing areas was the contributory factor at Hillsborough; that is self-evidently ridiculous. A basket of factors contributed to that disaster, including crowd control, as my hon. Friend says. He is also right that technology has moved on considerably during that period. That said, there are also new elements of technology that rely on fans being seated—the police, for example, say that crowd control via CCTV is much easier if fans are seated than if they are standing—so the argument cuts both ways.
As the hon. Member for Scunthorpe knows, our coalition partners previously agreed a conference motion asking for the provision of some safe standing areas to be considered. I remember that the hon. Member for Bradford South and I kicked about the issue, if that is not an unfortunate pun, a year or so ago when we were on opposite sides of the House. At the urging of the hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster), I have reconsidered the issue, as I promised in opposition we would. I have written to all the football authorities, and we are in the process of collating their responses.
I say gently to the hon. Member for Scunthorpe that he was right to quote the letter from the Football League. As he correctly said, they replied:
“Football League clubs, particularly Leagues One and Two, are evidence that standing at football is safe when managed correctly.”
But the next sentence reads:
“However, we cannot support a retrograde step that would lead to clubs seeking to replace seating with terracing. The Football League strongly supports existing legislation.”
There is a balance to be struck. We are in the process of collating football authorities’ responses. I am keeping an open mind, but to be honest, there is no groundswell of opinion from the football authorities in favour of a change. I think that they are just as scarred by the Hillsborough experience as many of us who are or have been in government. That is a powerful backdrop and should always be so. There is considerable nervousness about moving, giving that backdrop.
Steve Rotheram
I think that the Minister would agree that this country has had an exemplary record since the Hillsborough tragedy, but that is not necessarily the case for the rest of the footballing world. Because of all-standing stadiums, there are tragedies all too regularly in which people are crushed to death, and it is obvious that that fear is the backdrop against which my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe has put forward his proposals.
Hugh Robertson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and, once again, for the excellent debate on football that he secured in this Chamber a few months ago. He has put his finger exactly on the issue. The matter is characterised less by people being at either one end of the argument or the other, and more by a balance of risk somewhere in the middle.
I absolutely accept the arguments that the hon. Member for Scunthorpe has put forward, and many people feel that the risk could be safely managed in such a way that retains the traditional feel of football clubs. On the other hand, a considerable body of opinion on the other side of the line would argue that there are a number of reasons why that should not happen. On the balance of opinion, therefore, and given the backdrop of Hillsborough, we must do nothing that could in any way lead to such a tragedy. That, in a nutshell, is the argument about balance that I am trying to sum up.
We have looked at the experience of other countries and will continue to do so. I am aware of the arrangements in Germany, funnily enough, because I attended football matches there when I was serving in the forces in the early 1990s. I am also aware that things have moved on considerably in the 18 or 19 years since then. The hon. Member for Scunthorpe might be interested to know that the Culture, Media and Sport Committee is planning to look at the matter in the new year as part of its wide-ranging inquiry on football governance and intends to visit Germany to look at the experience there, so the matter remains current and is being examined.
With regard to the hon. Gentleman’s football club, to which I once again pay tribute for its achievements, the difficulty is that it has had three years to comply with the requirement. I understand why it does not welcome any sort of financial outlay in the current economic situation, particularly to make a correction that it does not feel is necessary on grounds of safety. However, since Hillsborough there has been a set of basic criteria governing the regulation of football. That has been lifted only once, for Cardiff City, because of a particular set of circumstances.
I can promise the hon. Gentleman today that we will most certainly keep the experience in other countries in the forefront of our minds. It is not a matter that we will review once and then drop. The fact that the hon. Member for Bradford South and I discussed that at considerable length when he was in government and I was in opposition should give the hon. Member for Scunthorpe confidence that it is something that the Government keep permanently under review. There are also pressure groups that ensure that we keep it permanently under review, and we will continue to do so. I will wait until I have received all the responses and then have some proper police advice, so for the moment I am keeping an open mind.
However, it would be dishonest not to tell the hon. Gentleman today that in my view the judgment will very much relate to the balance of opinion, and there is not a groundswell of opinion, from either the football authorities or the police, that would support a change in the legislation. For the moment, I simply congratulate him on securing the debate and on the way in which he has raised the matter. I appreciate the sensible and constructive way in which he has brought the problem forward. Most importantly, I wish his club good luck; it is a fantastic example of what we are looking for in community football. We will keep the issue under review, but I am afraid that I do not think that there is a compelling case at the moment for altering the rules, set against the backdrop of the Hillsborough disaster 20 years ago.
Seaside Towns (Regeneration)
(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)
It is a great privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby, and to see so many colleagues from all parts of the perimeter of this country here today.
I am sure that the Minister was as pleased as I was when the Prime Minister described tourism as one of the best and fastest ways of generating the jobs that the country so badly needs. For too long, it has been the Cinderella business sector. It has been ignored for many years, but the Prime Minister put it on the pedestal that it deserves.
No one would be here today if they did not recognise the value of tourism to their constituency. In Thanet alone, it is valued at £162 million a year. We want to ensure that the tourism sector grows, that the small businesses in it thrive, and that new businesses are created in our coastal regions. Tourism and the associated economic activity are critical to our future.
Coastal communities are what I call pocket economies. They do not always react in the same way as the rest of the country; they often behave counter-cyclically. When the rest of the economy was thriving in the 1980s, seaside towns, and Thanet in particular, were suffering. During the Brown boom, Thanet did not benefit from the economic vibrancy of the rest of the country. Deprivation increased, worklessness was not addressed, and property prices rose only modestly. Coastal communities lag behind the rest of the economy and, in some instances, are passed by altogether.
Coastal communities have much more in common with one another than with their prosperous neighbours. If we compare Thanet with Canterbury, which is a mere 20-mile drive away, in Thanet, average salaries are £60 a week less than in Canterbury, there is double the number of jobseeker’s allowance claimants, and vacancies are 25% of those available in Canterbury. There is no guarantee that our pocket economies will necessarily benefit from any upturn in the general economy. We also have high levels of public sector jobs, and few, if any, large company employers. Currently, my constituency is the 64th most deprived district in the country—not exactly the profile one would expect in the south-east.
On a positive note, perhaps the lack of modernisation and development can deliver a unique proposition. Cloned high streets have passed us by, large hotel chains and restaurants prefer more central locations, and developers have looked for easier pickings. We are unusual and quirky, and we have personality and character—a rarity in the world which should offer us a competitive edge. Thanet has 26 miles of sandy beaches, cliffs like those in the Algarve, walks suitable at any time of the year, and architecture that rivals any in the country. It is an historic mecca: from the Romans to the Beatles, we have had it all, with every invasion other than the Norman conquest and every major war fought from Thanet’s shores, and we have all the sights that go with those great British triumphs.
Two weeks ago, Thanet was nominated as one of the 12 most desirable locations in the world—can hon. Members believe that? We were celebrated in the same breath as Rio de Janeiro, Santiago in Chile, and Stockholm. This week, one of our local hotels was named the best small hotel in the country, and we have many more hotels and bed and breakfasts like it. However, we need a step change. We need to change the way in which our coastal towns are perceived and marketed. Traditionally, seaside towns have been marketed as locations for the sunny summer months but, to maximise the opportunities and great visitor experiences, we need clear strategies to increase significantly our out-of-season business.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. I represent what is perhaps an unknown part of the country in west Wales—the Ceredigion coastline. The hon. Lady is getting to the point where she is really talking about responsibility for the branding of our respective areas. I applaud local initiatives such as the Cambrian Mountains initiative, and I have hopes for the promotion of Cardigan bay. Who will be responsible for branding? Will we rely on local initiatives, or do we expect—and, I hope, anticipate—more of a lead from the centre, in particular VisitBritain?
Laura Sandys
Those are certainly questions for the Minister, but I think that what we need to do centrally more than anything else is to change the perception of seaside towns. The view is that if we put a beach on the website, the tourists will come over the summer months—and they do. Certainly Thanet does not need as much input for the summer months. However, we need to ensure that people appreciate the area whatever the time of year. I was walking on a beach with snow on it, and it was stunning. We have to understand that there is an all-year-round marketing opportunity.
Further to what my hon. colleague rightly said, we need a Minister for out-of-season marketing. Last weekend, I looked at the VisitBritain and VisitEngland websites. In many ways, they do a great job promoting this country, but it took six clicks to reach one seaside resort—Eastbourne—and no other. Under “things to do”, there is no mention of seaside towns. In the packages that they present for Canterbury and Lincoln, there is no suggestion that visitors extend their stay by a couple of days to visit the beauty of Thanet or Skegness, only a few miles down the road.
I accept that this is not an obvious time to visit our beaches, but I would like to ask the Minister what he thinks about the beaches in Weston-super-Mare at this time of the year. Would families not love to visit the SeaQuarium in Weston-super-Mare on their way to Wookey Hole? We need to ask our tourism marketers to be more creative about the opportunities that they offer to extend the season in areas that have been wrongly pigeonholed as summer locations, to think creatively about how they can add economic value and play a part in the regeneration of our coastal communities with taxpayers’ pounds, and not just be offered as window dressing for locations that are already international household names.
Extending the season is crucial for us all. If we could achieve that, we would increase revenues by 15% to 25%, increase employment, which is currently seasonal, and support our high streets and small retailers. That must be a crucial objective for us all. We need to be on the main websites all year around—that is fundamental—so changing the mentality of the marketers is crucial.
We must also look at what other countries do very successfully, not least social tourism, which is a concept not well understood in the UK; frankly, it is not understood at all. It is about offering out-of-season opportunities to people on lower incomes, people with disabilities and older people. The models range from those that involve public subsidy to those that cost the Government nothing. The Belgian tourism body will not register a hotel or holiday establishment that does not provide free or discounted holiday nights out of season. At no cost to the public purse, it incentivises accommodation owners to ensure that they provide discounted offers. In Spain, the Imerso scheme, which offers senior citizens off-peak holiday breaks by the sea, has led to a 10% increase in tourism revenue and a 16% increase in tourism employment. In France, 135,000 establishments accept vouchers available for those on low incomes, generating €3 billion for the French tourism economy every year. That system costs the Government nothing and is an incentive package that companies offer their lower-paid workers. I am sure that many hon. Members in the Chamber would like to establish a working group with the Minister’s Department to see if we can create a sustainable scheme that would generate such revenues for our seaside towns out of season.
There is one final issue on which I should like the Minister’s support. Many of us who spoke, or who wanted to speak, in the debate on the Daylight Saving Bill on Friday were a little disappointed. The measure would support our weaker pocket economies in coastal areas at almost no cost, and if they adopted it, the Government would increase Thanet tourism revenue by 10%. Nationally, the measure would boost tourism revenues by £3.5 billion and generate about 80,000 jobs —quite an impact for just one measure. The fact that the Government did not even want to investigate what measures could be put in place was particularly unhelpful. Even the Scottish nationalists, who are against the proposal, conceded that perhaps there is a case for putting back the date when we revert to Greenwich mean time. Even an extension to the end of November would make a serious difference. I hope that my hon. Friend, as Minister responsible for tourism, will make further representations to other parts of Government to consider this issue again.
I urge the Minister, who is a great champion of tourism and heritage and who represents a seaside town, to support us in this push for greater marketing out of season, for consideration of social tourism or other mechanisms to ensure that we can get the most out of our exceptional accommodation on the coast and for daylight saving to be regarded as a priority for the regeneration of our coastal communities. That is not just for our benefit. It would benefit the Treasury in increased taxes. The Minister could put a smile on the face of the Department for Work and Pensions by reducing unemployment in some of the most intractable parts of the country, help the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills increase the number of new business start-ups in coastal towns and help us break the cycle of deprivation and economic stagnation that so many of us face locally.
Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) on giving a focus to this debate by analysing with great skill many of the problems in seaside towns.
I apologise if I do not sound like my usual cheerful self, Mr Crausby. I have a disease that I am trying to throw off. Were I in the sun-kissed environment of Southport, I am sure that this would not be so. I represent Southport, which some people say is only technically a seaside resort, because we have so much beach that it takes some time to get to the sea. None the less, it has regenerated itself successfully in recent years and I am proud of what has been achieved there.
It might help new hon. Members if I rehearsed some things that were done in the previous Parliament. There has always been a group of Members of Parliament from seaside resorts who have got together to co-ordinate their efforts and put pressure on the Government to deal with their specific concerns. In the previous Parliament, we were helped by a report on coastal towns from the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government. I sat on that Committee and I assure hon. Members that it was not easy to get Committee members to consider that matter, because they thought that it was a marginal issue and perhaps not sufficiently substantive to occupy a serious Committee. But that was done, and it was a surprising success.
Initially, the Government response to that report was fairly negative and bland. Phyllis Starkey, then Chair of the Committee, asked the Department to consider its response again and, to our surprise—there might have been a change of Minister—the second response was a great deal more positive. “Sea Change” funding appeared, which was to be administered by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and there was a clear cross-departmental focus on the problems of seaside resorts, which was wholly helpful. At about that time, regional development agencies were given responsibility for tourism and asked to look specifically at the regeneration of seaside towns, in addition to other topics that they are more familiar with, such as urban regeneration.
We found from the Committee’s report that it was hard to generalise about seaside towns, because they are all so different; they are not only in different parts of the country, but are different in character and history. Some concentrate on fishing and others on fairgrounds. There really are quite stark differences between many resorts. Skegness is not the same as, or anything like, Brighton, although it happens also to be on the sea.
A cluster of problems can be found in most seaside towns. They normally have an interesting past, but equally they have a rather uncertain future, and sometimes an uncertain view of where they should go. I visited Margate with the Select Committee, not too far away from the constituency of the hon. Member for South Thanet, and found a town torn in two directions. People wanted to go different ways. Some wanted the old fairground back and wanted Margate to become a place of pleasure rides, and others wanted to build on the Turner heritage, and the light of that area, and have a more aesthetic development. I am not sure which direction that area went in, but that difference of opinion crystallises a general view that I have formed, which is that all seaside resorts, if they are to go anywhere, need some view of what they are essentially like.
Southport has been successful because it has not tried to rival Blackpool and has a concept of itself as a classic resort, which is distinctive, and it plays to its strengths, such as Lord street and, generally speaking, the Victorian environment—and as a market brand, it works. But like many other places, it also has problems with its housing stock, particularly the hosts of large houses built for the days when thousands of people trooped there regularly to fill out boarding houses. That means that such places end up with a skewed housing stock. In some towns on the Kent coast, that housing stock is filled with a disproportionate number of benefit claimants. There are genuine housing problems. Sorting out seaside towns’ problems is not just about attending to tourism, but about attending to housing and transport, which is a huge issue for most seaside resorts because they are often difficult to access, having been built and grown up in the days when trains were the way forward.
In making changes and developing the character of these places, we should consider that often seaside towns are blessed with a disproportionate number of retired people. That has a good effect, in so far as it ensures that there is a relative level of prosperity in the town. However, in respect of implementing change, as people get older they possibly do not welcome change in the same way as people do when they are young. In resorts that we Committee members visited, we often found contentious political divisions about the character of development in the town. An additional problem is generated by the fact that a lot of people living and working in seaside towns work in the public sector and will feel the impact of public sector cuts.
Sorting out the problems of seaside towns is not something that should just be thrown at the door of the Minister with responsibility for tourism; it should be thrown at the Government as a whole, because it is a matter of cross-departmental working. The previous Government recognised that.
Laura Sandys
I totally agree that the issue of coastal towns is a multi-departmental one; I do not detract from that, but I feel strongly that we in coastal communities have to address each of the issues with each of the Ministers, and then bring that together through the cross-departmental committee. It is crucial that Ministers with responsibility, who can have an impact on our communities, understand that we face many challenges and find out what levers they can pull to assist us. The fact that the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), has responsibility for tourism and is the MP for a seaside town is a great asset for us.
Dr Pugh
Absolutely. I do not disagree with that analysis. Tourism genuinely helps in an extraordinary way. Too often in our tourist propaganda, we forget that our coasts are a fantastic asset. We tend to think of London, Edinburgh and bits in between, such as Stratford-upon-Avon. International publicity does not stress a strength that was well illustrated by the BBC programme. We have a fantastic coast, which is a fantastic asset, and we should make more of it. When I was at an embassy in France, I picked up propaganda for the north-west of England, hoping to find references to Southport, or at least Blackpool, but there were none. I found Oswaldtwistle, but I do not even know what it is, and I have lived in the north-west most of my life.
VisitBritain—I have said this before—has something to learn, but we must all learn how to deal with our new environment. If regeneration of seaside resorts is to progress, we will presumably have to work hand in hand with the new local enterprise partnerships, which will be centred predominantly in urban conurbations and will not have a natural feel for the problems of seaside resorts. They will need to be advised, instructed or directed not to leave out places that will, in most LEPs, be on the margins or the coast.
We must also recognise among ourselves—the community of coastal MPs—that whatever prospects we thought there were, before the time of austerity, of new transport links being delivered overnight have probably receded, and that that will not happen any time soon. We must work hard for our salvation. Most seaside resorts, their communities, and councils who understand the state of play recognise that. I believe that there is a role for the Government—this was the theme of the speech of the hon. Member for South Thanet—in sewing the pieces together and ensuring that good practice is spread, and in ensuring that when resorts have a clear vision of their own destiny and are prepared to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, they are given every encouragement to do so.
Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)
I want to focus briefly—I know that other hon. Members want to speak—primarily on the economic importance of tourism to Great Yarmouth and other coastal towns. We know that tourism is one of the largest employment industries in the country. I think it is the fifth biggest, involving more than 200,000 people. In Great Yarmouth, it is the biggest employer by quite a long way—the NHS is second—with 5,600 people involved. To put that in context, tourism is one of the largest industries in Norfolk, where there are about 11,000 people working in it. More than half of the entire county’s employment in tourism is in Great Yarmouth, so its importance to our economy is massive.
Tourism is driven primarily by local, private, often family-owned businesses, such as hotels and providers of bed-and-breakfast accommodation, and the tourist authority is very active. We are talking about 30% of the entire work force of Great Yarmouth, and half of that 30% work in seaside-related tourism. Those are the figures, and Steve Fothergill’s work on that is to be commended and should be read by everyone who is interested in coastal towns, but in a town such as Great Yarmouth, it is probably more like 80% or 90% who are tied to the coastal attraction. Our only other areas of tourism that do not have the seaside link are the broads, a third of which are in Great Yarmouth.
It is important when moving forward to consider how to market our coastal towns, and it is absolutely correct that we must consider how to develop them in the 21st century. Tourism in many of our coastal towns is that classic British archetypal postcard idea, but things have moved forward. Apart from the fact that there is more competition, because people can travel abroad more cheaply and find guaranteed weather more easily, we all demand more value for our money, particularly in times of austerity. It is important that coastal towns recognise that.
Great Yarmouth has done some excellent work in developing and improving tourism. Some independent and family companies, such as Potters, a family holiday resort, have upgraded to become five-star resorts, and that has a positive impact on the entire area, as does focusing on attracting people and explaining that there is more than just the seaside. There are zoos and the broads. We must be clear about that.
It is extremely beneficial to all tourism areas, especially coastal areas, to have a Minister who really understands the issues. He is methodical and careful about ensuring that he is briefed on the entire range of issues affecting tourism towns. I look forward to welcoming him to Great Yarmouth next year, and I hope that that will be when the weather is just a bit warmer.
It would be hugely beneficial to consider how marketing is carried out, particularly through VisitBritain and VisitEngland. At the moment, much of that marketing is funded through the regional development agencies, and a complaint that I often hear is that the RDAs, particularly the East of England Development Agency in the eastern region, do not understand or focus on what coastal towns want. We need a body that understands and focuses on tourism, and a body that our tourist authorities and local authorities can better understand, instead of the quango system. That would be a more logical way of moving forward.
There are opportunities, and their economic value is huge. In Great Yarmouth we hope to have one of the large casinos. That would bring the benefit of up to 1,000 jobs, and bring a different type of person to the town. The best we can achieve from debates such as this, and from the Government, is help to raise our profile nationally, and to show people the importance of tourism. Much tourism in coastal towns focuses on independent businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises that need extra motivation and support to ensure that they can develop. Many areas suffer from a limited season, including Great Yarmouth, where one of the most deprived wards in the country has unemployment of 16% and, in some years, 18% just because of seasonality.
We are moving forward. We are developing the energy industry and considering how, with the casino and other developments, to extend the season, but we need extra motivation and support. If we can find some economic drive, and courage to change the way in which we market such towns, that might help to stretch the season. We must incentivise independent business people to understand that they should invest further, and persuade some of the bigger organisations and companies who invest in coastal and tourism towns throughout Europe to look at the benefit of investing in British coastal towns. When they understand that even a town that is not the biggest in the world, such as Great Yarmouth, has a tourism industry that is worth around £500 million a year with more than 5 million visitors, they will see that there is a huge amount of business for people, and that will bring a real benefit to the British economy. I recommend that the Government support that as much as they possibly can.
Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) on securing this debate. Just as tourism is often the reason for the existence of our seaside towns, it is often key to the ongoing regeneration and growth of those communities. The leisure and business facilities that attract inbound visitors also improve the economic and cultural lives of our residents. Anchor attractions, quality hospitality, retail facilities, festivals and events are key drivers in regenerating seaside towns, revitalising the image and refreshing the offering. I want to highlight a few ways in which the tourism sector can be a driver for the regeneration of seaside towns for the benefit of residents and visitors alike.
The first is cultural tourism. The reputation of seaside towns as backward and tacky is turned on its head when a more inspirational offering is added to the mix, such as has been done in Brighton and Hove. Recent years have seen a huge increase in the popularity of festivals and events, and Brighton and Hove can probably claim the title, “City of Festivals”, with its year-round calendar of major events incorporating music, arts and theatre, food and drink, sport and outdoor pursuits, fashion and retail, and many more.
Festivals are a relatively low-cost and self-contained way for seaside towns to reposition themselves. For example, the Brighton and Hove food and drink festival supports the entire supply chain from farm to fork, and creates year-round promotion of the city as a quality destination for food lovers. The Sussex fashion awards, which are scheduled for February 2011, are another example and had the good sense to invite me to be a judge. Brighton dome and festival is a pairing of a year-round cultural festival to provide joined-up thinking and resources. However, health and safety rules, licensing costs, and restrictions applied by local councils on outdoor events and carnivals can have the effect of de-incentivising organisers. As events are one of the key creators of a buzzing, thriving economy, this is one relatively straightforward area where local councils and the Government can act rapidly to allow the private sector to facilitate change.
Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)
My hon. Friend will know how lucky he is to represent a constituency that is so close to mine in the great tourist resort of Brighton and Hove. It has nearly 8 million visitors a year who provide £0.75 billion to the economy every year, and 14,000 people are employed in the tourism industry. He is right to say that tourism is not just about the beach and the sea. There is a variety of important cultural attractions in the city that we represent. Things such as music and arts, which I know are dear to my hon. Friend’s heart, are important drivers, together with traditional attractions such as the Palace pier.
I would like to raise one point, and I thank my hon. Friend for allowing this interruption—
Simon Kirby
Does my hon. Friend agree that we need better train services to enable people to come and see our great city?
Mike Weatherley
I thank my hon. Friend for that speech, and for taking the impact of most of my speech away. If I may, I will return to the point about transport in a few minutes.
Unfortunately, many seaside towns in the UK have problems managing the night-time economy. Many councils and residents look with disdain at bars and clubs and their patrons, and a cultural shift is required to move on and recognise the economic benefits of that sector. Within Brighton and Hove, the night-time economy raises a figure in excess of £400 million a year, which goes a long way towards the figure mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet. A thriving night-time economy is one of the strongest draws for visitors to the coast and, increasingly, for the “silver mature” market, which includes myself. The night-time economy should be embraced and helped, not legislated against. Extended licensing hours, for example, have generally benefited the city, rather than had a negative effect.
One of the main blocks to feel-good tourism in the UK is the continued lack of investment in the infrastructure of seaside towns. That leads to limited and expensive parking and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby) noted, inadequate rail facilities. Due to necessary but never-ending engineering works, Brighton and Hove is often inaccessible by direct rail at weekends, and the road works and lack of road capacity result in endless traffic jams at peak times. The cumulative effect of that has a negative impact on visitors, and the lack of investment in city centre parking in Brighton and Hove is a major obstacle to future development. The past decade of discouraging car use was a mistake; an integrated transport system is required, rather than forcing through one form of transport.
Congestion charging says to visitors, “Please do not come here.” Let us hope that that idea is never implemented in Brighton and Hove, which depends on welcoming visitors rather than turning them away. The same applies to parking fines. Car parking should be a council priority when looking at investment in buildings and other attractions. I would also like to see proposals for the monorail along our seafront progressed. That would be an innovative scheme, and a first for the country. Such proactive development will boost the importance and desirability of the city as a destination.
I welcome the coalition shift towards having more planning decisions taken locally, and I hope that that does not lead to fewer planning approvals. Our record in Brighton and Hove over the past 20 years may be attributed to the proposal of inappropriate schemes, and to intransigent developers trying to foist their schemes on the city. It is also due to a cumbersome planning permission regime.
Although it is important to protect the unique Georgian and Victorian architectural heritage of our seaside towns, which have no equivalent in the world, it is equally important to see them as living, breathing spaces with economies to support. We need to get the balance right between protecting the best bits, and being bold enough to replace the mediocre.
In summary: it is time to regenerate. Tourism is vital to my constituency, and we should encourage investment in destination hotels and attractions—the relaxation of some planning controls would help. We should also embrace the night-time economy, avoid excessive legislation and red tape, improve transport infrastructure, especially car parking, and recognise the importance of the tourism sector with tax breaks for small companies. For example, I would like to see the national insurance scheme currently proposed for the rest of the country extended to those cities in the south that require an occasional boost to tourism. Such issues are vital for Hove and Portslade, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and to working with the Government.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) on securing this important debate. Like a moth to a flame, as a Blackpool MP I find it hard to resist any debate on tourism and seaside towns. Today, however, I do not want to talk about Blackpool. Close observers of the annunciator will have noticed that I represent Blackpool North and Cleveleys. Cleveleys is also a seaside town with a tourism industry, although it does not receive as much attention as its big brother to the south.
Many people holiday in Cleveleys without going anywhere near Blackpool. It offers a wonderful expanse of coast and some of the finest promenade architecture that we have seen built in this country over the past 25 years. Bus trips come for the day from far and wide. During the general election, I had a street stall in Cleveleys. By half-past 10 in the morning I was spending more time convincing voters from constituencies such as Stoke-on-Trent Central to vote Conservative than I was convincing those from my constituency. Obviously, I did not do enough because we failed to win the seat in Stoke-on-Trent Central, but I did my bit.
Cleveleys has flat pavements. Hon. Members may wonder why I mention that, but flat pavements are unusual in seaside towns and they make the town accessible. A large number of coaches come to Cleveleys full of disabled tourists who know that it is an accessible resort that they can get around despite their mobility problems. Large numbers of pensioners also come to Cleveleys—again, because it is easy to get around.
Cleveleys has a good variety of shops and a large number of cafés for people to sit in should a shower pass over. One such place is the Carousel Café, which is run by the president of the chamber of trade, Martin Hunns. Although Cleveleys has some wonderful, positive aspects, it also has a few downsides. If one asked Martin about Cleveleys, as I am sure people do, he will say one thing:
“We have gone on for years about parking in Cleveleys. All this money has been spent on this beautiful promenade but people are being turned away because there is nowhere to park.”
The town is concerned about the sustainability of the range of shops on the main streets, and the future of its indoor markets. One such market is to close suddenly, although I gather that an improved version is on the way. A medium-sized seaside town such as Cleveleys has positive and negative aspects, but the main challenge it faces is that of marketing, branding and communication—something that other hon. Members have also mentioned. Who should do that marketing, and how?
I want to pay tribute to a lady called Jane Littlewood who runs a small business, Rabbit Design. She moved to Cleveleys from South Yorkshire, and saw the opportunity the moment she arrived. She now runs a website that promotes tourism in Cleveleys, which she does entirely on her own without any public funding. Unsurprisingly, the website is called visitcleveleys.co.uk, and I encourage hon. Members to do just what it says and visit Cleveleys. As Jane says,
“the coastal Wyre area hasn’t previously been strongly promoted as a tourism area, and Cleveleys has plodded along under its own steam…Promoting the website and promoting Cleveleys are inextricably linked, and a raft of publicity has gone out this year in north west publications, including Lancashire Life. Links are being developed with the local authority and tourism marketing agencies to develop the brand much further for the future.”
What Jane does is more than a voluntary initiative and a nice idea; I think that it is the future for destination marketing in this country. For too long, we have assumed that the responsibility for marketing our seaside towns should lie with some sort of public body, be it local government, VisitEngland, VisitBritain—or visit whoever—or even the Minister’s Department. Here, however, we have someone taking the initiative and doing something for the benefit of their community without a public body intervening. I hope that hon. Members will not groan when I say that that might just be an example of the big society in action.
If we look a little to the south of my constituency, although not as far as Southport, we see that South Ribble and West Lancashire have the Heart of Lancashire Tourist Association. It was recently spun off as a community interest company and is owned by the very businesses that it promotes. It is a true co-operative and does not need to be sustained by public funding. When we see the Minister’s domestic tourism strategy, I hope that VisitEngland will have become not a body that picks and chooses the places that it promotes, but a repository of understanding and knowledge about how best to promote tourism in the UK.
VisitBritain’s role is quite distinct: it is to encourage overseas visitors to come to the UK. I hope that it will work hard to encourage Chinese people to come and enjoy Blackpool pleasure beach, which will certainly be a cultural experience for them in many ways. VisitEngland, however, really has to focus on understanding how we promote domestic tourism. We all talk about the cliché of the “staycation”, which might well be a passing, transient phenomenon, but we need to understand that there is a wide variety of holidays that our citizens can take in this country.
I was delighted to hear my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet mention the concept of social tourism, which is close to my heart. I urge anybody who does not know what it is to come to the inaugural meeting of my all-party group on social tourism next week, where they can find out far more about the subject. They might even take part in the inquiry that the Family Holiday Association is organising for the start of next year on defining just what we mean by social tourism. We should try to find new ways of developing tourism and spreading its wider benefits to disadvantaged groups.
I wonder how many Members here have heard of the Family Fund, an organisation that spends almost £30 million of Government money on giving families with disabled children short breaks in the UK. Many people say that we do not do social tourism in the UK, but we do, and the Government already spend £30 million a year on it. We need to understand what goes on already and what could go on in the future, and my hon. Friend mentioned many examples. We need to understand what benefits that could bring us.
I am really looking forward to reading the Minister’s domestic tourism strategy, and I hope that it is a long read, because there is a lot that we need to deal with. When he presents it, however, we will have to address the fact that tourism does not stand in isolation. Tourism promotion, particularly in places such as Blackpool, can be hampered by some of the negative feelings that people have about seaside towns. Branding is not just about Blackpool town, the pleasure beach or the nice seaside; it can also be about some of the negative headlines on social problems that people read in our newspapers.
Before the debate, I asked the Library to put together a ranking of all Conservative-held constituencies by deprivation. I had a theory that there would be a concentration of very poor Conservative-held seats in seaside towns, and that is indeed the case. Of the top 10 Conservative-held constituencies by deprivation, six are seaside towns, and the list is topped, unfortunately, by the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd)—that is perhaps not a list that she would wish to top, but she does none the less. I come in at No. 4.
Clearly, the role of tourism in the economic regeneration of seaside towns is crucial, but we cannot see it in isolation, and we must tackle every other silo of Government activity. That is why I am so pleased that responsibility for this issue, in addition to being based in the DCMS, ranges across several Departments. That is crucial, because until we get the whole picture right, we cannot hope to get tourism right.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
I am delighted to take part in the debate, which gives many of us in the Chamber an excellent opportunity to share our concerns about tourism in seaside resorts.
I want to begin by talking about deprivation. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), I have done some research, although not just into Conservative-held seats. When I looked at the ranking of towns according to the number of personal insolvencies and bankruptcies, four of the top five were seaside towns. I am afraid that one of them was Hastings, while another, which is closer to my constituency, was Plymouth, although it was a little further down the list.
One reason why such towns are so deprived is that they have relied on support from industries such as engineering and fishing. Teignmouth, in my constituency, used to have a much more active and profitable fishing industry, but that is no longer the case, and most of the catch must now be landed in Brixham. Solving the problems of seaside towns is not, therefore, just about tourism, although it plays a key role. We must also look at how we build supplementary businesses and industries. Much as I agree with hon. Members that the challenge is to ensure that tourism continues all year round, we must accept that there will always be more of it in the summer and that there will be a fair few part-time, rather than full-time jobs.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
I completely support my hon. Friend’s point. Does she agree that year-round interests, such as food tourism and heritage, are a particularly important part of the tourism offer? I am thinking particularly of food tourism in Kent, which has been a big growth area in the Canterbury and Faversham area and in Romney marsh, in my constituency.
Anne Marie Morris
I certainly agree, and that well-made point reiterates that made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley).
The value of tourism is enormous. Members have mentioned several figures, but when I last looked at the issue, the prediction was that tourism would be worth £180 billion in this country by 2020. By that point, it will also be responsible for providing 2.89 million jobs, which is phenomenal. That would make a big difference to the current parlous state of the economy.
I represent part of Devon, which has 5.3 million visitors each year. That accounts for 7% of the Devon economy, which is well above average. In Teignbridge—the small heart of the part of Devon that I represent—32% of the work force are involved in tourism in some way or other. That is a very high figure, but it is not out of line with many of the figures that hon. Friends have mentioned.
Help is needed, because tourism is valuable for the growth of our economy and the recovery, but we need to identify how we make that help available, as many hon. Members have said. Perhaps I can briefly mention the key seaside towns in my constituency to help us see what the right solutions might be.
Dawlish Warren is a huge success story, and I am pleased about that. We have 800,000 visitors a year—on a good day, there are 20,000, which is a significant number. Why do we get those visitors? We have some excellent blue flag beaches and 505 acres of nature reserves, which attracts an interesting mix of tourists. However, we face the challenge of erosion, which is slowly pulling the beach back. As many hon. Members have said, the ability to solve such problems is not, dare I say it, in the gift just of this Minister, and I am pleased to say that I have had favourable responses on these issues from some of his Front-Bench colleagues.
Teignmouth is beautiful. It is a quintessential Victorian seaside town, but it, too, has its challenges. It has an ageing pier. It would be lovely if some of the suggestions made about lottery funding before the election could become a reality, because that could help. The town also has an ageing fish quay, which could receive EU funding and input, but those are proving quite elusive, and help from the Government in enabling seaside towns to make the most of EU opportunities would be extremely welcome.
Dawlish, which is a regency resort, is best known for its black swans. Jane Austen also stayed in the Strand, which is the main street running through the town. In answer to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys I would say that the big society is here in seaside towns. All three communities that I have mentioned have put together their own plans. They are well supported by the local community; there is not a great division. Indeed, the Dawlish plan is today on the Strand, ready to be inspected. What they need, having come up with the plan, is help with the solutions.
Clearly, No. 1 is marketing. I must declare an interest, because I am a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and the issue is close to my heart. One of our concerns is that, while we need the big society, with communities doing their bit, we also need an appropriate framework and strategy, and a toolkit for making tourism work, and marketing it, as my hon. Friends the Members for Hove and for Blackpool North and Cleveleys were saying earlier. South West Tourism is the body that provides that guidance and framework at the moment in my part of the world. It will be disbanded in 2011 because it was under the aegis of the regional development agency, which clearly will not survive. What will replace it is an issue that is dear to my constituents’ and my heart. VisitEngland and VisitDevon provide some help and assistance, but they do not go to the heart of the need.
We need to grapple with the question of what the target market for tourism is. As hon. Members have articulated, the days of the bucket and spade brigade have declined, because those people are going to sunnier climes where they can guarantee the weather, and it is cheaper because they do not have to pay for entertainment when it is raining. We must think about not just social and cultural tourism, which are important, but those people who no longer have children at home—the so-called empty nesters—who are looking for a different type of holiday. They may want to combine a holiday across seaside resorts and rural sites. We need to think about what the target market is and how we segment it— by the type of holiday that people want to enjoy, or by geography? We need such a strategy, because otherwise all the efforts made locally will be fighting against each other. That has been one of the problems to date. In Dawlish the community has got together as a group to ask, “What do we do about our brand? What does Dawlish stand for? How could we market ourselves, together with Teignmouth, and perhaps some of the other destinations out on the moor?” Marketing is a key thing, and that is clearly one of the solutions.
The second issue relates to regenerating not just the housing stock but the fabric of the landmarks in the relevant communities. I have referred to our pier. I should love to find some money, perhaps from the lottery, to sort it out. One of the challenges with refurbishing seaside towns is VAT. VAT on new build, which is not really appropriate in this case, is zero-rated. However, we shall feel the full weight of the 20% rate next year. Would not it be wonderful if, for that type of regenerative building, the VAT rate could be 5%? I know that that is not in the Minister’s gift, but it is perhaps in that of some of his colleagues.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
My hon. Friend will be aware that we are one of only six countries left in Europe who charge double figures for hotel accommodation. The 21 who do not are all reporting increased turnover, increased tax take and an increased ability to create jobs. Does my hon. Friend agree that our Government should seriously consider that?
Anne Marie Morris
I certainly agree. The hon. Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) has raised that matter over the years. As my hon. Friend says, the rate is much lower across the continent. France has just brought it down to 7%. We need to look at that issue.
I suggest also that the Minister should consider business rates. They are the bugbear of many small businesses. Might we conceivably consider enabling communities to reinvest the business rates that are charged back into the community, the small businesses, and particularly tourism, which, certainly in my constituency, makes up a large part of the small business?
Damian Collins
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is encouraging that the Government, in their local growth White Paper, are including consideration of how councils can invest in the business infrastructure of their community and recoup that investment through tax increment financing in the future?
Anne Marie Morris
I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend makes a good point.
I want to talk now about the challenge of part-time workers. There is often a disincentive for them to take jobs because of the way the tax system works. If they are not working enough hours to take them over the threshold below which they do not pay tax, when they take a second job they are instantly thrown into paying the full base rate. There needs to be a way to simplify the process, so that individuals who take on several part-time jobs are not penalised, and do not have to reclaim overpaid tax.
I know that Front Benchers are considering the issue of people working 16 hours before losing benefit, which has meant that holiday businesses that employ people on a short-term basis find that when they want the flexibility for that individual to work a couple more hours it cannot be done without a huge problem for the employee.
I want finally to reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) about local enterprise partnerships. They can play a crucial role in providing the strategy and support that will enable community plans to become a reality. They can also play a crucial role in enabling us to find the funds for the different plans. It would be helpful if the Minister and his Front-Bench colleagues could reinforce that point.
I look forward positively to the domestic tourism strategy. I am delighted that the Prime Minister said that he would like domestic tourism to increase from 35% to 50%. That is fantastic, and I am delighted to have had the opportunity to make my case.
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
There are three hon. Members left to speak. I intend to call the Front-Bench spokesmen at 3.40 pm exactly, so if hon. Members could share the time between them, that would be appreciated.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
I shall keep my comments brief, Mr Crausby, and, if hon. Members do not mind, turn their attention to Wales for a short moment, in the full understanding that some of what we have been discussing this afternoon is devolved; the issues are common to seaside towns throughout the UK.
There are a few areas on which I should like the Minister, if possible, to comment, and reassure us. In my constituency we have 10 seaside towns, and no two are the same in their complications and economic and environmental circumstances. First, national parks are without a shadow of doubt a great asset, to be protected, and essential for a successful and effective tourism industry. However, there is a feeling, at least in my part of the world, that national park planning departments are a barrier to investment, progress and individuals who want to expand their tourist industry. It would be encouraging to hear from the Minister whether consideration will be given to merging in some way the local authority and national park planning functions, to minimise the chance of complications, which inevitably lead to the rejection of perfectly reasonable and positive planning applications, to the detriment of the local economy.
Secondly, I want to raise a planning-related matter—it has been mentioned before, but I want to put it in the specific context of agriculture: that is ensuring that the people on the fringes, not necessarily in the seaside towns, can diversify their agricultural businesses in a way that benefits the overall tourism attraction of the area. That issue is common to national park planning applications and to local authority applications.
Mr Mark Williams
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in a Welsh context, the planning experience he alluded to has hampered the development of agri-tourism, food tourism and green tourism, which we in west Wales are uniquely placed to develop fully?
Simon Hart
The hon. Gentleman is completely right. His constituency is only a few miles up the coast from mine and I recognise his concerns.
My third and penultimate point is about road and rail infrastructure. Of the 1 million international visitors to Wales, who have brought in £321 million in the recent past, a significant proportion—92%—made their journey to Wales in a car, but once people get as far as about Swansea it is almost impossible to travel any further west with any degree of comfort. It is even more difficult on a train. That is a subject for a future debate, when we will discuss the electrification of rail lines. We are not making things easy for the tourism industry in the west of Wales in that respect.
Finally, for the sake of brevity, let us not lose sight of the fact that although tourism is the subject of this debate, in my part of west Wales at least, coastal town regeneration is just as dependent on other industries as it is on tourism. To take the Milford Haven waterway as an example, in that location, there are two oil refineries and two gas terminals, and the biggest gas-fired power station in Europe is under construction. The inward investment to those enterprises is vital not only for the people who are immediately connected with them. The surrounding tourism industry and economic environment are linked to large-scale industrial investment just as much as they are to tourism. We must not lose sight of that. This is not a case of either/or; it can be both. I hope that in the Government’s proposals, those few points are taken into account.
Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)
It is a pleasure to contribute to this important debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) on initiating it. I will try to be brief, and I will of course add to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), in that I am bringing Wales to the table today.
I have the privilege of being the Member of Parliament for Aberconwy. That means that I represent the seaside resort of Llandudno, which is recognised in Wales as the queen of Welsh resorts. The experience of Llandudno is very positive, because it has been a success story in many ways during the past few years, but before I focus on Llandudno, it is important to point out that seaside resorts and former seaside resorts have developed in different ways during the past 15 to 20 years. For example, the resort of Llanfairfechan in my constituency, has developed into a dormer village or dormer town. People live there to enjoy what is available there: the scenery, the beach and so on. Tourism can play a part in the further regeneration of Llanfairfechan, but the town has played its own game and decided to serve as a residential community, which is obviously perfectly acceptable.
Penmaenmawr is another resort in my constituency. Believe it or not, Penmaenmawr was the favourite resort of Gladstone, the former Prime Minister. He used to go there every summer to recharge his batteries. Penmaenmawr became an industrial area, dependent on quarrying, but it is now rediscovering tourism as a means of regeneration. The residents of Penmaenmawr, who are very proud of their association with the former Liberal Prime Minister, would be more than delighted to welcome the current Deputy Prime Minister. If things become a bit hot in London during the next few days, he is more than welcome to come to Penmaenmawr, where he can enjoy the seaside and the mountains and contribute to the redevelopment of the tourism sector in that town.
However, the real issue for me today relates to Llandudno, which is a great success, as it has retained its Victorian ambience but has also tried to modernise itself and ensure that it is a seaside resort that works all year round. A previous contributor commented on part-time work and casual work. One of the big challenges in relation to tourism and economic redevelopment is to ensure that the tourism sector can provide year-round employment. Llandudno is keen to ensure that it develops year-round tourism, and it has done that by being proactive about its marketing, ensuring that it draws in the Christmas market and so on. However, it has also worked in partnership with the local authority to ensure that it can offer conference facilities and entertainment. The local authority has worked with the tourism association in Llandudno to develop Venue Cymru, for example, where there are a large theatre and conference facilities. That means that Llandudno attracts tourists all year round, which has the added benefit of allowing businesses servicing those tourists and visitors to employ people and give them proper jobs for 52 weeks of the year, as opposed to the casual employment that they had to depend on in that sector in the past.
Another of Llandudno’s successes results from the fact that it has not seen tourism as something that works in isolation. In addition to being the queen of Welsh resorts, it has been the main shopping centre for north Wales for generations. The investment in retail has continued, and the important thing about that investment is that it is not just about the high street multiples, which are obviously very important to the local market. The wonderful thing about Llandudno is that it also offers independent retailers, who add to the experience for tourists when they come to the town. They have the feeling that they are in an old-fashioned resort. They can see the high street multiples, but they can also go to the back streets and find interesting retailers offering something completely different.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a council working with other councils in the region could bring in tourists for everyone? If a push is made to bring tourists to one village on its own, sometimes that does not work, but if a council works with other councils and other tourist destinations, with all their different attractions, everyone can benefit.
Guto Bebb
That is a very valuable contribution. Conwy council, which represents Llandudno, works in partnership with other local authorities, especially in relation to marketing the advantages of Snowdonia, for example, so yes, I agree with that point.
We are very fortunate that a large part of the town of Llandudno is under the management of Mostyn Estates. One of the strengths of Llandudno is that it has retained its character, due to the sympathetic management of the town by Mostyn Estates. That management has ensured that, for example, when people hit the prom in Llandudno, it looks extremely impressive. There are controls over the colour of the paint that can be put on hotels and there are controls in terms of not allowing buildings to be turned into houses in multiple occupation. That has kept the character of the town and has contributed to Llandudno’s success.
I shall finish with these questions and points for my hon. Friend the Minister, because I am aware that time is pressing. The Llandudno Hospitality Association has a number of concerns, including one that was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire. I am referring to VAT on hotel rates. One of Llandudno’s successes is that it has turned its attention to offering a broad range of accommodation, from bed and breakfasts to high-class boutique hotels. However, there is a concern that we face a VAT rate of 20% on hotel accommodation, compared with much lower rates in the rest of Europe.
It is worth mentioning that 3.1 million people live in seaside resorts in the UK. That is more than the population of Wales. Wales has a Secretary of State and a Welsh Assembly fighting its corner. Is the voice of seaside resorts heard across Government? I am sure that the coalition Government will ensure that that is the case, but I would like reassurance on that point.
Tourism should not be seen as a Cinderella sector in economic development. Local enterprise partnerships in England offer the opportunity to ensure that tourism development is part of those strategies. I hope that the LEP process in England learns the lesson from Wales. I am very disappointed, because the Welsh Assembly recently announced that it was targeting six specific sectors of the Welsh economy for growth and, for some bizarre reason, tourism was not included. I hope that the Minister will have more success in selling the importance of tourism as an economic development tool than his colleague did in the Welsh Assembly.
Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
I have sprung to my feet in defence of the town of Hastings in my constituency, as it was placed in a not very positive category by a number of my colleagues. Deprivation in seaside towns is a fact. The point is well rehearsed and has been repeated by many hon. Members here today. It is true that Hastings suffers on many indexes of deprivation, but I will not refer to that now, because I should like instead to draw attention to some of the many wonderful aspects of Hastings. It has a large natural park around it. We have wonderful food and drink, and next year will see the arrival of the new Jerwood art gallery, which I hope will contribute to regenerating the town.
I want to ask my hon. Friend the Minister about the amusement industry. We all know that the seaside tourism industry is linked to the amusement industry, and if the amusement industry is hampered, so is the economic growth of seaside towns. The amusement and bingo industry has been under pressure as a result of the Gambling Act 2005 and, as we know, that has been exacerbated by the recession. Given the wider debate about the economic viability of seaside towns, it is very important that the amusement industry is supported. We have heard today about many new initiatives to support seaside towns and their industries, but we must not forget the old one—the amusement industry and its slot machines, which are important in attracting tourists to our towns.
The regulatory framework of the 2005 Act is robust and exhaustive and went a long way in defending and supporting people, but it also had some unintended consequences, damaging seaside towns. I know that at the moment a Government consultation is under way about maximum stakes, premises and entitlements. I hope that the Minister will be able to introduce some positive changes when the consultation finishes, because many seaside towns have been suffering under those measures. I am thinking particularly of private clubs that are no longer allowed to offer high-paying slot machines. People who wish to use such slot machines must go instead to casinos and gambling places, which have a less benign atmosphere than private clubs, which causes problems. Will the Minister consider carefully what can be done to support the amusement industry, which is so important to seaside towns?
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) on securing this important debate. She spoke passionately about the issues, which are vital to the lives and livelihoods of many people in her constituency, as they are to the people and economies of many other seaside towns up and down Britain. I hope that she and the other hon. Members who spoke will use their influence with their parties to bring the issue to the attention of the Government, and to press for the necessary steps to secure the future of our seaside towns and ensure that the regeneration of seaside and coastal areas does not slip off the agenda.
Tourism is incredibly important for the survival and regeneration of British seaside towns. It creates huge numbers of jobs, both for people directly employed in the industry and for many thousands more working in related industries. Millions of people visit the seaside every year—after London, Blackpool and Scarborough are the country’s second and third most popular destinations for overnight stays. In total, about 25% of domestic tourism is made up of people taking holidays at seaside and coastal towns. I have learned that Cleveleys is an attractive destination. The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) spoke about the town’s accessibility, and I shall certainly look at the website he mentioned.
Many hon. Members noted that tourism alone cannot be held responsible for ensuring the future of coastal communities, but it has also been noted that it is essential to start with the industry that made these places popular and, in many cases, famous and well loved. That means supporting tourism and directing support to seaside towns that rely on it as an economic lifeline. As the hon. Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) said, it means adopting a cross-departmental approach to help seaside and coastal towns tackle the problems that they face, and ensure that they remain, or return to being, places in which people want to live and work, as well as visit.
The coalition Government must take steps to end the cycle of seasonality that particularly affects coastal communities and to tackle joblessness and youth unemployment. The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) spoke about the importance of the tourism industry in providing jobs for his constituents. The coalition should also act to provide better-quality and more affordable housing; to support the delivery of strong public services and infrastructure; to take steps to reduce the anti-social behaviour and crime that blights so many of our seaside towns; and to safeguard the growth of small and medium-sized businesses. The amusement industry, to which the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) referred, falls within that sector.
I have spoken to members of the tourism industry, and I was told this morning that, after a period of neglect and decline, it was the previous Labour Government who ensured sustained investment in seaside towns, delivered in particular through the regional development agency, which the coalition has scrapped. The previous Labour Government backed coastal tourism and worked hard to ensure that the British seaside was becoming, once again, an attractive place for people to live, work and enjoy simple pleasures, such as the beach and the sea, and popular visitor attractions.
Earlier this year, Labour launched its strategy for seaside success, which included £5 million to help the most deprived seaside authorities, building on its record in government of targeting an additional £127 million of funding on coastal local authorities to help them meet the particular challenges that seaside towns can face. The hon. Members for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby), for Hove (Mike Weatherley) and for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) discussed additional provision and activities in our seaside towns. Labour’s strategy also involved a “seasiding” campaign to promote festivals, other cultural initiatives and the non-seasonal economy, and to support the development of heritage attractions, for example, the renewal of historic piers. Those things are needed to make our seaside towns year-round destinations. The campaign involved plans to improve infrastructure, tackle disproportionate levels of deprivation in seaside towns, and work with regional and local bodies to ensure that seaside towns and seaside tourism could flourish. Hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), talked about the problem of deprivation in such areas.
The coalition’s cuts to RDAs and the budgets of organisations set up to promote tourism will hit hard and hurt at a time when the industry needs support, particularly in seaside towns that still depend heavily on tourism. The Government, from the Prime Minister downwards, have yet to show that they have the plans to secure the future of our seaside towns. Yes, we have heard lots of warm words about the state of seaside tourism in Britain, but I argue that they are simply an endorsement of Labour’s record, rather than a strategy that the Government will pursue while in office.
The Minister has taken the trouble to visit Britain’s seaside towns, which is to be welcomed, but we have yet to hear his findings, and we look forward to doing so. If the Government are to support seaside towns and continue Labour’s work to regenerate such areas, the coalition must tell people, as the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) said, how seaside holidays and attractions in coastal towns will be advertised to appeal to visitors, following the 34% cuts to VisitBritain and VisitEngland and the 32% cut to the English Heritage grant. As the hon. Member for Southport said, what role will local enterprise partnerships play now that the Government are going to abolish regional development agencies? Will LEPs have any responsibility for the regeneration of our seaside towns?
The hon. Members for Newton Abbot and for Ceredigion referred to the impact on the tourism industry of the VAT rise to 20%. Has there been an impact assessment of its effects on our seaside and coastal towns? If so, I would like to see it. In short, what is the Government’s strategy for ensuring that tourism is supported so that it can continue to play an integral part in our seaside and coastal towns? Without Government support, British seaside towns and the people who live and work in them face another period of decline.
It is not enough to rely, as the Conservative party so often does, on the power of the private sector. I spoke to Peter Hampson, director of the British Resorts and Destinations Association, this morning, and he shares my concerns that, if the challenges facing seaside resorts are not addressed, if resorts are not protected and developed, and if budgets to attract tourists to them are consistently cut, then people will simply go elsewhere.
The coalition needs to answer a question for the tourism industry: the people whose livelihoods rely on seaside and coastal tourism and those who have chosen to make their lives at the British seaside. How much of the overall spend on promoting tourism will be directed to seaside towns? What plans do the Government have to ensure that work to support and regenerate seaside towns will continue? How can the Government expect the private sector to invest in seaside towns without seeing a clear lead from Government and the public sector? Without a clear and cohesive public policy to support seaside tourism and seaside towns, the risk is that places such as Ramsgate in the constituency of the hon. Member for South Thanet and other coastal resorts, about which we have heard a lot today, will decline once again.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (John Penrose)
It is a pleasure to have you as our Chairman today, Mr Crausby. I echo other hon. Members’ thanks and congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) on securing the debate and leading it so well. She demonstrates that she is sticking up for her constituents in an incredibly effective fashion. Her lead has been followed during the debate by a great many other Members from seaside towns all around the country.
I think it was the hon. Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) who pointed out that although the problems and issues faced by seaside towns have a common thread running through them, seaside towns are different in different parts of the country. However, on the basis of today, if one thing about every seaside town is clear, it is that they all have a pretty determined local Member wanting to stick up for them here in Westminster. To put it politely, we are all as biased as each other, and convinced that our seaside town is far better than anyone else’s. I suspect that I fall into the same category, because I am of course convinced that Weston-super-Mare is the best seaside town in the country—I am getting frowns from the rest of the room.
Important points have been made. I will not take them in any particular order, but will endeavour to respond to as many of the questions and points raised as possible in the limited time available. There has been a shared conviction throughout the debate that tourism is an incredibly important part of the regeneration opportunities available to any seaside town. Tourism provides a superb opportunity for rapid economic growth in a financially efficient fashion.
We are lucky in the coalition Government to have a Prime Minister who was willing to mark his enthusiasm for the sector and recognise its importance by making a speech about it in August. Older hands at DCMS tell me that they cannot in recent decades remember a Prime Minister making a speech about the visitor economy within the first 100 days of a new Administration, and making the point that the sector is so important to the British economy that he wants to put it front and centre of the Administration’s economic plans. We are lucky to have the prime ministerial wind in our sails; it is tremendously helpful to have that kind of support. That is because, as a number of Members have rightly pointed out, tourism cuts across a wide variety of different Departments in Whitehall, so it is up to me and anyone else interested in the visitor economy to make the case for tourism in the Department for Transport, in the Home Office and with the UK Border Agency, and in all the different Departments that tourism touches. It is essential to ensure that everybody knows that we have high-level patronage and a great degree of importance attached to the industry.
The most commonly mentioned concern and opportunity was marketing. It was raised by a series of Members—my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams), my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), the hon. Member for Southport, and my hon. Friends the Members for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), and for Hove (Mike Weatherley); apologies to anyone I have left out. Marketing is essential, because since the 1980s seaside towns have faced the difficulty of establishing a new USP, or unique selling proposition—a new position within the market to bring people to them in the wake of the relative decline of the UK seaside bucket-and-spade holiday, after everyone started going to Spain and other places on cheap charter flights.
Some places have managed that brilliantly. We can all think of examples round the country where seaside towns have done well: Bournemouth has done extremely well out of the conference trade; Rock in north Cornwall has done well out of food tourism; festivals have brought seaside towns to life; and funfairs are one of the major draws to Blackpool, even now. A lot of development capital is going into the Blackpool seafront as we speak. There are ways of re-positioning a seaside town, by establishing a new marketing position that creates a new draw and underlying raison d’être. However, it is up to that individual seaside town to come up with its specific local example and to put it out there, so that people know why they might want to come to Weston-super-Mare, Hastings or wherever.
It is essential that the Government help that process to happen. The Government cannot do that from the centre, and tell any one seaside town what its new USP ought to be. That has to come from the local economy and the local tourism industry, supported by the local authority. One of the coalition Government’s most important initiatives is to assist the birth of a new kind of destination management organisation—a new kind of local tourism board, whatever it is called. It will be led by the local tourism industry, which lives or dies by the success of its local destination. We all have examples in our constituencies of well-run, high-powered, large and small local tourism firms that know what is right for them, and for Weston-super-Mare, Hastings or South Thanet. It is up to them to tell us what to do, and for us to ensure that they can create a destination marketing organisation that will position the town and attract new visitors to it on a sustainable basis.
That means that we need to have an organisation that is primarily managed and led by the local industry, rather than by the public sector. The public sector needs to support, help and do what it can, but we want the local industry to take a hard-headed commercial look at what the town can offer to visitors, and then market the heck out of it in the most commercially savvy way.
That means that the new DMOs, or whatever we want to call them, will essentially be managed and led by the local tourism industry. It is essential that that takes place. Equally, it is worth remembering that the phrase “destination management organisation” is not the same as “destination marketing organisation”, though they share an acronym. It is vital that when we have created the local destination marketing organisation, it acts as the voice of the visitor in the local community. The local industry should say, “It is essential that, working in conjunction with the local authority, we are able to frame our local tourism industry and attractions, and organise the local public spaces, in a way that shows off our town and its attractions to the best advantage.” That means it must have a strong voice—a seat at the table—with the local authority, and act as the voice of the industry and the visitor in any decisions that the local authority may take, in order to ensure that each seaside town’s unique charms are shown off to their best.
That is how we need to reform marketing. There will be a new kind of partnership marketing, a partnership between the local tourism industry and the local authority—ideally with matched funding—so that we can maximise the money being spent in an effective, commercial way to promote each seaside town to the utmost.
A number of Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, and for South Thanet, mentioned social tourism. That is a particularly interesting idea that I discussed recently with Mr Tajani from the EU. There is an EU-wide programme called Calypso under way at the moment. It is an interesting notion that we need to explore carefully. Members will be aware that there is a very limited pot of public funding. Therefore, anything we do in this area has to be done in the way described by my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet; as she said, we do not have to spend additional public funding on it. I welcome that instinct; I think she is absolutely right to say that we need to come up with solutions that will not add to the burden on the taxpayer. If there are proposals coming out of the new all-party parliamentary group that is being set up, I will be interested to hear them. We are also engaging with the European effort via Mr Tajani.
The issue of daylight saving was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet. I will not add much to that, because the subject was debated fully on Friday. The tourism industry is very much behind the initiative. It is convinced, as are other industries such as retail, that it will greatly help the sector. However, it is not as simple as that, as I am sure my hon. Friend will realise, because grave concerns about the impact on quality of life have been expressed by our colleagues in the north of Scotland. It would be dangerous—and potentially divisive—for the rest of Britain, and certainly England, to impose a solution without the consent of Scotland. A point made strongly on Friday was that any progress needs to be made through consensus, having built up a democratic voice across the UK, rather than having one sector of the country trying to impose the change on another. We have the opportunity to build such a consensus, because the Bill is to go into Committee, and I welcome that.
There were a couple of comments about VAT and business rates. That is a tremendously important area, but I am conscious of time coming to an end, so I shall be brief. We dealt with business rates during an intervention, pointing out that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already announced that there will be an opportunity in future for local authorities to keep some of the proceeds of growth from the additional business rates that are created by local economic growth, potentially generated by the tourism industry. That will provide local authorities with a powerful incentive for getting behind local tourism bodies that are trying to drive economic growth through tourism; they will have a strong financial incentive to take part and assist, which they did not in the past.
I have received representations from the tourism industry about VAT on a number of occasions. I have given the industry the following challenge on that issue. We all appreciate that we have a huge financial deficit—bequeathed by the previous Government—that needs to be closed. It would therefore be extremely difficult for any Chancellor of the Exchequer to hand out tax reductions in the short to medium term. The challenge the tourism industry needs to face up to is this: if it wants a better deal than any other sector of the economy, it needs to explain why it is more important than all the others, which will also be asking for a special deal on VAT or other taxes. That will include the miners, the banks, the IT sector and all other sectors of our economy. If that case can be made, I will be delighted to make representations to the Treasury—but not until then.
Rail Services (Nuneaton)
(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
I am delighted to have the opportunity to discuss an extremely important matter for my constituents, namely the provision of rail services to Nuneaton. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister, who has taken time from his busy schedule to respond to the debate. I also thank those of my hon. Friends who are here this afternoon for their support; the issue clearly affects neighbouring constituencies as much as it does mine.
My hon. Friend the Minister will no doubt be fully briefed on the subject. However, it might be of some assistance if I first set out the history and background to Nuneaton station. I shall then speak about the west coast main line and lastly about local services, particularly the Nuneaton to Coventry service.
Nuneaton station was opened in 1874, when the London and North Western railway opened the Trent valley section of the west coast main line. It was built to avoid the congested areas of Coventry and Birmingham—even then, we had problems with rail capacity. Unfortunately, Nuneaton’s rail services were considerably reduced under the Beeching axe of 1963. That led to the closure of Nuneaton Abbey Street, Stockingford and Bedworth stations later that year. In addition, in 1965 the Nuneaton to Coventry line was closed to passengers. Happily, in 1988, under the previous Conservative Administration, the Nuneaton to Coventry line was reinstated for passengers, as was the station at Bedworth.
Nuneaton’s association with the west coast main line has not always been a happy one. Tragically, on 6 June 1975 six people died and 38 were injured when the Euston to Glasgow sleeper express crashed just outside the station. The train was carrying the then Labour Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Fred Peart, who survived after a short spell in hospital. I do not remember much about the crash as I was only one at the time, but I have seen the dramatic press photographs of that awful incident.
Let me deal with the specific issues that affect Nuneaton rail services. The first is to do with the west coast main line. Traditionally, Nuneaton station’s place on the west coast main line has been a great advantage. Nuneaton enjoyed fast hourly services to London and the north-west, peak and off-peak, until 2008. In that year, the very high frequency timetable was introduced, at which time fast off-peak services from Nuneaton disappeared.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this valuable debate. My constituency is immediately adjacent to his, and those who live in the north of my constituency are served by Nuneaton station. Does my hon. Friend agree that one problem is that investment in the west coast main line led to an imperative on the operator to minimise city-to-city times? One way to achieve that was to reduce the frequency of stops at stations such as Nuneaton and Rugby.
Mr Jones
I totally agree with my hon. Friend. I shall return to the subject later.
Passengers wanting a fast service from Nuneaton now face the significant inconvenience of having to take an additional train to Coventry or Rugby to pick up a fast service. The alternative is to make a 30-minute car journey to Coventry or Rugby to catch the fast train.
I campaigned on this important issue before the general election. I wrote to the Department for Transport and to Virgin Trains, the train operator. The response was most unsatisfactory. The Department for Transport blamed timetabling changes on the operator, and the operator blamed the Department for Transport. Neither offered a solution to the loss of amenity for passengers from my constituency. That loss of amenity is substantial, and I fear that it will greatly reduce Nuneaton’s ability to attract inward investment from business and commuters. That is particularly galling given that we are now only an hour away from London and from the north-west.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I echo what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey).
Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem is much wider and that it affects not only the people of Nuneaton but people from Bedworth and the surrounding area of my constituency? They rely just as heavily on effective and fast rail services from Nuneaton station.
Mr Jones
As my hon. Friend knows, Nuneaton and Bedworth borough council takes in part of his constituency. People from Bedworth, too, have been disadvantaged by the timetable changes.
That brings me to the future of timetabling. Under the previous Government, there was an unfortunate tendency for too much political interference with timetabling. That often prevented operators from giving better services, including the sort of improvements demanded by my constituents. I was therefore greatly encouraged that the coalition agreement included the clear intention of looking at rail franchising differently, and of considering how the Office of Rail Regulation works so that we have a more powerful regulator. I hope that the Minister will assure me that the regulator’s role is to be strengthened, and that we will see improvements in rail services from my constituency.
I am aware of this week’s announcement on rail franchising, and I broadly welcome the statement. However, I am slightly concerned about the proposed west coast main line refranchising. That will be let from 2012 to 2026, when the first trains are projected to start running on High Speed 2. I was initially led to believe that HS 2 would improve high-speed rail capacity on the west coast main line. However, having had many conversations on the matter with various interested parties, I am slightly concerned that that may not be the case. Will the Minister assure the House that fast services on the west coast main line will survive post-HS 2?
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene. The problem affects my Hinckley constituents as it does those of surrounding areas.
I might be able to help my hon. Friend. I believe that the 16.10 Euston to Bangor train may stop at Nuneaton when the new Pendolino trains come into operation. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State at the Department for Transport made that point in a letter to a user group. Has my hon. Friend received information on similar lines?
Mr Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for that. I have not received that information, but if what my hon. Friend says is right, it is most welcome.
It is important that the preferred bidder on the west coast main line deals with a number of points. First, consideration should be given to Nuneaton’s becoming a regular pattern stop, as it once was, to enable more frequent fast services to run from there. Secondly, we should end the moderation of competition rules to allow new providers into the market. I am fully aware that if substantial investment is involved, it may impede changing the rules in that regard. Substantial upgrade work was undertaken at Nuneaton station in 2004, so I hope that changing the rules will not be so much of an issue. I am also aware that open access providers have been assessing the viability of providing additional services on the west coast main line, which brings me to my next important point.
I have discussed capacity with a number of operators and potential operators. My discussions all lead me to believe that there is additional capacity on the west coast main line. If the Minister would confirm that this possibility is under definite consideration, I would be most grateful. Rail usage at Nuneaton has increased over the past five years by 37%, and I have little doubt that there is still capacity to increase it. The neighbouring constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) and for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) and mine give a catchment area of more than 300,000 people, which has substantial potential.
Having set out my case for additional fast services on the west coast main line, I should like to turn now to the provision of local services, particularly the link with Coventry. My hon. Friend the Minister is no doubt aware of my interest in this matter. He knows, too, that the Secretary of State has kindly arranged a meeting with me next week, which will be attended by several colleagues.
The importance of the link between Coventry and Nuneaton cannot be overestimated. Coventry is the closest city to my constituency. Statistics show that there is a clear correlation between the more affluent areas in my constituency and a travelling distance of 10 and 15 miles to the workplace, and Coventry is the only geographical location that fits that description. There is currently an hourly service from Coventry to Nuneaton, with a stop at the neighbouring town of Bedworth.
Access to employment opportunities for my constituents is vital, as indeed is access to both Warwick and Coventry universities for higher education opportunities. If we are really serious about improving social mobility within the areas of relative deprivation in my constituency—there are a number of such areas in the bottom 20% of the national deprivation indices—improved rail services will play a vital part in closing that gap. An example of how the inequality gap can be bridged is demonstrated by Coventry’s plans to redevelop part of the city centre that surrounds the railway station. The redevelopment scheme is projected to create some 15,000 jobs, from which my constituents would benefit if only there was more convenient rail access for them.
That brings me to the Ricoh arena, which is home of Coventry City football club and the Arena Park shopping centre. Some 600 people are employed there and further development is envisaged. Both facilities are adjacent to the railway line, but, currently, there is no station for a stopping train. That is perverse given that the arena contains not only a large shopping area and conference venue but a stadium, which is set to host football matches during the 2012 Olympic games.
Mark Pawsey
My hon. Friend will be aware that the reason for the location of the football stadium—immediately adjacent to the railway line—was that the primary means of access would be by train, yet there is no station. I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to press for such a facility to be introduced at the earliest opportunity so that people from across the country can easily get to the stadium, particularly in time for the rugby world cup in 2015.
Mr Jones
That is a perverse situation. On the drawing board, it was envisaged that there would be a station adjacent to the stadium. Unfortunately, it has never materialised. It has been under discussion for 10 years, I think, and, unfortunately, it was very much neglected by the previous Government.
The improvement of Nuneaton’s rail services has been recognised as an issue of great importance for nearly a decade. It is a conundrum that has been greatly ignored. I hope that the coalition Government will give the matter much more urgent and sympathetic consideration. Capacity can be improved, and frequency and usage increased by taking the following measures: improving the line’s infrastructure, including a new platform at Coventry; providing new stations at Bermuda in Nuneaton and at the Ricoh arena; and providing additional rolling stock.
There is a huge lack of capacity at Coventry station, because the Nuneaton-to-Coventry service currently shares a platform with the fast service that connects to the west coast main line. At the moment, providing more local services has to be traded against the loss of the fast services on the west coast main line from Coventry, which is clearly not going to happen and is not an option. An additional station bay at Coventry station would remove the current impediment and allow for a twice-hourly service between the two stations of Nuneaton and Coventry.
A new station at Bermuda in Nuneaton would further strengthen access to the service, particularly from the adjacent area of relative deprivation. The Ricoh arena station would increase opportunities for my constituents to reach a greater diversity of employment and provide much improved access to the arena when matches and events take place. It could also strengthen the position of Nuneaton as a pleasant place to stay during such events, thus increasing the chances of inward investment for the hotel, leisure and hospitality industry.
As I mentioned earlier, additional rolling stock will be required to achieve these improvements. I was glad to see in the Secretary of State’s recent statement that an additional amount of new rolling stock is to be introduced to the overall network. I hope that such an investment will enable existing stock to be moved to lines such as the Coventry to Nuneaton line. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to take these arguments back to the Department, where I know that an assessment of the Coventry to Nuneaton upgrade project is now under way.
In conclusion, I hope that I have set out an argument based not just on narrow and parochial terms but on economic and social grounds because improvements in services would lead to real benefits for constituencies across Coventry, Warwickshire and Leicestershire. Such benefits would inevitably help a region that has really suffered under the recession that was bequeathed by the Labour Government and reinvigorate an area in which private-sector growth and jobs are badly needed after years of decline.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) on securing this debate and on providing an opportunity for the House to debate rail issues at Nuneaton. Let me preface my remarks by referring to recent statements by the Secretary of State. I hope that my hon. Friend is pleased with the level of the Government’s investment in rail. We recognise the value of rail both in helping growth and cutting carbon emissions.
Let me turn first to the west coast main line. The £9 billion west coast route modernisation project renewed and upgraded the country’s key main rail line. It accommodates many long-distance passenger trains and numerous local and regional passenger services, and handles 40% of the nation’s rail freight business. It was a good example of the railway industry pulling together to deliver a very important project.
Modernisation has delivered a successful and robust railway that has headroom for passenger and freight growth. The west coast main line regularly achieves more than 90% reliability. Passenger growth has been very encouraging, with 4 million additional journeys following the completion of route modernisation, and I expect the growth to continue. This week, I noted that the first new 11-car train of the 106 Pendolino vehicles on order was delivered to the UK for testing and approval ahead of passenger service. Given the level of investment in both the trains and the infrastructure, it is important that the west coast main line timetable secures the best return for taxpayers on the money spent. The timetable ensures that rail contributes the maximum possible to the overall transport network of the country. It has delivered a significant modal shift from car and air. Rail has now doubled its share of the London-to-Glasgow market to around 13%, and to between 75 and 80% of the London-to-Manchester market. Rail serves those markets well.
The current timetable maximises the use of line capacity and fleet resources. However, some difficult choices had to be made when the current west coast main line timetable was designed. As my hon. Friend knows, a few established services and calling patterns were changed. No towns were left isolated. Overall, the vast majority of passengers have benefited, as is demonstrated by the growth that is now being witnessed. Headline improvements delivered with the completion of modernisation include: three trains an hour to both Manchester and Birmingham; new hourly all-day services from London to the Trent valley, Crewe to London and London to Chester; significant journey time reductions, including London to Warrington and Preston to Glasgow services, which are now 30 minutes faster, and London to Liverpool, which is 25 minutes faster; and a full weekend service with journey times and frequencies very similar to weekdays.
I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that all such improvements are very welcome. One of the difficult choices was the decision to remove the Nuneaton stop from Virgin and west coast off-peak services. Unfortunately, it is not a high-earning station in off-peak times or one where business is likely to grow significantly when compared with other opportunities on the line. Quite simply the revenue and growth opportunities are much greater elsewhere.
The removal of the fast off-peak service was forecast to lose around £200,000 in revenue from Nuneaton. That needs to be set against the £600 million that modernisation will have generated between 2003 and 2011. In the current service pattern, London peak traffic, which accounts for the vast majority of demand and revenue at the station, benefits from a standard journey time of around one hour for the 97 miles. The fastest journey achieves an average speed of over 100 mph, which is one of the fastest commuter services in Europe. To serve more diffuse evening peak travel patterns, fast Virgin services continue to call at Nuneaton throughout the evening.
Off-peak services are provided by the new 100 mph air-conditioned Desiro trains that are operated by London Midland. These services give Nuneaton new hourly direct journey opportunities to towns such as Stoke, Tamworth, Rugby and Milton Keynes. They also provide the opportunity of cross-platform connections with Virgin west coast services at Rugby, giving a total journey time of one hour and 12 minutes to Euston. The previous direct hourly train completed the journey in the longer time of one hour and 15 minutes.
The timetable proposals for the current west coast main line services were widely consulted upon and welcomed in many parts, particularly in the north-west of England. However, I suspect that my hon. Friend wishes to promote Nuneaton’s case further. Therefore I urge him to comment on the consultation draft of the Network Rail west coast main line route utilisation strategy, which is published today. Nuneaton stakeholders will also get the opportunity to present their case during the consultation phase of the west coast franchise competition. The Government plan to issue an invitation in the Official Journal of the European Union for the competition in January 2011 and in due course we will issue the inter-city west coast franchise consultation document. I also urge my hon. Friend to discuss his ideas with the accredited franchise bidders once they have been selected.
The Secretary of State recently gave his approval for Network Rail to proceed with construction of the north chord, which will improve the capacity and reliability of the west coast main line and provide freight trains from the east coast with improved access to the midlands and the north-west. I am pleased to tell the hon. Gentleman today, if he does not already know, that that project has recently attracted €5 million of European Union funding from the trans-European network towards its £29 million cost. I expect construction to start in spring 2011 and take about 18 months to complete.
The hon. Gentleman asked a couple of questions about the west coast main line. In particular, he asked what would happen when the new high-speed line opened. I am advised that it is too early to say what the stocking patterns will be on the west coast main line, but it is obviously anticipated that the faster inter-city services will use the new high-speed line. Perhaps he will want to have discussions with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers), who is the rail Minister, closer to the time, to ensure that the inter-city services are properly factored into the timetable for the west coast main line as it pertains after High Speed 2 opens.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about spare train paths on the west coast main line, in particular whether there were any spare train paths for open access operators. I am advised that the Office of Rail Regulation is investigating that matter, but the key question is whether it is best for an open access operator or for an additional franchise service to use any spare train paths. Open access operators would provide perhaps five trains a day. London Midland has also applied to improve the London to Crewe service. So we must reach a balance in the public interest between the open access arrangements and what might come in from a franchise operation. Nevertheless, his comments are noted by my colleagues.
Let me consider the Coventry to Nuneaton upgrade. Earlier this year, we received a business case submission from Coventry city council, Centro and Warwickshire county council. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the upgrade consists of doubling the frequency of the service between Coventry and Nuneaton, new stations at Bermuda—is that right? I thought that Bermuda was elsewhere.
Norman Baker
As I was saying, there will be new stations at Bermuda and the Ricoh arena, and longer platforms at Bedworth. To accommodate the more frequent service, a new bay platform will be required at Coventry station, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. As he knows, all those features are included in the bid.
Consideration of the bid was put on hold pending the spending review. The Department’s spending review settlement was a good outcome for transport, but it was not sufficient to fund the full pipeline of schemes prioritised under the previous system of regional funding allocations. Tough decisions are necessary to get the best value from the available public funding.
The Coventry to Nuneaton rail scheme has been included in the pre-qualification pool for funding from the local major transport schemes budget. That is because we have not yet verified the scheme’s value for money. We will conduct a preliminary sift and make decisions by January about whether that scheme and other such schemes can join the development pool. The decisions in January will be based largely on the ability to deliver significantly within the spending review period and the scope for reduced Department for Transport contributions from those most recently requested, as well as the potential for a scheme to demonstrate a compelling value-for-money case by the final 2011 deadline.
We also need to ensure that some of the more challenging aspects of the scheme are fully addressed. They relate primarily to the ability of the railway to handle the size of the crowds that are forecast for major events at the Ricoh arena and the availability of rolling stock, especially for evening events at the venue. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that there is a safety issue in relation to huge numbers of people turning up at a relatively small station to try to access a short train; that is a serious issue with using rolling stock for such events at the Ricoh arena. We are now reviewing the business case and we are in regular contact with officials at the three authorities to seek further clarification about certain matters to ensure that we have all the information we need for the sifting process in January 2011.
As I have said, there are a large number of extant schemes in the pipeline. I am sure that some will drop out because they will not be progressed by the promoters of the schemes, and we hope that other schemes will see a reduced cost. Generally, the more we can reduce the cost of schemes, the more likely it is that we can proceed with more of those in the pipeline.
Dan Byles
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; I am conscious that we are short of time. Some of my constituents are concerned that high-speed rail— HS 2—and the level of investment that will be required for that project could lead to a crowding-out of investment in more local rail services. Can the Minister give us an assurance that, if high-speed rail goes ahead, that will not happen?
Norman Baker
I hope that high-speed rail is going ahead. The Government have made it very clear in the coalition agreement that we are committed to it and the Secretary of State has been working very hard on it, taking personal responsibility for promoting it. However, my hon. Friend will also have noticed that, since the formation of the coalition Government, we have announced, for example, the progress of 2,100 new carriages; an electrification programme across the country; that Crossrail is going ahead in its entirety; that the Thameslink programme is going ahead, and new light rail extensions in Birmingham and Nottingham. The public at large can be in no doubt that the Government are committed to investment in rail: high-speed rail; conventional rail, and indeed light rail. We see that investment as a way of creating growth in the economy and cutting carbon emissions. I can therefore give him an absolute assurance that we will not see local services carved out. We are determined to ensure that rail has a future, both for local services and for high-speed services.
The Secretary of State will be happy to give my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton more detail about the Coventry-Nuneaton line in the meeting that I understand has been scheduled between them for later this month.
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair
Order. As the Member who has secured the next debate and the Minister who will respond are present, we will begin.
Civilian Deaths (Ballymurphy)
(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
It is a privilege to open this Adjournment debate under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby.
On Monday 9 August 1971, the then Northern Ireland Government introduced internment without trial. That policy was dramatically and drastically imposed by the British Army. It could only have been implemented with the sanction and counsel of the British Government and their agents. It was a misguided and counter-productive response to the security and political concerns of Government at the time. However, in today’s short debate, we need to consider first not the longer-term fallout from the disaster of internment, but an immediate fatal atrocity that was perpetrated with its imposition. On 9, 10 and 11 August 1971, 11 innocent civilians were killed in the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast by the Parachute Regiment, the same regiment that was specially deployed to Derry months later on 30 January 1972—Bloody Sunday.
The fact that 11 innocent victims of Ballymurphy were killed over three days at a time of wider, serious conflagration, repression, violence and many other deaths meant that Ballymurphy was not really landmarked as an atrocity in its own right, either at the time or for some time after. That is why the victims’ families and the people of Ballymurphy have challenged us all to acknowledge that theirs has been the forgotten atrocity. They have resolved that it will be forgotten or passed over no more. They need to set their truth free, to have the innocence of their loved ones fully vindicated, to have the enormity of what was perpetrated and then papered over fully understood, and to have responsibility taken for those awful events by the forces and power of the state.
I salute the dignity and determination of the families who have come together in such a purposeful and powerful way, and who have lobbied all the parties in Northern Ireland, the Irish Government and the British Government. In recent times, they have been briefing Members of this Parliament about those dark events that have been frustratingly and disturbingly overshadowed for too long.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
I was lobbied by the sons of one of the people murdered, and I was taken aback by the ferocity of the force used on that day. A mother had half her face blown away. People lying wounded on the ground were shot at point-blank range. Wounded people were taken to the barracks and killed there. Atrocities were committed, and I fully support my hon. Friend in his fight for justice.
Mark Durkan
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He rightly brings us to the details of what happened during those three days in Ballymurphy. I acknowledge that these were not the only deaths that occurred during that period; in fact, there were 28 deaths in total. The wider scale of the deaths should not be used by anyone to diminish the seriousness of the questions that must be asked about Ballymurphy, nor should those questions diminish the seriousness of the grief felt by the families of other victims killed then and since. It is important, if that atrocity is not to be forgotten, that the victims should not be forgotten. Particularly in a debate such as this, their names and what happened to them should be remembered.
The first victim, on 9 August, was Father Hugh Mullan, who was shot as he carried a white cloth while going to the aid of someone else who had been shot and wounded. In a debate in the main Chamber of the House of Commons, the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins) spoke poignantly about his regard for the iconic image of Father Daly in Derry on Bloody Sunday. In Ballymurphy, another priest with a white cloth went to the aid of a victim, and that priest was shot. When Frank Quinn, seeing him lying wounded, went to his aid, he too was shot. Both of them were then shot further as they lay on the ground. A priest who went to the aid of an injured parishioner was killed, and someone else who came from his place of safety into Army gunfire was killed as well.
The third victim was 200 yards away. At exactly the time when Father Mullan and Frank Quinn were being shot, the Army was firing near the Taggart barracks at the top of Ballymurphy. Paratroopers were firing indiscriminately. Noel Phillips, a young man of 19, was shot and wounded. As my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) said, a woman, Joan Connolly, came to his aid, calling to Noel Phillips that it was all right; she was coming to him. She was then shot in the face. Joan Connolly was a mother of eight.
The fifth victim was Daniel Teggart, a father of 13. He was initially shot while running for cover, but was then repeatedly shot—up to 14 times—while he lay defenceless on the ground. Also on 9 August, Joseph Murphy, a father of 12, was shot in the leg. He received no medical attention; neither did some of the other victims, including Noel Phillips.
On 10 August, the seventh victim, Eddie Doherty, was killed as he made his way home along Whiterock road. A digger and a Saracen moved in to dismantle a barricade blocking the road. From the cab of the mechanical digger, a member of the Parachute Regiment shot Eddie Doherty in the back.
Early in the morning of 11 August, John Laverty, age 20, was shot dead by soldiers. Joseph Corr, a father of seven, was also shot and died of his injuries on 27 August. The Parachute Regiment alleged that both men were firing at the Army. Neither men were armed, and all ballistic and forensic evidence disproved that testimony.
The 10th victim was Paddy McCarthy, a community worker, who was wounded in the hand while attempting to leave the local community centre to distribute bread and milk. Hon. Members must understand that after the introduction of internment, no normal commercial or other services were running, so people engaged in that sort of operation at the community level. After Paddy McCarthy decided to continue with his deliveries hours later, he was stopped by soldiers and beaten. He suffered a massive heart attack and died as a result of that ordeal.
The 11th victim, John McKerr, was taking a break from his work at Corpus Christi church in Ballymurphy and had walked 50 yards from the chapel gates when a British sniper shot him. Local residents went to his aid and remained at his side until an ambulance arrived, but he died of his wounds on 20 August.
I read out those details because when we talk about events such as Ballymurphy, all of us can speak in shorthand using particular names and locations, but it is important to remember specific events. This is the first debate on this subject, although I believe that there will be others, so it is important that the background facts are spelled out.
One problem at the time was that the Royal Ulster Constabulary did not investigate the deaths, because that was not the done thing in those days. The arrangement was that killings and other actions by the Army were investigated by the Royal Military Police. As we know from the findings of the Historical Enquiries Team, those interviews seem to have been conducted on a tea-and-sympathy basis. Officers’ versions of the circumstances and their actions would become the RMP’s accepted version, which would then become the received version accepted by both the Northern Ireland Government and the British Government of the time. The RUC was basically left to accept those conclusions as a matter of fact. For those reasons, the killings were not properly investigated at the time.
Mark Durkan
I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) first.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
I commend my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I, too, have met the Ballymurphy families in Westminster, at Stormont and in Ballymurphy. I am struck not only by their innocence but by their sheer humility and need to find justice and truth. Does my hon. Friend agree that the activities of the Parachute Regiment must be examined in connection with their use and deployment at the time in Belfast, Derry and throughout Northern Ireland?
Mark Durkan
I thank my hon. Friend for that point. Wider questions must be asked of the powers that be, in both military command and political oversight, about how the Parachute Regiment was deployed in Northern Ireland in those days. Clearly, the Parachute Regiment’s behaviour in Ballymurphy should have been factored into the thinking about its future deployment. People should have had that in mind when it was decided to send the Parachute Regiment, specifically, to Derry for Bloody Sunday. Of course, the Parachute Regiment must account not just for the deaths in Derry and Ballymurphy, but for the killing of two innocent Protestants, Mr Johnston and Mr McKinnie, in September 1972 on the Shankill.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend’s words hang heavy in the air, and it will take more than the wind of history to blow them away. In a speech last month, my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) referred to the stigma still attached to the families. Does he believe that an inquiry could finally establish the innocence of the victims, bearing in mind the statements that were released at the time, which appeared to give a contrary impression but were never substantiated?
Mark Durkan
Yes, I believe that it could. The state adopted the view at the time that what the Royal Military Police established in its inquiries with the soldiers who carried out the actions would be the official, received version of events. So long as the state does not specifically repudiate that version of events, it will be left hanging there. That is one of the reasons why the families want to see that version properly probed and resolved, not just for themselves, but because there are surely wider questions for us all about how the state could conduct itself in that way and ignore the serious questions that arose as a result.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
I commend the hon. Gentleman on bringing up the matter in a debate in Westminster. As Lord Mayor of Belfast, I had the opportunity last year, and even before that, to meet the families of the victims. Does he agree with me that in both Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday—the two incidents have to be looked at as related—the pain of loss was compounded by the fact that those who were victims of a crime were effectively treated as though they were in some way guilty?
Mark Durkan
The hon. Lady has put her finger on an important point. I do not talk about the victims of Ballymurphy or Bloody Sunday as if they were the only people who suffered grievously and need truth and justice, because there are many other victims of other forces or self-styled forces who are also due that. However, one thing that sets the victims of Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday apart is that they were denied the promises, albeit hollow promises, made by the state at the time that no stone would be left unturned in the pursuit of justice. The state and its political establishment denied them the sense of solidarity that other victims were given. They were accorded no sympathy or recognition of their innocence. Their innocence was impugned, because the suggestion was that they had somehow conspired to bring death on themselves or others.
That is one of the reasons why the other victims who not only received mortal injuries but found themselves in the twilight zone of state condemnation are due vindication and proper affirmation of their innocence through independent international assessment, and that is also why someone must be held responsible and why responsibility must be taken. That is important, not least in the light of the important and positive statements that the Prime Minister made when the Saville report was published, and in the light of those important findings themselves. The Prime Minister said several times on that day, and it was repeated on the day of the Saville statement and when the report was debated last month, that the Government take responsibility. It is important that the families of the victims of Ballymurphy hear someone take responsibility for those events.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has been an absolute champion, as have his colleagues, of those families for many years, and I am sure that he will ensure that they are never forgotten. Does he agree with me that, although the role of the Parachute Regiment, who were quite clearly murderers in this case, should not be overlooked, the state itself had a failing, and is there not arguably a direct link between its inaction over Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday? Does he agree that, had the state done the right thing in Ballymurphy, we might have avoided what happened on Bloody Sunday?
Mark Durkan
That is a very pertinent point. The Parachute Regiment committed those killings in one area in a concentrated operation, and just because they did not take place in one day, it does not mean that it was not a concentrated operation. Those deaths were not properly investigated alongside other Army killings.
We now know, because of investigations by the Historical Enquiries Team and work done by the Pat Finucane Centre, that in the autumn of 1971 there were liaison meetings between a representative of the military and the then Attorney-General for Northern Ireland, Basil Kelly, to look at the possible risk of prosecution of soldiers for some of their conduct. The Attorney-General seems to have suggested that prosecutions might have to take place on some matters, such as traffic offences, but he was seized of the need to try to avoid prosecutions for more serious or controversial offences. In December 1971 he decided, on the basis of the shooting of Billy McGreanery that September, that no soldier should be prosecuted for anything they did in the line of duty. As I say, that decision was made in December 1971, and it is hard for those of us who know about that not to believe that in the minds of the Army, that became the going rate, as regards what the yellow card did or did not mean. It meant that they could behave with impunity. It is hard to believe that the Army, and certainly the Parachute Regiment, were unaware of the Attorney-General’s decision.
Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)
I am listening with great interest. Some deeply pejorative statements have been made about an organisation that is being referred to as the Parachute Regiment. The Parachute Regiment is an enormous organisation consisting of three battalions. As the hon. Gentleman will have heard me say during the debate on the Saville report, what we are talking about seems to relate to one battallion, and indeed to one specific company within it. The Parachute Regiment has given invaluable service to this country. It might have had some difficulties and problems and done some wrong things, but I beg that we be more specific about an organisation that is very gallant, and whose services have been well recognised.
Mark Durkan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. By referring to the Parachute Regiment in broad terms, I was certainly not trying to impugn anyone or extend my remarks to anyone who feels that they are in a position to disown and disclaim what happened that day. I am aware that today we heard condolences expressed in the House regarding a member of 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment, who lost his life tragically in Afghanistan. I am sensitive to those considerations and take the hon. Gentleman’s sensitive admonition in the spirit in which it was intended and in which it was conveyed.
When the Attorney-General made his judgment following the killing of Billy McGreanery, the RUC commander in Derry at the time, having read what the military police had said in relation to the shooting and the statement of the soldier concerned, recommended that that soldier be prosecuted for murder. That recommendation was endorsed at RUC headquarters, and it was the Attorney-General who subsequently created the new rule about prosecutions. That is why I think that all those events raise wider issues that need to be pursued. None of that information was available to the Saville inquiry, because it had not yet been discovered by the Historical Enquiries Team and the Pat Finucane Centre.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree with me that that has to be described as an atrocity? Eleven people died, and yet 39 years on we still have no resolution, no apology has been offered to the families and there has been no independent inquiry. What do the Ballymurphy families need in order to be able to move on with their lives and draw a line under this?
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
Order. I respectfully point out to the hon. Gentleman that this is a 30-minute debate, so if he expects a comprehensive response from the Minister, he will need to give him some time.
Mark Durkan
I was about to thank my hon. Friend for his question and say that I look forward to it perhaps being answered by the Minister. I spoke with the Minister earlier, and he told me how much time he would need and expressed a wish to see interventions taken so that we could have a free-flowing debate.
I hope that the Minister has heard all the points that other Members and I have made, but, most importantly, I hope that he is in a position, working with the Secretary of State, who has already met the families, to address some of the questions that he knows the families have. This debate is to let them and the Minister know that the questions do not come only from the families.
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Hugo Swire)
I am most grateful to you, Mr Crausby, for chairing this afternoon’s proceedings, and I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) for securing this debate.
I start with a sin of omission rather than commission. Yesterday was my first encounter across the Floor with the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound). I congratulate him and welcome him to his new role as shadow Minister—indeed, he is my shadow. I know him well from the past. We served together on the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs, and I know that he has given that Committee long and distinguished service. Its current Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), is here today.
The hon. Member for Foyle spoke in detail today about the Ballymurphy families’ campaign. The hon. Members for Belfast East (Naomi Long) and for South Down (Ms Ritchie) stated that they had both met the families as, indeed, have my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I. We met them in October to discuss their case. The families recounted their moving stories at length, and we both expressed our profound sympathy for the loss that they had suffered.
We also listened carefully to the families’ requests for an independent international investigation, recognition of the innocence of their loved ones, and an apology. We did, of course, note the ongoing independent investigation into the case being carried out by the Historical Enquiries Team. I understand that many of the families do not support that investigation, but it is right that I reiterate this afternoon the Government’s strong support for the work of the HET. It has demonstrated on several occasions, whether in the Majella O’Hare case or the McGreanery case in the constituency of the hon. Member for Foyle, to which he referred, that it carries out its investigations with absolute professionalism and independence.
Furthermore, as I said last night in the Northern Ireland Grand Committee, the HET’s projected spend to 2011 is £32.5 million. If we compare and contrast that with the cost of the Bloody Sunday inquiry at £191.5 million, the Rosemary Nelson inquiry at £45.5 million, the Robert Hamill inquiry at £32.4 million and the Billy Wright inquiry at £30.4 million, we can begin to see the good value for money that the HET provides. I understand that the families have presented information to the Attorney-General for Northern Ireland and have asked him to consider using his powers to reopen the inquests into the deaths. Such decisions are, of course, properly a matter for the Attorney-General, not the Government.
Several Members rightly pointed out that the Government need to consider their response to the Ballymurphy campaign in the wider context of how we deal with the painful legacy of Northern Ireland’s past. However, we must also consider the wider context of the events in Northern Ireland in August 1971, a time when violence was escalating at a rate that would lead to the bloodiest year in Northern Ireland’s history. Between 9 and 11 August, there were 28 deaths in total across Northern Ireland, 11 of which were in Ballymurphy.
The Government’s approach to the conclusions of individual reviews and reports is absolutely clear: where wrongdoing or failings by the state are clearly identified, we will accept responsibility and apologise. In that context, I would associate myself more closely with the intervention made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) than with the somewhat rash comments made by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty).
As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in his statement on the Saville report, we do not honour all those who have served with distinction in upholding the rule of law in Northern Ireland by hiding from the truth, but neither do the Government believe that the past can be adequately addressed by focusing solely on the actions of the state. To respond to the point made, I believe, by the hon. Member for Ealing North, that is why we do not believe that selecting a further series of cases to be subjected to a lengthy public inquiry is an appropriate means of addressing the legacy of a conflict that saw more than 3,500 people from all parts of the community lose their lives.
Naomi Long
I welcome the Minister’s strong support for the work of the HET, but does he agree that if we are not to have further individual inquiries, the Government must take—and lead—a comprehensive approach to dealing with the past and its legacy? I fear to say that, as yet, that has not been forthcoming.
Mr Swire
Indeed, if the hon. Lady will allow me, I will just say:
“Having recapitalised the banks, it seems as if we are recapitalising the legal profession in Northern Ireland. I’m sure the pain of the past has been eased in the case of the barristers but I’m not sure whether any material benefit has been achieved for the people of Northern Ireland.”
Those are not my words, but the words of the hon. Member for Ealing North, as reported in the Belfast Telegraph on 5 November 2004.
Thomas Docherty
Without wishing to compound his ire towards me, can the Minister clarify whether he is therefore criticising the decision to hold the Bloody Sunday inquiry? It sounds as if he is saying that it was held only to line the pockets of lawyers rather than to help bring some comfort and closure to the families.
Mr Swire
The hon. Gentleman should not conflate the two things. I was repeating what the Belfast Telegraph reported the hon. Member for Ealing North as saying about further costly inquiries. As for ire directed towards the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, if I heard him correctly, he made some severe criticisms of the Parachute Regiment which were then picked up by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark.
Various Members, not least the hon. Member for Belfast East just now, asked how the Government thought inquiries could be replaced. We are committed to listening to the views of people across Northern Ireland on dealing with the past. It was clear from the summary of responses that we published to the previous Government’s consultation on Eames-Bradley that there is little consensus at present. However, as we emphatically do not believe that the past can simply be shut down, we will continue to seek a way forward.
Stephen Pound
I thank the Minister for his kind words earlier. Much of what he is saying is outside the remit of the HET—and I understand and support his comments about it. What assurance can he give us tonight, what process can he offer, what peace can he bring to those family members who still desperately need nothing more than the truth to be brought out? If not the HET, what?
Mr Swire
The Government are looking in a measured way at options that might command support across the community, including the option of creating an information-sharing process that could help families and the wider society achieve greater understanding of the events of the past 40 years. We are consulting on that. There is no easy or quick answer. I tend to agree with the hon. Gentleman that further costly inquiries are not the way forward, but I stress again that that does not mean that we can bury the past. We have to address the issues, and we will do so in a measured and, I hope, sensitive way.
In conclusion, I welcome this important and valuable debate and again thank the hon. Member for Foyle for bringing the matter to the House. I reiterate that the Government are committed to considering carefully the Ballymurphy case in the context of how we deal with the legacy of Northern Ireland’s troubled past.
Question put and agreed to.