Budget Statement

Baroness Valentine Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Valentine (CB)]

In these testing times, I thought it was important to speak up today for those towns at the end of the line, which rarely reach the consciousness of our Westminster world. These towns, which have some of the worst deprivation in the UK, will suffer greatly from the current crisis. I urge the Government to do everything they can to support them through the crisis—I am taken by the people’s QE proposal from my noble friend Lord O’Neill—but they should also plan for the longer-term levelling up that was promised at the last election.

Given the last two years I have spent in Blackpool, and my role now working with Business in the Community to bring business’s attention to Britain’s overlooked towns, I will focus my remarks today on what levelling up means in practice. The promise of serious attention might well have contributed to swaying marginal seats in the north, but the words “levelling up” did not feature heavily in the Budget. Last year, the Government announced a town deal programme, focusing £3.6 billion of funding on 101 forgotten towns. If levelling up means bringing opportunity and hope to these towns once we are past the current crisis, then the Government will have gone a long way towards both defining levelling up and establishing its credibility in so doing.

I think we all get the intention of levelling up, but delivering it is another matter. Local people are looking for genuinely transformational commitment to their areas. Delivering this change in long-ignored places requires sensitive, long-term strategic investment, in tune with local opportunity and need and going beyond a single political term. I ask the Minister: how do the Government plan to direct the welcome investment described in the Budget towards these towns? Relevant spending pots include the stronger towns fund, the high street fund, the UK prosperity fund, housing funding, and skills and education spending, to name but a few.

Specifically, could the rollout of 4G and better digital infrastructure perhaps be prioritised for these towns, or could they even leapfrog to 5G? I sat on the House of Lords committee on regenerating seaside towns last year, which identified digital connectivity as a means of compensating for the isolation of these towns at the end of the line. Could we also add digital training academies and enterprise hubs, so that we can build skills for the future in these places? Can some of the hundreds of billions allocated to infrastructure be set aside for town deals to access, and can we find a way of assessing cost-benefit ratios more imaginatively to capture public benefit, rather than saving time spent on a train? A river crossing in Lowestoft could knit together two halves of the town, thus providing community cohesion at the same time as economic connectivity.

On housing investment, can the policy instruction to Homes England be amended so that it is not just tasked with building more housing to accommodate overheating in the south, but can also help those towns deal with seriously run-down neighbourhoods? Blackpool has an area of 10,000 units in the centre, which are the legacy of the traditional bed-and-breakfast industry; it now houses the greatest concentration of deprivation in England. At the moment, Homes England does not have the remit to help.

The town deal programme has promised not just to be about money but to provide a strategic approach as well. Will the Government consider having a town deal tsar to work across departments and deliver funding and strategic progress in these terms, and will they measure this progress in aligning government strategies and funding?

I also wonder whether some delivery capacity at the centre is required to move from headline messages to supporting local teams in achieving real change on the ground. For instance, the Government plan to move 22,000 civil servants outside London. Can this be integrated with the Government’s plans to create Civil Service hubs, and can those hubs be located in town deal areas? Again, I am aware of the Civil Service hub proposal for Blackpool, which has been agreed in principle for some time but never seems to progress.

The Budget said little about skills and education and the town deal programme focuses primarily on capital investment, but there is also a need to a focus on finding the best people and upskilling alongside capital projects. At the end of the day, this is about people, their self-belief and opportunities. If there is no one to inspire young people to set up social enterprises, a social enterprise building is just that—a building, without a heart. The last Government made a helpful intervention with opportunity areas in many of these deprived places, but unless they are given a reprieve then these unfortunately are soon to finish. One way or another, we need to see a much more determined focus on improving school results for these children. Focusing Department for Education civil servants and money in these areas might be a start.

I finished by congratulating the Government on their investment plans for infrastructure, but I urge them to follow up on their levelling-up commitment and to ensure that there is a genuine long-term impact on the places that need it most.

Housing and Planning Bill

Baroness Valentine Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 105 I will speak very briefly to Amendments 106 to 118. I am very grateful that so many Conservative Peers have come in to hear what I have to say. I am afraid that I will disappoint them because I will be extremely brief. I have had what I hope was a very helpful meeting with the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, from the Cabinet Office, who is making his first attendance at this Committee. Why he has waited for nine Committee days to come to experience it, he must now be wondering.

I was going to explain all these amendments rather more fully. Clearly, that is neither necessary nor desired at this moment. Very briefly, the amendments would, in summary, give the Mayor of London and the mayors of combined authorities—that is very important—the right of first refusal on surplus public sector land that comes up for sale in their area. They would give the Mayor of London and the combined authorities further power to direct public bodies in their area on the disposal of surplus public sector land. They would include the Greater London Authority as a public authority in Clause 183, ensuring that Ministers must engage with the Mayor of London on the disposal of their interest in any land in the capital. They would allow for regulations to be issued to ensure that other public bodies looking to dispose of their interest in land in London must engage with the mayor and allow the mayor to issue guidance around the engagement. Finally, they would allow for regulations to ensure that reports on surplus land holdings by public bodies can be provided to the Mayor of London and mayors of combined authorities with land commissions.

As I said just now, I had a very helpful meeting with the noble Lord, Lord Bridges. I am delighted to see that he is here and has sat patiently through the last hour of our proceedings. I now wait to hear, briefly, that he accepts my amendments. I beg to move.

[Baroness Valentine (CB)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Tope. Making better use of surplus public land represents one of the best and quickest ways of getting homes built and thus meeting the Government’s targets.

European Union Committee: Report on 2013-14 (EUC Report)

Baroness Valentine Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Valentine (CB)]

My Lords, before I begin, I declare that I am chief executive of London First, a not-for-profit business membership organisation.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, on securing the debate. I am pleased to serve as a member of Lords EU Select Committee Sub-Committee B. We are tasked with investigating matters relating to the internal market, infrastructure and employment—three areas of critical importance to our future competitiveness. I want to reflect on those issues in relation to the EU, and particularly on the committee’s recent investigation into youth unemployment.

We are not here today to debate the UK’s membership of the EU. That question will undoubtedly continue to exercise the Chamber for many years to come. However, it is worth reflecting on the opportunities that membership provides. It provides access to the largest economic bloc in the world. The GDP of the EU is worth around $18 trillion compared with the US economy of $16 trillion, and is more than twice the size of China’s $8 trillion. Particularly in services, where the UK is exceptionally strong, there is a further upside to come from completion of the single market. It is estimated that the completion of the digital market alone would provide a 4% uplift to European GDP.

British citizens have the freedom to work in other European countries—from a student working as a barista in Barcelona to a financial analyst working in Frankfurt. Of course, this freedom of movement works in both directions. The quid pro quo is that citizens across the EU can work in the UK. While this adds to the pool of talent available to make our companies more competitive, it also provides a challenge to those with lower skills. But from a pan-European perspective, the fact that people can move around to look for jobs is healthy both economically and for the individuals concerned.

Our report identified large parts of Europe that face chronic and persistent levels of youth unemployment. In Greece, almost 60% of people aged 15-24 are unemployed; in Spain the figure is 54% and in Cyprus 40.4%. In the UK, youth unemployment is lower but, at around 22%, is still more than double the rate recorded in Germany and the Netherlands.

Behind those statistics lie human stories of wasted talent, unfulfilled potential and fear for the future. The impacts of such endemic unemployment cannot be underestimated. At worst, it can fuel social unrest and, at the least, young people across the continent risk missing out on the psychological and economic benefits of being in work, learning new skills and being independent. As George Orwell wrote, unemployment for humans is the equivalent of shackling a dog to a chain. I have as much sympathy for the unemployed in Athens as I do for those in London. The solution for the UK is not to put up barriers but to improve skills and education provision.

Are there ways that Europe can work more effectively to help us get young people into work? I believe there are. First, Europe can provide robust analysis of effective interventions across the Union. The UK should learn from best practice in other member states and not arrogantly dismiss ideas and methods that work elsewhere on the continent. One such example is the UK’s refusal to follow the majority of member states in introducing a youth guarantee, with funding provided by the European Social Fund. This would require the British Government to ensure that all young people find suitable work, training or further education opportunities within four months of being unemployed. At the very least, the Government should pilot the guarantee in areas most blighted by youth unemployment and measure its success.

Secondly, the UK should learn from the approach to training in the very best EU countries. I am told by those who follow sporting matters that the German football team has been the toast of Europe this summer, while England were found wanting. The German success reflects a wider facet of their culture; in particular, a serious, long-term approach to training. Indeed, its dual system of vocational education and training has been a major factor in Germany’s economic success and low levels of youth unemployment.

Vocational training is a term that still carries stigma in Britain. We tend to look down our noses at people who work with their hands. But other European countries —Germany and the Netherlands in particular—have reaped substantial rewards from building a partnership between business and government that links study and practical experience. Put simply, the UK needs to upskill its own learning skills.