Inequalities of Region and Place

Baroness Valentine Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Valentine (CB)]

Before I start, I should say that I support the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, on HS2. I have sat on the boards of Crossrail and HS2, but I cannot say it as passionately as the noble Lord just said it. I will talk about some of the issues associated with transport access to the east in my speech.

I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has introduced this important debate. For the last four years, under the aegis of Business in the Community, I have been working in the so-called forgotten places. In that capacity, I bring business leaders to the table to discuss with local council and voluntary sector leaders what matters for their town. We start by discussing what the place stands for, what they are proud of and what an ambitious but deliverable long-term plan might look like. Importantly, this discussion has no money attached but is about facilitating a genuine conversation. Key is the neutral facilitator we employ who is full time in the place, building the trust which enables us to bring everyone together around a common vision.

We then start on a few actions. Bringing about lasting, transformative change takes time but it is crucial for motivation and learning to work together that the participants start working on delivering some early wins. This may sound straightforward but in places which feel left behind, the early days are tough: building credibility and a belief in change, while getting used to working across sectors where people have different outlooks and skills. None the less, it is the foundation for real, sustainable change. In Wisbech, residents can now be confident of being trained for local jobs because Anglian Water and its supply chain have for many years worked with local educational institutions to provide apprenticeships and improve standards in schools. From working in this way, Blackpool has the largest town deal in England, £39.5 million, and is showing real progress in education, housing and inward investment. So, what are the barriers?

First, a narrative of failure is often essential to attracting government or charitable funding but when you start to talk about the positives, you find that Blackpool is still a place of fresh air and fun, with 18 million tourists a year while Bradford, as the youngest city in the UK, is a melting pot of raw talent and has award-winning curries. Secondly, while creating local partnerships is tough, achieving joined-up national government is nigh on impossible. Blackpool has £300 million of committed investment from a company called Nikal, but needs the Treasury to fund moving the law courts off the site. Bradford, which is bigger than Liverpool or Bristol, has the worst rail connectivity of any major British city and needs a new railway station. I think Bradford would be a worthy winner of the DCMS “City of Culture” competition, for which it has just been longlisted. Wisbech needs the Government to pool funds to invest in the future Fens proposal, a strategic rather than piecemeal approach to climate adaptation.

What does this tell us about a proposed national strategy? First, any strategy needs to be long term and capable of surviving changes of political leadership, and implemented in a way which facilitates local leadership rather than providing one-size-fits-all Whitehall solutions. But even then, the old adage applies: no plan survives first contact with the enemy, so alongside the plan we need the Secretary of State for Levelling Up to champion these areas and bring all government departments, including the Treasury, to the table. We need a hit squad of motivated, caring, listening senior civil servants who are prepared to go out on a limb to achieve success for our deprived communities—people who can persuade across government and who will join local partnerships as full partners, alongside local government, business and the voluntary sector. If the new Department for Levelling Up can deliver all this, then perhaps we can reduce the UK’s regional inequalities.