St Helena

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Shutt for initiating today’s debate and for his keen interest in St Helena. In this debate and through other channels he has rightly been a champion for this project and consistently highlighted the very considerable barriers to the development of one of our most isolated overseas territories. I thank other noble Lords who participated in this debate for their contributions, knowledge and engagement.

As noble Lords noted, we took decisive action to address the constraints of St Helena in November 2011 by approving the construction of an airport that would bring to an end 500 years of isolation. I thank my noble friends Lord Jones and Lord Shutt for their tributes to this decision. For the first time in the island’s history, it will be possible to travel to St Helena in less than a day, opening up this beautiful island to the world and providing opportunities for economic development and the enhancement of the lives of its citizens. I take what the noble Lord, Lord Collins, said about the special beauty of many islands, and it is clear that St Helena has much to offer. It is an unspoilt island of dramatic beauty, biodiversity and heritage, as we have just heard. From its fantastic marine wildlife to its diverse landscapes and unique endemic flora and fauna, the island that hosted Napoleon until his death also played a big part in the emancipation of slaves on the south Atlantic trade route. It is one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world and has the potential to attract visitors from around the world.

My noble friend Lord Shutt clearly appreciates, as do other noble Lords, the scale of the challenge for the island’s small population to turn the opportunity that has been granted to them into a reality. I know that when he visited the island in 2013 as leader of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association team, he will have seen at first hand the scale of change needed to transform a community that has been in receipt of budgetary assistance from the UK for over 40 years into one that takes control of its own future. I know that his work was greatly appreciated by the new council.

The airport will impact on every aspect of life in St Helena. With construction work on the airport now at its peak, we have already seen a reverse in the population decline which has had such a marked impact on the social and economic life of the Saints, and which my noble friend Lord Jones so graphically made clear. The continual outflow of the most economically active Saints to employment in the Falklands, Ascension and the UK reduced the population from 5,500 in 1995 to around 3,800 at its lowest point. The airport construction project has seen the population rise again to over 4,500, with the creation of more than 350 jobs for Saints. As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and others have made clear, the challenge will be retain those Saints once the construction has been completed and to harness the skills they bring to help build up St Helena’s long-term economy. DfID is working closely with the St Helena Government to put in place the building blocks that are required to deliver economic growth. The St Helena Government, with funding from DfID, has established Enterprise St Helena, an arm’s-length body tasked with driving private sector-based growth, helping local businesses respond to increased tourism demands, and stimulating local and overseas investment to ensure that the island is ready to capitalise on improved access.

Securing investment in a new and untested market presents significant challenges. While air access is coming soon, currently it still takes three weeks to visit the island, time that few potential inward investors can afford. Nevertheless, progress has been made. A local developer has completed the construction of eight new rooms in Jamestown, and only last week an inward investor announced the development of 20 wood cabin lodges aimed at the big game fishing market, with construction to commence this year. These are small beginnings, but they are significant in the context of St Helena and are likely to encourage others. Enterprise St Helena is also exploring options for the development of a hotel in Jamestown, building on the island’s unique heritage, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Jones, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and others, by converting Georgian buildings that are currently being used as government offices into a small, 40 to 65-bedroom hotel. The initial design is under way and the St Helena Government are actively pursuing funding options. DfID is working very closely with Enterprise St Helena and the St Helena Government to support their efforts.

I was asked a number of questions about accommodation and I shall provide some fairly rapid updates. There are currently 41 service rooms on the island, 30 with en-suite facilities. In addition to that there are a number of self-catering establishments, which bring the number of rooms up to 113. Many, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, indicated, may not be at the standard expected by modern travellers at the moment.

I was asked about St Helena Hotel Development Limited. That has been set up to try to kick-start hotel development in Jamestown. Initially it will be wholly owned by the St Helena Government. If plans proceed, shares will also be issued to investment partners. The St Helena Government would look to divest their entire shareholding over time. Clearly, as noble Lords indicated, access, constraints and uncertainties over air services make it challenging to attract private sector investment, but early interest has been shown by two hotel groups. However, both have put plans on hold due to uncertainties in visitor numbers. I have just mentioned the chalets, though, and the plans for Jamestown. DfID itself has no plans to provide funding for hotel development, and it would not be appropriate to use airport contingency funds for a hotel.

I was asked about Shelco. It has revised its proposals to bring forward the development of a 35-room boutique hotel and golf course, with the aim of having it up and running by the time the airport opens. Funding remains an issue, and Basil Read would need to tender for any work that it wanted to undertake.

I was asked about the proposed hotel developments in Ladder Hill and Jamestown. Both Protea Jamestown and Mantis Ladder Hill have put their proposals for hotel development on hold for the reasons that I have given, but the St Helena Government are currently exploring funding options for a medium-sized hotel in Jamestown.

As to when it will be possible to book holidays in St Helena and whether that could happen already, it is of course possible to book the accommodation that I have already mentioned through the tourism office. My noble friend is clearly a forward thinker, way beyond anything that I consider, I am afraid, but we note what he says. He always was extremely well organised.

DfID also supports Enterprise St Helena to offer a range of business advice, training grants and small capital investments to local businesses in the sectors of tourism, hospitality, agriculture and fisheries. We are seeking to give St Helena the opportunity to develop further. It cannot be DfID’s role to undertake each role of that development itself. As my noble friend Lord Shutt indicated, there is mutuality here: DfID is investing in the airport and other areas, and we hope to see a necessary response within the island, including in the conservation skills that my noble friend Lord Brooke has mentioned. Obviously we take the points that he makes very seriously.

Securing air services to support tourism and to maintain access for Saints to travel to and from the island is a key requirement for achieving economic development. Twelve potential service providers have registered early interest, and a formal call for expressions of interest was issued on 12 June.

However, the airport will not just bring economic development. Economic growth on St Helena will mean more jobs and prosperity on the island, reuniting families of Saints who have previously had to travel overseas to find employment. It will mean the potential for faster evacuation in medical emergencies, and easier access to education overseas.

My noble friend Lord Shutt pointed to the difficulties of recruiting staff on the island. He is of course right. DfID is providing £2 million this financial year to provide staff to fill short-term specialist positions that cannot be recruited locally. We support long-term positions in key areas on the island.

My noble friend Lord Brooke highlighted the range of work that could productively be carried out on the island. My noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked about a range of skills. Enterprise St Helena, working through the education directorate, has established or is establishing training programmes leading to qualifications covering a wide range of skills. I have a list here. The ones they might be particularly interested in hearing about are building and construction, hospitality and catering, leisure and tourism and environmental conservation. I can go into further detail about them, should the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, in particular, want more on that.

My noble friend Lord Jones asked about a South Atlantic federation. That is very interesting, but it is not currently under consideration. He has lobbed it in, so no doubt people will consider it.

I shall answer some specific questions on the airport as rapidly as possible. I was asked whether it will be possible to fly directly from Europe. The length of the runway on St Helena, unless we flatten St Helena, will not support direct flights to Europe. Johannesburg and Cape Town in South Africa are the nearest international hubs with excellent direct links to most European cities. The current tender for air services will look at all options.

Prequalification questionnaires for the air service are due to be submitted on 17 July. More than 12 potential service providers have downloaded the documents—of course, one of them may have been my noble friend Lord Shutt—and currently five have indicated that they will respond. At this stage of the tender process, it would not be appropriate to name airlines. The current target date for signing a contract for air services is March 2015, but that will depend on the nature of the response received. It is intended that air services to St Helena will be operated on a purely commercial basis and that that should be achieved as early as possible. However, it is recognised that this may be challenging in the early years, and air service providers have been invited to put forward proposals for any required research.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked about risk. The fixed-price, lump-sum contract with risk transferred to the contractor is the arrangement. The airport is now 60% complete and to date is on time and to budget. There is also a temporary jetty at Rupert’s Bay.

Wideawake Airfield on Ascension, as noble Lords will know, is a military airport operated by the US to military standards. It would not be possible to meet minimum civil aviation standards, but we expect that the US will agree to the use of Wideawake as a nominated alternative for flight planning and for domestic services between St Helena and Ascension only. We work very closely with the United States on that.

There will be a limited amount of air freight, and alternative arrangements are being made for sea freight. In fact, the St Helena Government have commenced a tender process to secure post-airport shipping to the island and are expecting to receive expressions of interest this Friday, 11 July.

This is a long-term investment trying to ensure that this dependent territory is less dependant in the future. The business case depends upon not rapid development but slow growth over 25 years. I was asked about the value of cross-learning between islands and development. That is absolutely right. The Joint Ministerial Council is an obvious vehicle for putting that into practice, as is the Overseas Territories Consultative Committee.

The airport is key to the economic development of the island. These are challenging times for St Helena, but they also carry the promise of a brighter future made possible by this airport investment. Noble Lords have very effectively laid out the challenges that St Helena faces and how this new opportunity could and should unlock a transformation of the island and its people in the way we all wish to see.