The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Alex Norris)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) for securing this debate and for raising not just the challenges faced by coalfield communities, but the exceptional work done by the Coalfields Regeneration Trust in supporting them.
I am always cautious. Indeed, when I was waiting for this debate I had a couple of emails from constituents, to which I replied that they should not measure the interest in Parliament always by the presence in Parliament. However, this is a rather exceptional turnout for an Adjournment debate at the end of the day. That shows the strength of feeling, and my hon. Friend has clearly picked an issue about which people feel strongly. He and other colleagues have made very thoughtful comments about the challenges facing our coalfield communities, what has worked to improve them and what might work in future.
My hon. Friend excellently set out the challenges facing communities such as his and mine. The history is well potted but I think it bears repeating. Just two years, 1985 and 1986, saw one third of pits close, including many where my constituents worked. By 1994, with the industry privatised, only 26 mines were operational out of more than 200 at the beginning of the ’80s. Employment in coalmining plummeted to just 7,000 and the socioeconomic impact of those closures, especially at the community level, has been profound. It is important that we understand that in context: there are few, if any, more striking examples of chronic job loss in western Europe, with nearly all the burden carried by a few local areas and a specific segment of the workforce. That speaks to why we still have those challenges, which were felt then and which echo, in many cases for decades, down the generations, with coalfield communities facing poorer health outcomes, a shortage of quality jobs and social dislocation. As I say, I know that because it is my community too, and I feel the same strength and vigour as my colleagues about wanting to change that.
In seeking to address those challenges, we should be proud, as my hon. Friend said, that the previous Labour Government established the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, an independent charity designed to fund projects that would increase access to employment opportunities, education and skills training, and improve health and wellbeing in communities, alongside developing enterprise. As colleagues have said, the results have been very good. My hon. Friend mentioned the former Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott—and boy, do we miss John. But you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will probably not thank me for also referring to another John, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey), who was instrumental in setting that up. As Parliament’s leading Healey-ista, I can say that it is another example of him being proven right and the things that he has put in place having stood the test of time.
It is a testament to the organisation that when funding was ended in 2015 and there was a transition to £30 million of revenue funding and £22 million of capital funding, the CRT put that money to work, building industrial developments to support growing small and medium-sized enterprises and bringing economic growth to areas that had been experiencing market failure. Since 2015, the value of that original capital investment has doubled to create an asset base worth £55.5 million, supporting 3,500 jobs. On top of that, the rental income from those industrial developments provides a self-sustaining revenue stream to support coalfield communities, generating £21.5 million of revenue for the CRT and the more than 850 community organisations it works with in order to address the social and economic challenges facing their communities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme said, the CRT’s investment in 2023-24 alone helped 70,000 people tackle their health, skills and employment issues.
The case is very well made and I look forward to talking over this matter and the letter with Andy Lock and his colleagues. I can safely say, given that I think every person in this Chamber has written to me on this matter, that the case is very well made. As my hon. Friend hinted, I cannot run ahead of spending review plans, but I can assure him that the ideas are being taken very seriously because I know that the good people at CRT and the organisations they work with put their boots on every day to change their communities in a positive way, and we are very lucky to have them.
In the spirit of what my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) said, I want to mention the context in which we want the CRT to operate, and how we want it to change. I forget the three words that my hon. Friend used about power, but I think what I am about to say is very much in line with that. This Government, and the Prime Minister from day one, have promised a shift of power and resources from this place to local communities. These are proud communities. In my community we are proud that we powered the nation, and we are angry at the challenges we face. We have all the ideas and the insights we need to change it, but we just need the power and resources. That is the job of this Government. I could speak all day about what we are doing on devolution, but across our country, including in coalfield communities, and with more to come in Cumbria, Cheshire and Warrington, we are giving that power to local communities to help them shape their place.
There is also a place for localised placed-based funding interventions, and one that has aged particularly well—another John Prescott innovation—is the new deal for communities. We have started in that direction through our plan for neighbourhoods, which is a long-term commitment to communities to shift resources to them, and to give them that stability of long-term funding, backed by the support of central Government, and empowering them to take ownership of driving forward the renewal of their neighbourhood.
We are learning so much from what has worked, and the CRT will offer a great partnership with the coalfield communities who are the recipients of our plan for neighbourhoods. Those include 15 coalfield communities, including Mansfield, Doncaster, and Wrexham. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme rightly said, our hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare (Gerald Jones), the Whip on duty, would be speaking for the people of Merthyr. He has been a terrific advocate for Merthyr and its plan for neighbourhoods. Those areas deserve that money and that support, and going forward we know that there needs to be greater support for coalfield communities across the country.
One way that we can ensure that the mistakes of the past four decades and the lack of opportunities for some coalfield communities can be changed is through local growth plans—time is short, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I do not want to miss this point. We have worked hard with the devolved Mayors to come up with plans for their economic future. My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Sally Jameson) mentioned green industries and those huge opportunities, and I suspect we will see them as a feature of those plans. Our commitment to those communities is clear: they should come forward with their local growth plans, and we will ensure that in their aggregate they are linked through to an industrial strategy that changes the economy in this country.
I talk about the loss of jobs in my community in the ’80s, and the great tragedy was the absolute absence of effort to replace them. It meant that a Labour Government had to come along many years later, and it meant that fantastic organisations such as the CRT had to pick up the pieces. Well, we will not do that. Our industrial strategy will be built on getting Britain building again, getting Britain making again, and on giving our proud communities the opportunities to again have the skilled labour that built them in the past and will build them again.
This debate is of course related to our past and our proud industrial heritage, but it is also a debate about the future—I know that because I feel I have perhaps the most intimidating group of people here to try to mug me for my dinner money on the way out, so it is very much in my future. The case has been exceptionally well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, and I thank him for doing so. The case has been made strongly by colleagues in interventions, in correspondence, and in an early-day motion—my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) asks me every day about that, and his major criticism is that he thinks it is at least one zero short. I was surprised not to hear him say that, but I know colleagues will keep supporting that, and we will engage seriously with the CRT. We know how much it does and can do for our communities across the country, and I look forward to working with it in the future.
Question put and agreed to.