King’s Speech

Lord Houchen of High Leven Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Houchen of High Leven (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

I am humbled to be able to address your Lordships today for the first time. I start by thanking the doorkeepers and the House staff, who have been kind with their assistance and time since my introduction in July. I also thank Black Rod for the support she has given me. Indeed, she told me that she lived in Teesside for many years, which leads me to the suggestion that I always knew to be true, which is that, ultimately, all roads lead back to Teesside.

I also thank probably the most important people: my dear wife Rachel and my family, without whom I would not be where I am today. My final “thank yous” are to my two supporters: my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister, who has always been very generous with his time and advice, and my noble friend Lord Wharton, who is a dear friend. I also thank him because he paved the way for devolution within the region that I am from during his time as Northern Powerhouse Minister.

Indeed, I stand before your Lordships today as the directly elected mayor for the Tees Valley, which I feel very proud and lucky to be when I wake up every day. It was not always that way, though. I think it fair to say that, when I was first selected for the candidacy in December 2016, very few people, if anybody, thought I would win that election just four months later. I think my Labour opponent was already measuring the curtains and deciding on the wallpaper. Nowhere is that demonstrated more than by the fact that Ladbrokes had me at 200:1 to win that election. But how things change, and they changed specifically for one reason: we were very clear that we wanted to be bold and ambitious for a region that had been neglected by Governments of both colours for decades and decades before.

I made a very clear promise to save Teesside Airport, using the powers and the money given to me as the directly elected mayor. It was a very clear pledge that raised a lot of eyebrows. We did that because it had been successful as a regional airport. Unfortunately, it was owned by the Peel Group and, aided and abetted by the local Labour councils, it was driven into the ground over many years and was due to be closed. Sadly, colleagues and communities across Doncaster and Sheffield will be very familiar with this story of the Peel Group, aided and abetted by Labour councils. Sadly, they have seen their airport close altogether.

I am pleased to say that, having been elected unexpectedly in 2017, we were able to deliver on that promise to the people of Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool. We saved Teesside Airport from closure using the powers and money given to me as part of the devolution settlement in 2017, and it has gone from strength to strength. We have not just saved it; it is going gangbusters and doing incredibly well. We are home to the first security scanners in the country that mean, if you ever travel through Teesside Airport, you do not have to take liquids or electronics out of your hand luggage. We were the first in the country for that.

We are also home to the UK hydrogen transport centre. We have opened new cargo facilities, and have seen our highest number of passengers this year for the last 12 years. All that culminated just a few weeks ago in Teesside Airport being named the UK airport of the year by the travel industry. There is no higher accolade.

An important reason for why we were so successful was that this is a very parochial and important issue to people across Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool. It is also a fantastic case study for what devolution can actually deliver. By having a directly elected and accountable politician who has power and money to decide what is best for their region, who can be held to account by their local population and not have to go back to Whitehall, cap in hand, every single time they want to get something done, saying: “Please can I have some more”, we were able to deliver real change. We delivered change in infrastructure that was going to unlock more investment and a lot more jobs for local people, which is ultimately what this is all about, right? It is about more jobs for local people and putting more money into people’s pockets, so they can look after themselves and their family.

I have always believed that Teesside is a region that, having been neglected for so long, has not had the investment, the infrastructure or the opportunity that many regions— cities in particular—have enjoyed over the last 50 years. My aim was to try and make sure that, with the infrastructure that we put in place and the public money that we spent—whether on the airport, our public transport system, or other infrastructure that we have invested in—we did the most we could to unlock the private investment that ultimately delivers those jobs. I am a firm believer that international investment does not arrive on a bus; it comes through an airport terminal.

We have been able to leverage that as well, because with the powers given to me by the Government, I was also able to establish the first mayoral development corporation outside London, on the former Redcar steelworks site that sadly closed in October 2015, a project that was hugely problematic for the Government. It was hugely damaging to the local community; more than 3,000 people lost their jobs. It was a black hole of taxpayers’ money since 2015; between £16 million and £20 million a year was poured down the drain due to legal complexities with Thai banks, charges and diplomatic issues since the closure, something I hope we will learn from and look towards should we find ourselves in a similar position in the future.

We have been able to turn what was a millstone around Teesside’s neck since the closure into a fantastic opportunity. It is now the largest brownfield site in western Europe. It is home to 14 and a half million square feet of approved planning applications, which means that if people want to come and invest, they can deliver it quickly, with the speed that internationally mobile capital wants to deliver. We also have the deepest river on the east coast of the United Kingdom in the River Tees. All that is overlaid with the UK’s first and largest freeport in Teesside, which I am very proud to have delivered the policy for for this Government, and which could not be delivered if not for the powers that we have taken back as a result of Brexit.

What does that mean to the average person that I represent within my region? It means jobs and investment, and we are seeing that come to fruition. We are already home to what will be the world’s first industrial-scale carbon capture and storage facility, with BP and Equinor jointly investing £1.5 billion in an almost 1 gigawatt gas-fired power plant—decarbonised power that will power 1.3 million homes a year. That is 10 million tonnes of carbon that will be captured and buried under the North Sea in the depleted oil caverns we were once taking carbon from. We are also seeing BP invest in 1.5 gigawatts of hydrogen. Teesside is already home to more than 50% of all the hydrogen production in the UK.

We are seeing SeAH Wind, a large Korean company, make the single largest investment ever by a South Korean company in the UK, building the world’s largest monopile factory. Monopiles will be built in Britain and exported into the North Sea, and will be building wind farms. In the future, no doubt, they will be building wind farms across the world.

All this is possible only because of the powers that we have been given. We need to make sure that this Government and future Governments do not reverse, detract from or slow down what I think is a one-way street. We have to continue with devolution, and trust local people and local politicians to be able to deliver for their areas.

There is a long-standing phrase in Teesside: “We built the world”. From the Sydney Harbour Bridge to the Burj Khalifa, to the Cabinet War Rooms where Winston Churchill helped defeat the Nazis, Dorman Long, a steel company, is imprinted in the steel of all of those buildings. I make no apology for saying that I will use this place, and this very privileged position, to continue to fight for the people of Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool, and make sure that that phrase is not a part of our past, but that Teesside will build the future once again.