Lord Mawson
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have plans for a co-ordinated approach towards regeneration, in particular in the new metropolitan districts emerging in north-west England and east London and, if so, what they are.
Lord Mawson
My Lords, I am conscious that a number of people who will be speaking in this debate have not yet arrived because there has been a change of time. I hope that they will arrive during the speech that I am about to make so that we can proceed as on the Order Paper.
When I first arrived in east London 30 years ago the Isle of Dogs was a waste land. At that time the financial centre of Canary Wharf did not exist. The culture of the public and voluntary sectors was anti-business. A dependency culture was rife and the councils running the surrounding boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets and Hackney were, I think it is fair to say, basket cases. Over the past 30 years, major changes have taken place and east London has been transformed. Because of the focused leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, and others taking part in this debate, a phoenix is now rising from the ashes and east London is once again becoming a global destination and a centre of enterprise, innovation, finance and business. It is increasingly being recognised as a powerful engine of the British economy as it had been, before the demise of the docks, for several hundred years previously.
It was a privilege to take the Commercial Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, and the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Birmingham, by boat last week down some of the 6.5 miles of waterways across the Lower Lea Valley. My colleagues and I showed them all that has been achieved in a relatively short period of time and the potential that still exists if we continue to focus our attention and commitment. This trip is one of a number of water tours that I have been hosting over the past few years as chairman of the all-party group exploring regeneration, sport and culture, showing Members of your Lordships’ House and the other place the scale of development and investment opportunity in east London. Many of your Lordships who have made the journey east by boat with me have been surprised to see the rate of development, the scale of land and the potential for further investment in east London.
While chairing the APPG I was fortunate to make a voyage of discovery myself when the group’s secretary, the right honourable Hazel Blears MP, invited me to spend a day in Media City, Salford. What I saw there mirrored the developments in east London. I was shown pictures of former derelict docks and waterways that since the 1960s had been deserted. I learnt about a shared industrial history built around waterways. I also saw a modern experience of enterprise and regeneration in the midst of our poorest communities. I will let others who know far more about the north-west talk about what is happening 200 miles north. Suffice to say that these two areas of significant economic, cultural and social growth provide this country with important financial and business opportunities in a time when growth is ignored at great peril.
The purpose in raising this debate today is to make sure that these two important areas of growth are placed firmly on the map of the UK. They present the nation with development nodes that are nationally and internationally significant, now and in the years ahead. They require a sustained, co-ordinated and thoughtful response from the Government if they are to fulfil their true potential.
With only a few weeks to go until the Olympics begin, I will now focus my remarks on east London. For those of us who live and work in east London we know that the Olympics are actually not the biggest show in town, but a fantastic catalyst helping us join the dots of development nodes down the Lower Lea Valley. These are well advanced in Greenwich and the O2 in the south, at the expanding City Airport and the growing international conference centre at Excel—of which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord King, will say more—in the global business district at Canary Wharf, in Canning Town with £3.7 billion of investment, and further north in Poplar with a £1 billion housing and regeneration scheme with which I and my colleagues are involved. Here I must declare an interest.
At the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford across the River Lea we witnessed 1 million shoppers in the first week of opening. Stratford now has a new international station with a Eurostar platform. The Tech City concept at Old Street enhances east London as a rapidly developing science and technology hub. Sitting in the middle of all this activity is the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park that will hold five new villages and a commercial district. Again, I must declare an interest as a director of what is now called the London Legacy Development Corporation. This is a new city, a metropolitan district arising in the east of London that has profound implications for the capital. These development nodes are connected by the 6.5 miles of waterways. It was the late Reg Ward, the life force behind the Canary Wharf development, who many years ago described the Lower Lea Valley as a water city. If you fly into City Airport and look down you will see exactly what he meant.
As we prepare for the Olympic Games in east London we are 25 years into what is a 50-year regeneration journey. The opportunity to present to the world the investment opportunity is great, but the task is not complete. Continued focus and leadership in both central and London government beyond the Olympics are crucial if we are to ensure that the momentum created by the Games is not dissipated afterwards.
Underlying the regeneration and investment priorities in east London is the ambitious overarching objective of convergence, or narrowing the gap. The agenda aims to tackle inequalities by closing the socio-economic gap between east London and the rest of the capital within 20 years. This is an aspiration that unites all six Olympic host boroughs and has support from the Mayor of London and national government. In Newham, along with this desire for convergence with the rest of London, goes the desire to be financially sustainable and become a net contributor to the UK economy. Ideas about convergence alone will not bring investment. The area needs a unique London identity like Wembley, Kew or Westminster if we are to attract international investors. Hence the “water city” vision for what are the historic docklands.
The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games have helped to kick-start this sustainable objective. For example, Westfield shopping centre estimates that the Games brought forward its investment in Stratford City around five to seven years earlier than would otherwise have occurred. This added between £1.1 billion and £2.2 billion to the London economy. Oxford Economics found that with a skills mix matching the London average, growth in east London could generate an additional GDP of £7.3 billion a year by 2030 and improve the public finances by about £5 billion a year.
I would like to take this moment to refocus our attention on east London and alert the House to the bigger growth picture there that has significant implications nationally. The London Borough of Newham and University College London are currently exploring the establishment of a new campus for UCL. In terms of urban regeneration, the Olympic legacy and the future competitiveness of the UK, this development is of immense local, national and international importance. Of equal significance is the Royal Docks Enterprise Zone, for which the Mayor of London, the London Enterprise Partnership and the London Borough of Newham have high ambitions. The Royal Docks will be a world-class business destination for the knowledge economy through the creation of a science and technology hub within a high quality environment in which to live and work. This hub would complement the Prime Minister’s “tech city” vision. If this is successful, Britain has the opportunity to be a world leader in science and technology.
What threatens this future vision of east London? We all know that world-class infrastructure is crucial to maximising UK growth potential yet, despite over £1 billion of public investment, Stratford International station currently has no international services. There is support from East Anglia, the Midlands and beyond for the station to play a role for both HS1 and HS2, to increase business between the UK and the Continent. Disappointingly, the Government have not as yet confirmed Stratford’s role in the UK’s high-speed rail network, and so risk the benefits that this could bring to the UK.
Another area of concern is insufficient capacity on existing river crossings to meet current demand. Without this issue being comprehensively addressed, the Olympic host boroughs warn that it will be a significant barrier to achieving convergence. The major missing element in the Mayor of London’s crossing package is the absence of a firm commitment to a fixed-link crossing at Gallions. The Silvertown tunnel could provide necessary resilience to the Blackwall Tunnel, but this will do little for the regeneration of key sites, such as in the eastern Royals, Beckton, Woolwich and Thamesmead. For this, the Silvertown tunnel needs to be complemented by a river crossing at Gallions, a catalyst for economic development.
The fundamental danger, of course, is that when the Games are over the uninitiated will feel that they have now done east London and it is time to move on, yet that is precisely the time when the opportunity is at its greatest. To ensure that the vision for a fully regenerated east London is realised, that our national focus is maintained and that the microdetails of infrastructure are addressed, my first question to the Minister is: who is the person in Government today with responsibility for driving these changes through to the end after the Olympics have finished? Who is going to work through until Sunday evening and get out of bed on Monday morning to develop this national regeneration project with international implications? My next question to the Minister is: how will the Government ensure a co-ordinated response from across government departments to the new opportunities that I have outlined, linking this with other emerging growth areas nationally? This matter is bigger than the interests served by London government alone.
It is my view that by fully regenerating areas of potential growth, like the Lower Lea Valley, we will be making a significant contribution towards our immediate and future national economy. I realise that some noble Lords may have heard me reference these issues at the Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill last week but I see no harm in reiterating the point. Now is the time to co-ordinate all our efforts and ensure that east London is fully regenerated. We need to end on a full stop, not a comma.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, on securing this important debate and thank him for his references to my home area of Greater Manchester. I welcome the opportunity to contribute and do so not only as a trustee of the Lowry Theatre, for which I declare an interest, but from a longstanding involvement, as a former local authority leader and Member of Parliament, in the regeneration of the dockland area of the Manchester Ship Canal that is now Salford and Trafford Quays.
The story of the regeneration of this area could not been told without the vision, doggedness and commitment of many people, too numerous to name but to whom I pay tribute. It is a pleasure to see my honourable friend at the Bar today because she was certainly one of them. However, it is a story that has not yet ended. While the area has been transformed physically from derelict dockland to exciting and gleaming media city, there is much yet to do to realise the potential for local people in skills, jobs and opportunities, matching the outstanding physical regeneration with the social regeneration that will transform people’s lives. In this, the chief executive Julia Fawcett and her excellent team at the Lowry are leading the way.
The Lowry was in fact one of the first regeneration projects on Salford Quays and has undoubtedly been the seed around which one of the most vibrant cultural and media destinations in the world is now crystallising. The £160 million capital investment from lottery funds has not only produced this world-class arts facility but catalysed phenomenal further regeneration, predominantly from the private sector, to the tune of £650 million in the MediaCityUK development. With the Lowry at its heart, the media city is now also home to the Imperial War Museum North, BBC North, the University of Salford and over 60 diverse production, service and ancillary companies. With ITV Granada currently constructing its production facility on Trafford Wharf, this constitutes an altogether impressive and dynamic constellation of media and digital entrepreneurship. This is testimony to the development, not only on the quays but throughout the north-west, of expertise and innovation in the creative and digital industries which has the potential to rival the best in the world, provided that it is nurtured and supported. Of that, I will say more in a moment.
From the outset, the Lowry has had three equally important core objectives and is matching commitment to outstanding theatre and visual arts content to the commitment to using its assets to create opportunities for local people, especially young people, with a constant focus on reaching those groups who are more disadvantaged or who would not normally gravitate to an arts environment. This distinctly Lowry approach is one that I believe many organisations should emulate.
I shall give noble Lords some examples of what this means in practice. Walkabout is the Lowry’s flagship community engagement programme, which has so far engaged around 8,500 residents. Inspired to Aspire is an initiative that uses the inspirational environment and people of the Lowry and the wider quays to encourage and nurture aspiration with disengaged young people and provide formal and informal entry routes into employment. Working with a network of referral agencies, including schools and colleges, the Lowry provides significant numbers of young people who are NEET or at risk with opportunities in volunteering, short-term placements and, where possible, apprenticeships and full-time employment. The young carers project provides creative experience for young carers to promote positive changes in their health and well-being, as well as a platform to raise awareness about their roles and the issues that affect them.
A recent development in partnership with others is the successful bid for a university technical college at MediaCityUK. The UTC will focus on digital and creative industries and performing arts alongside entrepreneurship, and will contribute to the massive growth potential of these industries in our region. It will ensure that local young people can access the opportunities that this growing sector brings, linking new industrial demand to its local community. This is of crucial importance, as I am sure noble Lords will appreciate, in an area that is significantly challenged by deprivation, unemployment and social problems. All this activity is on a financial model that raises £7 through its own activities for every £1 of public subsidy. I hope to invite noble Lords to an event here later this year to hear more about the Lowry’s social regeneration work.
I want to mention another project, this time on the east of Manchester, which is similarly pioneering innovation in the creative and digital sectors and is equally committed to using its capacity and assets to develop the talents and opportunities for local people. The Sharp Project is home to over 70 digital entrepreneurs and production companies that make, manipulate or move around the world digital content. The £16.5 million development, partly funded by Manchester City Council and ably directed by Sue Woodward, is fantastic and I encourage Members to see it if they can. It is based in a 200,000 square foot warehouse and offers exciting, flexible and affordable space for offices, production and event space for companies, thereby helping to grow the creative digital sector in our region. Over the past year the Sharp Project has produced award-winning TV output and accommodated over 400 people in employment, either directly or as freelancers. Set up to run alongside the project is SharpFutures, an independent social enterprise supported by Manchester City Council to ensure there is a social return on investment, and SharpFutures exists to nurture and grow talent and capacity in the digital and creative sectors by opening up and building capacity, particularly in deprived communities.
I do not have time to do more than mention the cultural hub at the other end of the ship canal which is Liverpool, former capital of culture, but no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Storey, will do so. However, all of this together testifies to the critical mass of expertise in our region in this exciting new sector, and the tremendous potential for Greater Manchester and the north-west to become a global hub for creative and digital entrepreneurship. However, this has not happened by accident. Nor will this potential be fully realised without drive and support. Local partners, public and private, have already demonstrated their commitment and ability not only to achieve regeneration and new economic activity but to harness those benefits for local people. Others, including the Government, must now rise to the challenge.
Will the Minister address three issues? First, reflecting the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, and particularly now that the regional development agencies have been abolished, where will the oversight, drive and momentum be coming from in Government to identify these opportunities for growth, and to remove the barriers to progress?
Secondly, the creative and digital industries depend crucially on connectivity. The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, asked about High Speed 2, and I share his concern. Equally important is superfast broadband. What commitment do the Government have to enable these areas to have priority access to superfast broadband? Will the Government support Salford’s bid for the Urban Broadband Fund? Will it also support the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s bid for ERDF in support of the Greater Manchester broadband plan?
Finally, I have stressed the leading examples of the Lowry and Sharp in contributing not only to the growth of this new economic sector, and thereby to the UK economy, but to narrowing the socio-economic gap in our region. Not all of our participants are as committed as this. For example, the record of the BBC in MediaCityUK so far is poor, with only 26 of the 680 new jobs created by the move north going to local people. This is not good enough. There is no reason why all organisations, especially those funded with public money, should not have the explicit objective of investing in the skill, development and training that will enable local people to compete successfully for new jobs. This needs a strong lead from government. I would be very grateful to hear from the Minister what commitment the Government have to promoting and monitoring this kind of social regeneration, which can transform people’s lives.
Lord King of Bridgwater
I join the noble Baroness in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for introducing this debate, and for the enthusiasm and energy with which he chairs the all-party group on this hugely important subject. As the noble Lord rightly said, I am going to concentrate on east London, where I am mainly involved, but I could not help reflecting while the noble Baroness was speaking that when he asked, “Who is the Minister who goes to bed on Sunday night and gets up early on Monday morning ready to concentrate?”, I used to be that Minister. One of my responsibilities was to decide what to do about Manchester Exchange railway station, which was crumbling away. The pillars were rusting, so were we going to put a lot of money in—£250,000—without having any idea of what we were going to do with the station? I know it is now a very successful exhibition and conference centre, and I am very pleased that the extravagant decision which I took then has worked out so well.
I also feel I know quite a bit about MediaCityUK, because I served on the Communications Committee of this House under the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, in which we reviewed the charter of the BBC. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester showed his total partiality at all times when interviewing BBC people to ensure that they were going to move to Manchester and Salford, where MediaCityUK now is. I feel as though I have been there before.
However, I want to speak about east London, because I have had a strange involvement with it. I worked with Michael Heseltine as a Minister when we first came into Government—he is now my noble friend Lord Heseltine, of course—and his energy and enthusiasm was considerable. The first thing we did when he became Secretary of State was to get in a helicopter and fly over the whole of that dockland area. There were 5,000 derelict acres within a mile and a half of some of the most expensive real estate in the world, which was the City of London. After our helicopter flight, we came down and got into a bus with some of the most militant left Labour leaders of the various boroughs that existed in that area who were absolutely determined that nothing interfered with their own sovereignty over those areas. From that came: the Local Government, Planning and Land Act; the creation of the London Docklands Development Corporation; the creation of two most remarkable chairmen and deputy chairmen in the shape of the late Sir Nigel Broackes and the late Lord Mellish, who many of your Lordships will remember as the deputy chairman. He took on the hard left at some pain to himself, and with real difficulty, because he saw the benefit it was going to bring, and the life that he could bring to an area that was so totally derelict at that time.
It did take considerable investment. Having set up the development corporation and given it the planning powers for the area of the Docklands that had previously derived from five different councils that could never agree on what should happen, one figure sticks in my mind. The investment required in one particular area meant we were spending £500,000 per acre—a lot of money on those days—to deal with the contaminated land problem, before you could even start thinking about any construction. Subsequently there was Canary Wharf and the various other wonderful developments that exist there. I remember also on the housing side that we lined up five different volume house builders and gave them each land to build 500 houses. I do not want to dwell on Labour but they were all Labour boroughs at that time, of a complexion that I hope the Labour Party has now well left behind in its present creation. They said to us, “People do not want to own their own houses. They like being council tenants and we look after them.” That, of course, was the source of the power of much of the leadership of those councils. When the opportunity arose to buy 2,500 houses for sale and with preference given to the people living in those London dockland boroughs, the queue down the road on show day was a mile long, formed of people who were determined to have the chance they had never had before of owning their own homes.
Subsequently, when I came out of government, because of my previous involvement in the Docklands area I was approached to look at the possibilities of 100 derelict acres on the Royal Victoria Dock. I did not really know the Royal Docks very well at that time. They were one of the wonders of the world in Victorian and later times with a 1,000-acre estate and 250 acres of enclosed water—the largest enclosed water space in the world—where 150,000 people worked in their time. This was hallowed land for all those people who had worked in the docks for generations in east London. It was also derelict. When I first went to the 100-acre site on the north of the Royal Victoria Dock, the only living things I saw were two foxes. Now, after much pain and struggle, if you go there now you will find a million square feet of exhibition space, a 5,000 seat convention centre, six hotels and three DLR stations. At this very minute, the Crossrail line is starting to be dug that will come right through and surface at the Royal Victoria site.
It is rather appropriate that we are having this debate. Tomorrow the Emirates Air Line, which is the cable car that runs from the O2 to the ExCel centre, will open. It owes a great deal to the enthusiasm of the mayor, who managed to persuade the Emirates airline that it was a wonderful thing to have its name on it and to put up the money to help to build it. That will be another asset to the site.
It is interesting to see the challenge. Picking up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, having gradually got that critical mass together, east London is where it is all now happening. When we started out on this venture, and I talked about the possibility of an exhibition centre and we talked about the Royal Docks, there was a tremendous west London bias in this great city of ours and people said, “Nobody will ever go there”. A lot of people said, “Where is it?”. They thought that it was somewhere near Southend. There was quite extraordinary ignorance. Even now, you will find quite a lot of people in London who have never been to Canary Wharf, and hardly know that it is there. It is now the great growth area, as the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, said. That whole area, with the Olympics, other developments, London City Airport, the university and with Tech City, brings a critical mass together.
I was delighted to see, because I obviously have to declare an interest with my involvement in ExCel, that while when we started on the convention centre London was 19th in the world for its share of international convention business, in our third year we had already gone from 19th to ninth. We are now seventh in the world; that is competing with Atlanta, Munich, Barcelona, Paris and the major cities of the world. This is a great opportunity. It will grow because the other merits of London mean that it must be in the top three. Now that we have a major convention centre, I hope that we shall see not only business for the convention centre but the added value—the multiplier—and benefit that it brings in, perhaps by bringing in a medical convention with 20,000 or 30,000 consultants and their families.
The particular pleasure that we all have is that it is taking place in the most deprived London borough, Newham, with the co-operation of a very energetic Labour Mayor of Newham, Sir Robin Wales, who has done an outstanding job for his borough. Yet there is so much else to do. Standing on the balcony of ExCel, for the past 20 years I have looked out at the other side of the dock. There is a site with nearly 100 acres that have lain derelict. They were owned by the LDDC, then by English Partnerships, then by the LDA, then the GLA. This is a failure to get the drive together. Now we see the opportunities.
My concern, shared by practically every noble Lord in this House, is how we are going to earn our living in the world in the future. One of the things that we have to do where we see opportunities for growth is to make them work. It is not a question of which Minister will be responsible for this, because we have got a mayor. Where you have a mayor, you have an extra dimension. Cities which fail to choose to have a mayor are missing out in a big way because that is where the opportunities will come. I hope that we shall see the sort of leadership that the mayor has shown to be possible in east London reflected across the other cities of our country, which we know need that growth so badly at present.
Lord Storey
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for initiating this debate. We are talking about new metropolitan districts. I come from a very old metropolitan district or, as we now call it, the Liverpool City Region. Liverpool itself celebrated its 800th birthday in 2007. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, reminded us, the following year it became the European Capital of Culture.
Liverpool at one stage was regarded as the second city of the then British Empire. It lost its way very much in the 1970s and 1980s. The 1980s were a very difficult time for Liverpool. There were huge job losses: Tate and Lyle, Dunlop and Triumph Motors. Thousands of people were losing their jobs. That impacted, of course, on the social fabric of the city. It also impacted on the political fabric of the city.
Liverpool suffered other problems. There were the so-called Toxteth riots. There was the portrayal of Liverpudlians; they became the butt-end of humour and jokes. Liverpool went through a very difficult time. As the noble Lord, Lord King, reminds us, I remember Michael Heseltine coming to the city. He got a helicopter and flew over Merseyside to look at it. He got the civic leaders together. He got the business leaders together. I was a young councillor, the chair of education, at the time. You could actually see the way Michael Heseltine changed his views on these great northern cities.
I was elected leader of the city council in 1998. I was lucky in my first year to go to New York and Dublin, two cities which also turned themselves around. I remember talking to the civic leaders and asking, “How have you turned yourself around and regenerated your cities?”. The answer was the same in New York as it was in Dublin. It was one word: “confidence”. You have to create confidence in your city. Governments and councils do not create regeneration or jobs. They create the conditions for businesses to flourish, to create the wealth, to create the jobs. They said, “You will know that you have been successful when you can count the cranes on the skyline”. I became obsessed by this. I would drive into the city centre, counting the cranes to see whether we were changing the city around.
The next thing I realised was that you had to look at the things that were unique to that city and make it work. We worked closely with Manchester—I worked with Richard Leese—looking at the areas with which we could be compatible and the areas that were distinctive to our cities. We looked at Liverpool and thought, “Gosh, here is a city which at one stage was in the top four retail destinations in the UK”. It had slumped out to the bottom 20. Thanks to a £1 billion private investment from the Duke of Westminster, we created Liverpool ONE, which was at the time Europe’s largest retail and leisure development: 1 million square feet. We are now back in the top five retail destinations.
We looked at our universities and thought, “Gosh, these are top, world-class universities with real talent and expertise. How do we bring them into the regeneration of the city?”. We did that. We worked with them. For example, we worked with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, a world leader, to link with the pharmacy industries in the city. Thanks to Bill Gates, who gave huge amounts of money to develop serums for third-world countries, we used their expertise. With the other two universities, we created a science park which has gone from strength to strength.
We then looked at other things that were special. Liverpool has a river. You did not see any cruise liners coming along the river. Yet the cruise liner industry was prospering throughout the UK. So we used European Objective 1 money to create—we have to be careful what we call this—a cruise liner facility. We could not call it a terminal, because it might upset Southampton. That worked. The present council is looking at a cruise liner terminal: a turnaround facility. To make that happen we have had to pay back to the Government £7.6 million. That £7.6 million was European Objective 1 and Northwest Regional Development Agency money, so I ask the Minister whether she will look at that money coming back to Liverpool for other regeneration projects, as that was what it was originally for.
We looked at music and the conference business. Liverpool has a culture of music. At one stage it was classed the “capital of pop”. Why the capital of pop? We had more number one chart-toppers than any other city in the world. I bet there has never been a quiz in the House of Lords. Do any noble Lords know what the first number one was? It was “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” by Lita Roza. Paul McCartney came to the city and we had to create an outside concert arena. We built a conference and arena centre and that has gone from strength to strength. So I think that regeneration is about creating the conditions for businesses to succeed; creating, if you like, as Michael Heseltine did in the 1980s, a vision and a plan of where the city should go.
I should also like to pay tribute, at the opposite end, to the noble Lord, Lord Prescott. He established the first regeneration company in Liverpool, which brought together local authority and business. It was strange sitting next to Terry Leahy, for example, who was one of the directors of Liverpool Vision. Again, they put together a plan of how the city could create the conditions for regeneration.
There are lessons for the new metropolitan districts to learn. Those lessons are very simple indeed. It is not about Governments saying, “One size fits all”; it is not about Governments telling us what should be done. We have done that in the past, where Governments say, “This is what you must do: inner city partnerships or urban aid”. Cities are unique; they have unique conditions, unique problems and unique solutions. Nor is it about the sort of government which was the fad of the previous Government and which seems to be happening now, where you bid for everything, and it is a bit like a beauty parade. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, reminded us of this earlier. Now the beauty parade often involves celebrities, so that Mary Portas comes and looks at our high streets. It should not be like that; it should be about what can work for that city and those people.
The other thing I want to say is that it is not just about the physical environment of the city. It has to be about the people themselves. Cities have to “skill up” their young people. If one talks to any business, the message that comes out loud and clear is that young people need skills. I have been talking to two different businesses. Cammell Laird shipbuilders has suddenly blossomed again. It was a world-class shipbuilder, which collapsed and closed down. A group of senior staff started a small ship-repairing business, which has grown and grown and now has a turnover of £400 million. It is now looking to become even bigger than that. When one asks the company, “What is holding you back?” it says, “We need the skills. We have our own apprenticeship course. We take on 20 apprentices per year. It is a four-year course and we pay for it ourselves, But we still need more people with those skills”.
Last week in Manchester I talked to people in the textile industry. Manchester University has the only textile manufacturing degree course left in the country. Everybody who goes on that course can get a job. Yet the textile industry would like to expand that course and develop the industry. When one talks to companies they say, “We need the skills”.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, when he said in this Chamber that he was,
“very critical of the past 100 years of government responsibility for education. Our industry depends on world-class results if it is to create and sustain first-class jobs”.—[Official Report, 22/3/12; col. 1052.]
How right that is. Equally, however, Governments have been responsible for chopping and changing education. So—I am going to shut up.
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham
My Lords, I stand in place of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool, who is unavoidably detained and cannot attend your Lordships’ House tonight. I hope that I will be an adequate substitute, having been the bishop of Birkenhead, where I had an excellent view of Liverpool for six years of the first part of this century. I was also chair of the Wirrall local strategic partnership, which wrestled with some of these issues, and I now chair the Birmingham social cohesion process under a new government in Birmingham which is trying to look mayoral—and we will see how it goes.
I am delighted that the noble Lord has tabled this Motion, not least because he himself has pioneered models of regeneration that have transformed neighbourhoods into communities. We have heard a lot tonight about these large, multibillion investments, which as a former businessman I fully appreciate and think are absolutely vital. At the same time, however, our experience over the past few years in the north of single regeneration bids, which were largely business-led, and the new deals for communities, which were largely community-led, has been that both produce results. They both produce some of the things that we have been talking about in terms of skills and new investment. However, it is our conviction that they have to be held together—that the regeneration must be twin-engined, if you like, with leadership from both the business world and the community. We have touched on this in some of the speeches tonight. Of course business is vital to creating jobs and to sustaining the welfare of families and communities, but community also is vital—for unless local people are involved, there will be no ownership, no pride, no transformation and perhaps, echoing the noble Lord’s statement, not even any confidence.
I am delighted to hear that Cammell Laird is now back in business. This will be an enormous attraction to the local people living in the river streets of Birkenhead, who found it so difficult to move anywhere further afield when that shipyard closed years ago.
We have not yet mentioned—perhaps I dare to mention—local enterprise partnerships. I understand that in the Liverpool city region, the LEP is advancing rapidly, with strategies for low-carbon economy and sustainable action plans. This perhaps broadens the picture but also takes us into that sense of wider responsibility as we try to achieve growth today. The north-west is the most renewable energy-rich region in the country and is capitalising this asset. Of course we also have the knowledge economy—some of these things have already been referred to—tourism and the motor industry, all being promoted vigorously by the Liverpool city region LEP.
If we go further back—I think that these have already been mentioned—the regional development agency in the north-west recognised the importance of engaging the local community as well as business in the regeneration of the region. I hope that the Minister might comment on whether the engine of renewal that brings both community and business together might be reignited by the LEP. I give as examples investment in the Florence Institute for the regeneration of Toxteth; investment in Mersey Forest to transform blighted urban areas which might not quite benefit from even as wonderful an investment as Liverpool ONE through the Grosvenor Estate; and investment in Faiths4Change, which engages faith communities in transforming local environments. These and other such initiatives enable areas to be even more attractive, not just for local residents but for businesses.
There is an inextricable link between economic and community regeneration. I trust and expect that this will be reflected in the boards of our LEPs and their strategies for growth and regeneration.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I too would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, not least for adding the critical words “north-west” into his Question, which allows some of us to make a bigger debate than it might otherwise have been. I am grateful for that. I will declare a slightly extended interest—and I will explain why, because my interest leads me into what I am going to say. Many people have been bragging about what has been going on in their areas. I can brag for Pendle until the day I die. I am not going to do that; I am going to set out some of our difficulties at the moment. Nevertheless, I declare my interest as an elected member of Pendle council, which is a small district council in east Lancashire, so it is not a metropolitan area. It is an area of 19th century cotton towns; they are no longer cotton towns, there is very little left, but that is what the area is, surrounded by our wonderful Pennine countryside. Towns in the area, such as Accrington, Burnley, Nelson and Colne, have the problems of metropolitan councils and inner cities but the resources of small districts. That is a serious problem that areas like ours around England have.
Regeneration tends to be focused on the big cities and metropolitan areas. The concept of city regions was not invented by the coalition Government; it became the vogue quite a few years ago. But from our perspective, it is a concept which has flaws as a universal model. I am not in any way denigrating the vital role that big cities play throughout England, which is where we are talking about, or in Wales and Scotland. The major regional centres, after London and the south-east, have been the great success story of England in the past couple of decades. For all the problems that they still have, places such as Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds and Norwich have gained status and economic importance. For example, Leeds’ financial importance is far greater than it used to be. I am in no way saying that that is a bad thing. In particular, these cities are a counterbalance to the tendency otherwise of London and the south-east to suck in resources, growth and development. Again, I totally recognise all the problems that there are in the East End and other parts of London.
There are two problems with regarding the city region concept as applicable to everywhere else in the country. There are areas where it does not sensibly work. Areas need to be looked at in a different way. For example, you could say that Cornwall and Devon are perhaps part of the Plymouth city region. However, that is not a sensible way of looking at the economy, the communities and the way that the Cornubian peninsular works.
To regard a huge swathe of places around Greater London, the south-east and further on simply as part of the London city region, which they clearly are, is not enough. It is not enough to say to Hastings or Brighton that their problems can be solved and their needs tackled by considering them as part of the coastal area of the London city region. Their problems are much greater than that and are more complicated. Of course, if we are not careful, there is a problem in city regions that the big city centre can suck in all the growth and resources as well as a large proportion of the people. There is a natural tendency for that to happen.
In my view, one of the jobs of the Government is to act as a countervailing force against that. There are also areas which, with the best will in the world, do not fit into city regions. Which city region do West Cumbria, Whitehaven, Workington and Barrow belong in? City regions do not make sense when you are considering the future of those areas. East Lancashire—or Pennine Lancashire, if that is how you like to call where I live—is on the fringe of perhaps the Manchester city region or the Leeds and Bradford city region. But it does not make a great deal of sense to look at our future simply by considering our relationship to those big cities—welcome as it is to have the news from the Government that the Todmorden Curve will be built and Burnley can have a regular railway service into Manchester.
My noble friend Lord Storey used the words “government fads”. One of the problems is that Governments have fads. When there is a change of the Government, the old fads are thrown out. Housing market renewal brought huge resources. It was flawed but people were getting a grip on it and it was nothing like as bad as the press that it got. In my area, it brought in £10 million a year to each district local authority area, which certainly in Burnley and Pendle we were using in sensible ways. That suddenly stopped and it has caused chaos. There are huge problems of schemes being half finished and a need to look around for resources to finish them. It causes problems for people who were promised things but who now find that they will not happen.
That does not only happen when a new Government are elected; it also happens when the Secretary of State changes and so on. They bring in new fads. One of the latest fads, which my noble friend mentioned, is the Mary Portas scheme. The work that she has been doing is excellent and helpful, and it helps people to think. But the competition for pilots leaves a great deal to be desired. There were 371 bids and 12 pilots have been approved, one of which was in Nelson, Pendle. We are quite good at such things, and we are very pleased to have that money and to have those resources. But 371 places have put in the time, effort and cost of making the bids, but only 12 have been approved, with another 15 to come.
Empty housing is a huge problem in areas like ours. All the ways in which we were trying to deal with this under the previous Government have been largely pushed aside. We now have the empty homes fund—for which Pennine Lancashire and East Lancashire generally bid—and we have won some of that as well. In Pendle, it will result perhaps in £3 million or £4 million-worth of new investment in different ways, working in partnership with landlords and housing associations, to tackle the problems of empty housing in our area. A lot of it will be in the ward that I represent on the council, so I am not totally against this kind of thing.
The things for which you can bid for money and the ways in which you can get resources change with the Government and the Secretary of State. That is not an efficient way to do things. The old way is stopped, with all the inefficiencies that are involved in doing that, and then you have to start again with the new way. Bidding takes an enormous amount of resources. There are some pros, including getting people to think, and good ideas are spread around. Sometimes when schemes are worked out, people find that they can do them anyway. A large amount of waste is involved in these schemes.
We have to get back to an acceptance that regeneration is not just about cities and city regions. It is also about smaller places, such as the Barrows, the Workingtons, the Whitehavens, the Great Yarmouths, the Hastings, the Accringtons, the Burnleys and the Nelsons and Colnes of this world. I am a great believer that the purpose of government resources is to provide a basis for getting funding from the private sector and other areas, and for providing a way in which the local economy can work. In simply doing it all, the multiplier effect is huge. We have to get back to the principle that government resources are handed out and provided objectively on the basis of need and not on the basis of slightly bogus competitions according to the latest fads of Ministers.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, it has been fascinating to listen to the personal experiences of noble Lords who have been involved in the development and creations in their areas over recent years. Of course, I particularly want to congratulate my noble friend Lord Mawson on tabling the debate. It is important to hear how the Government see their plans for the future, especially as to how the legacy aspect of these operations is developing now that we are so close to the start of the 2012 Games. In this House, we are very lucky to have noble Lords who have been involved in competitive sport and now are very active in the entrepreneurial side of this whole area of development.
I will confine my comments to the east London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics site and its proposed legacy, although, of course, the major relocation of the BBC to the Salford area will have an effect on the reporting of the Olympics. In addition, the major reconstruction already achieved in that metropolitan district, which includes the University of Salford and other areas that have been mentioned, is already providing new jobs and attracting considerable business investment interest.
However, East London is the area that I know best. We have always had a London home south of the river and currently live just off the Old Kent Road, which is very close to the Peckham Settlement, which my old school supports and of which I have been president for nearly 40 years. The East End—particularly Poplar, which contains areas of considerable deprivation—is where I have made most of my more active volunteering efforts, especially governing and managing many schools in that area as well as doing juvenile court work.
Some 30 years ago I was invited to visit an exciting new project in Poplar, in an area where most of the inhabitants were recent immigrants. The East End of London has always seen a flow of immigrants in that particular place, but certainly in this area the inhabitants were pretty recent. It turned out to be a completely different concept, pioneered by a new vicar, who, on arrival, found that his church congregation consisted of two old ladies, with water dripping through the light bulb. Within a very short time he had turned the church into a very different, active community centre, albeit retaining a religious centre for worship purposes.
Somehow this vicar had raised money to build small, friendly houses with gardens to complement the area’s endless blocks of council flats. He improved considerably all the open spaces and, most importantly of all, raised money to build a medical centre, which meant that the local people, not the local authority, could choose the doctors and nurses who worked there. Workshops, too, were set up where skills were learnt and, indeed, passed on to immigrants, who had brought different skills into the country. Setting up new small and medium-sized businesses was encouraged. It was clearly an innovative and very successful regeneration model that has subsequently been followed in many other parts of the country. Unfortunately, I did not meet this remarkable vicar at that time, but it was no surprise when, in 2007, he joined us in your Lordships’ House as my noble friend Lord Mawson, of Bromley-by-Bow.
To return to the 2010 London site, some of your Lordships may have been on the exhilarating trip that we were offered by British Waterways some six months ago to go and inspect progress. We set off from Westminster Pier, bouncing along at high speed in three or four rubber boats. We reached the Isle of Dogs in record time and turned left into the canal network. The canals were far from clean; there was even a rumour that they should be covered up and hidden during the Olympic Games. True or false, the far more sensible, and clearly money-making, approach was under way: that they should be cleaned up and used for transport and organised tours. Certainly our tour showed the remarkable progress that had already been made, with many of the buildings to house competitors already up, as well as the main stadium and the Olympic swimming pool. In addition, the river banks and other open spaces, recently planted, were beginning to show the green grass coming through. I imagine that the massive amount of rain that we have had during our so-called summer has had a great effect on improving that still further.
By now the scene is very far advanced. That is why it is right to concentrate on the east London legacy prospects. It is sad, of course, that the recent financial horrors meant that practically no private investment was originally available for investment in that basic Olympic site. However, there is already increasing interest from overseas businesses wishing to be part of this considerable future growth potential, although, as we have heard, there is clearly a need for the Government to ensure that our own business entrepreneurs are equally aware and do not miss out on what are quite clear opportunities.
Canary Wharf already contains an example of a modern enterprise zone, and there are plans for building a new metropolitan district close by. When you think that the architect Piano has just completed the brilliantly inspired, iconic sky-scraper building known as the Shard, you will begin to see the potential for inspiration for other designs. There is also, as we have heard, the planned expansion of City Airport.
It is clear that overseas business entrepreneurs are seeing the site’s exciting possibilities. Above all, we must ensure that the local people, particularly the children and the schools in this part of London, inherit and really benefit from a significant part of the promised legacy. There will be a continued demand for premises for athletic events, but much more than that can be passed on. There is great potential for this area. It is a vital part of London that is close to Europe and the global world that we now live and compete in, as others have mentioned, so it is very important that we move in this direction. If that is the plan and that is how the Government are thinking of promoting all these areas and doing their vital best for the people who live in that area, I hope that we will hear about it, not just this evening but well into the future.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for initiating this short debate. I might have been even more grateful had he included Luton, and possibly Pendle, on his list of places, because it would have enabled some of us to join in the passion, advocacy and knowledge that has been displayed this evening by people in respect of the areas that they know best and that they have been involved in for many years.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, talked about east London and the Old Kent Road, and the involvement of faith communities in regeneration. She also touched on issues of diversity, which is something that we know quite a lot about in Luton but that perhaps has not featured as prominently as one would have thought, since it is a common feature to pretty much all the areas that we have talked about this evening. I think the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is right to say that regeneration is not just about cities. I well recognise the problems that might be inner-city problems of resources that are not necessarily at a city level. As the noble Lord would not consider Brighton to be part of Greater London, neither would we consider Luton to be part of Greater London. However, he did touch on the issue that has been an integral part of regeneration for some time: the need to bid for resources. When there are, I believe, 371 bids for support for Mary Portas’s project but only 12 approved, that cannot be a particularly efficient way of proceeding.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham —substituting in part, I think, for the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Liverpool—took us back to SRB programmes and the New Deal for Communities. I remember the New Deal for Communities in Luton; it created a furore because it could be focused only on an area of some 4,000 households. We had pockets of deprivation, and trying to work out which one got it was really quite difficult and traumatic. Nevertheless, the right reverend Prelate rightly focused on the twin engine of business and community for growth. I am pleased that the leap that he is aware of is proceeding rapidly. It has been a mixed picture across the country, as I understand it. Perhaps the noble Baroness might update us on that.
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, talked with passion and knowledge about Liverpool and the difficulties of shaking off a sometimes negative image. People will remember the riots—we had riots in Luton—which is somehow the image that is carried forward, whatever good work and regeneration are otherwise going on. Like him, we used to look at cranes in the sky as a measure of how well we were doing.
The noble Lord, Lord King, reminded us about east London and Canary Wharf, which is a fantastic development. In part it mirrors what happened in Manhattan. All the action was at Wall Street and no one thought of developing the centre until the Rockefeller Center was created, which has been hugely successful. The noble Lord made an interesting point about housing and home ownership. I partly recognise the point that he made, but I wonder whether people would be in exactly the same position now. A lot of houses have been swallowed up and have not been replaced, and young people in particular are finding it very difficult to get a house even to rent. I think that the noble Lord was right: this is about vision. That seems to be the common feature, whatever the story regarding regeneration. That featured in the contribution of my noble friend Lady Hughes, particularly in relation to Salford Quays, which was a driver for significant private sector investment in Salford. I think that the strap-line was “aspire to inspire”. A quite strong statistic is £7 of investment for every £1 of public subsidy.
The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, talked about the major change that he had seen in east London. A phoenix rising from the ashes was the expression that he used, with six and a half miles of waterway. Sadly, in Luton the River Lea stays mostly underground, but perhaps we can work on that. The noble Lord is right to say that east London has been put firmly on the map of the UK. Obviously what happens post the Olympics is going to be very important.
During the remainder of the time that I have, I should like to concentrate on the Government’s role in and approach to regeneration generally, not necessarily specifically in the areas that have been touched upon. As to what regeneration actually means, I would adopt the Select Committee’s definition of it being,
“a long term, comprehensive process which aims to tackle social, economic, physical and environmental issues in places”,
of deprivation,
“where the market has failed”.
Of course, it encompasses, but is not limited to, growing the local economy. The question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, is whether the Government have plans for a co-ordinated approach that would encompass the north-west as well as east London. As I understand it, the position is that the Government have no plans to publish a national regeneration strategy of any sort and therefore do not necessarily approach these matters in a national strategic way.
I do not propose to comment further on the detail of the specific challenges, progress, successes and disappointments of the regeneration of either east London or the north-west, because we have heard from others fantastic testimony to what has been achieved.
It is understood that the Government set their face against a national strategy because they consider that regeneration should be a matter for determination at the local level, and their role is to provide the means for local communities to do this. From what the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, I think he would agree with that approach. We support a true localist agenda, but it does not have to be inconsistent with a national strategy. We can support many of the individual tools, flexibilities, options and powers that are being provided to local communities, although some of them are as yet untested. We will be spending time over the next few weeks examining whether the business rate retention scheme, as proposed, is an effective incentive for local authorities to promote growth. Tax increment finance is something that we have supported, although the Treasury looks to be restricting local freedoms in this regard for TIF 2. We have supported enterprise zones.
As we have heard, local leadership is vital, although the Government seem to have misread the mood in major cities in equating this with directly elected mayors. I do not think that that is a point that the noble Lord, Lord King, would necessarily agree with; he would see it as a missed opportunity.
The general power of competence for councils and the prospect of a transfer of public functions to major cities is also something that we have supported through the Localism Act. We have a shared aim of encouraging powerful and innovative cities to lead their areas. It is early days for the new planning system. Whatever the challenges, at least the regional spatial strategies provided a strategic setting. It remains very difficult to see that the duty to co-operate is a sufficiently robust alternative when it comes to those sensitive but sometimes vital planning decisions.
Anyone who has got close to regeneration projects will know of—we have heard about it this evening—the importance of community support and engagement, and the need for capacity-building. Therefore, we support the Government in continuing to seek to put the community and community groups at the heart of regeneration. This is nothing new. However, the ability of communities to respond is clearly being hampered by cuts to regeneration funding and the savage cuts to local authority budgets. The Select Committee report mentions that many of the community groups most closely involved in regeneration are uncertain about their future.
Funding will always be difficult, but it has been the speed of withdrawal that has created special problems. We have seen the demise of RDAs and the termination of the working neighbourhoods fund and the local enterprise growth initiative. It is acknowledged that there are new funding streams, but the Select Committee suggests that these—the new homes bonus, the regional growth fund and the investment in rail—are perhaps not focused primarily on regeneration.
There is concern that, by concentrating on growth and the provision of levers to facilitate this, the Government are skewing the regeneration effort and not doing enough to tackle the broader and multifaceted issues that comprise deprivation—issues that affect the north-west, east London and, indeed, all parts of the UK. Notwithstanding their commitment to localism, they should produce a national regeneration strategy that encompasses the broader issues of health inequalities, skills gaps, the prevalence of crime, worklessness and poor housing: a strategy that shares the benefits of community engagement, partnership working, local leadership and working with the private sector—indeed, a proper strategy for regeneration.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, I expected this to be a well informed and interesting debate. If I may say so, it is an unusual debate for this House, and it is one that perhaps we ought to repeat more frequently. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for having generated it. I acknowledge immediately, as many others have done, that it is his own role, particularly in the East End of London, and his own experience that make him such a powerful voice in these areas. I also thank all other noble Lords who have taken part in the debate.
Although the speeches have concentrated mainly, as one would expect, on the north-west of England and on east London, the question was: what are the Government going to do about the co-ordination of regeneration? The question of the national strategy crops up immediately. The reason why we are not interested in a national strategy is that it imposes a one-size-fits-all concept. What we need to do is make sure that the levers and mechanisms are in place to ensure that a strategy can be localised. I want to spend a few minutes saying what the Government have done over the past few years to lay the groundwork for regeneration and to provide the catalysts.
Twenty-four planned enterprise zones have been set up and they are already engaged in supporting business growth and creating jobs. Noble Lords have mentioned the importance of skills and training and that will be part of enterprise zones. I totally agree that skills and training are vital to the future of commerce and local areas. The enterprise zones employ special business rates. Local enterprise partnerships, mentioned by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, are beginning to work very well. As always with new things, some will do better than others, but many enterprise partnerships are now fully engaged with local authorities, businesses and civic leaders across the country and they are involving their local communities. I want to emphasise this all the time. Regeneration is about local and local people, communities, businesses and authorities need to be taking the initiative in what has to be done while having the background to be able to do it.
We are supporting small businesses by cutting bureaucracy and addressing their challenges. We are supporting housing regeneration with a commitment to bringing empty homes back into productive use. We are still investing over £6.5 billion in housing, including over £2 billion to make existing social homes decent, and we are continuing with the programme of investment through the European regional development fund. More than 45,000 jobs have been created or safeguarded and nearly 10,000 businesses have been created already. So there is plenty for people to build on and I want to reassure noble Lords that the Government are fully committed to regeneration and see it as essential, both in city areas and, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, in rural areas, which in many ways often need as much help as the city areas.
However, the Government do not believe that they should dictate to local authorities. One of the things that has gone wrong in the past is that it is all being done on top of them. We want to make certain that local authorities and local enterprise partnerships know what their community wants and needs and then that they have the tools to deal with it. We do not want to plan and prescribe but we do want to help local people to get things done. It would be fair to say that in the north-west and in east London there has been and is really strong leadership. I have had the pleasure of going up to the north-west to Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool within the past year or so and I am astounded at the progress that has been made there and the changes that have come about. Some of that has been to do with European funds, some has been to do with government funds and a whole lot has been to do with the leadership that has made sure that those local areas are put to rights, replacing the industries that have gone and starting to look to the future.
There is an extraordinary scale of regeneration taking place, particularly in the north-west and the Olympic area. In both the areas being discussed today a large part of what has happened has been based on sport. Manchester hosted the Commonwealth Games 10 years ago and east London, of course, is doing the Olympics now. In east London the Government have made significant long-term investment and are supporting a transport infrastructure as well as the developments delivered by the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation and all the other developments. My noble friend Lord King rightly drew attention to the fact that all this started with the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, and the noble Lord, Lord King, himself. They were great visionaries determined to see things change. That again was the catalyst.
The Olympic host borough unit is a good example of how joint working between boroughs and agencies can bring about change. It is developing a concerted plan to tackle the long-standing deprivation in the boroughs affected, especially raising the skills and education of local people, and the long-term worklessness that has blighted families for too long. I think that proper attention was given to the mayor of Newham who has been very instrumental in what is going on.
The challenge on convergence and the idea that within 20 years communities that host the 2012 Olympic Games will have the same social and economic chances as their neighbours across London is embedded within the strategic regeneration framework. There is a clear action plan to achieve this. It distils an existing set of strategies created by local agencies and the Government into a coherent common agenda to get local residents into jobs and to extend their life expectancy. It is not an ethereal concept as working towards convergence has brought about tangible success stories—not just the schools, health centre and multi-million pound retail centre within the park but the regeneration of Stratford High Street, to which the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, referred, the improvements to the public realm, and the development at Strand East. Convergence is demanding but not easy to achieve.
The handing over of the Olympic park is another example of how the Government have helped facilitate an alliance between the mayor and the Olympic host boroughs, enabling him to set up the London Legacy Development Corporation. That will be the carry on after the Olympics and it is really important that the legacy of the LLDC does its job. We will all have to ensure that it does—as I am sure it will. It is under the eye of the mayor now and it will be very much in his interests that it is satisfactorily completed.
Turning to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, about the north-west, I think that I said how impressed I was by what has been going on there. She asked a couple of specific questions, one of which was about broadband. I am fumbling around with too many bits of paper here. I cannot give the exact position on broadband but the European regional development fund has recently been opened up and the north-west is one of the areas that will benefit in terms of broadband. I am not certain when it will start but I will let the noble Baroness know. Money is available for that and it should come round in the not too distant future. There is not only Manchester; there is the Sheffield enterprise zone. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham referred to Liverpool and other places and the regional development areas there. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, painted a brilliant picture of Liverpool and what has happened to it. It has one of the finest marine areas which is becoming such a success story. I am not in the least pessimistic about what is going on. In fact, I am enormously encouraged because not only is regeneration being galvanised but it will carry on because local people will want to ensure that their particular areas are improved.
I have about a minute and a half so I shall quickly deal with issues raised. The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, asked who is responsible when the Games end. Of course, that is the Mayor of London. It will be entirely within his remit and the new London Legacy Development Corporation particularly. On the issue of international trains not stopping at Stratford, we know there is an aspiration that they should, but a decision to do so is clearly a business case. If that is made out, I hope that one or two will stop there. There are lots of aspirations for Thames crossings and I am sure we will all be sitting on the cable car to make sure that we can get from one place to another.
I agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham that the twin-engine approach is right. We need to improve skills and life chances alongside physical regeneration. I have said that and it is obvious to me that there is not much point in having new buildings if we do not give employment and training to local people. I have been handed a note telling me that I have run out of time. It says, “Time up!”, so if I have not dealt properly with any of the points raised and questions asked, I will write to noble Lords. I am sorry that we have not quite had time to wind up the debate in the best way possible, but I thank all noble Lords again for a fascinating hour and a half.