Torbay (Economic Support)

Debate between Adrian Sanders and Penny Mordaunt

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Penny Mordaunt)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Weir.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) on securing this debate, which affords me the opportunity to speak about the Government’s track record in supporting growth and creating jobs and to praise the businesses and organisations in his constituency. My experience from visits there is that the people are incredibly resilient and entrepreneurial. They have seized the opportunities the Government have provided to create jobs, improve growth and assist and improve quality of life. I have a soft spot for Torbay—it is the place of my birth—so I am delighted to take part in the debate.

The Government are committed to the devolution of power to the local level. That is not a one-way deal but a partnership: we have given local areas powers to drive economic growth, and in return we are asking them to show strong and accountable leadership and the ability to improve efficiency and outcomes in their area. Lord Heseltine’s independent report, “No Stone Unturned”, which was published in October 2012, recommended that more funding, freedoms and flexibilities should be devolved to local level to help places grow. That was a starting point for the unprecedented degree of devolution that the Government have achieved.

The Government published their response to the report in March 2013 and accepted its key proposal, which led to the creation of the local growth fund and growth deals. They represent a genuine revolution in how our economy is run. For the first time ever, housing, infrastructure and other funding are being brought together in a single pot and put directly into the hands of local authorities and businesses. That means local power to build stronger local economies, taking power and money from Whitehall and giving it to the people and organisations who know their areas best, and so know best.

Through growth deals, every local area in England is sharing money from the local growth fund to spend on projects that matter to their people and local economies. Growth deals have been made in all 39 local enterprise partnerships in England, with £12 billion available for the deals announced in July 2014. The deals have been allocated £2 billion from the local growth fund for 2015-16, and a further £4 billion has been committed for future years. The quality of proposals was excellent, and because of that, in some cases we have committed to funding projects over the long term, providing certainty and stability for local areas.

In the autumn statement, the Chancellor announced a further £1 billion worth of funding to be distributed through local enterprise partnerships. That funding has now been allocated to projects aimed at increasing economic growth around England, including in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. His constituency has benefited considerably from growth deals made with Heart of South West local enterprise partnership. The hon. Gentleman touched on a number of those initiatives, including £3.4 million towards the Torquay gateway transport scheme, which will deliver road junction improvements and improved cycle links in the Torquay gateway area, much improving access into the town from the northern boundary; £400,000 to improve town centre access; £3 million for an electronics and photonics centre, based at Whiterock business centre in Paignton; a commitment to a new rail station and infrastructure; and £2.6 million of Public Works Loan Board funding to accelerate the delivery of 350 homes at Whiterock.

In the Budget today, the Chancellor announced a new enterprise zone in nearby Plymouth, which will be focused on growing the marine sector. That will be an important driver of growth in my hon. Friend’s LEP area, as businesses in his constituency in the supply chain will benefit. That is on top of an earlier £76 million investment in the south Devon link road, which he referred to.

We set up the coastal communities fund in 2012 in recognition of the unique challenges faced by coastal areas, as the hon. Gentleman said. In his area, £3 million of funding is going towards a new cycleway, which will put Torbay on the map for cycle tourism. To date, that funding has helped more than 320 businesses, supported 95 new business start-ups and created nearly 150 jobs.

Those opportunities would not be seized, taken up and made a reality without the drive and enthusiasm of businesses and other organisations in the hon. Gentleman’s local area. I saw that first hand when I visited the South West Coast Path Association, which had £1 million of coastal communities funding to safeguard nearly 800 jobs. I also visited Brixham Sea Works, a work hub developed with £1.4 million of coastal communities funding, focused on social enterprise and start-up businesses. It is benefiting from the investment in broadband that is also going into his constituency: Heart of South West will get 95% coverage and there were further announcements on broadband today.

The hon. Gentleman is right to touch on the older and ageing population of coastal communities and to point out the advantages that that brings. Next week, I will meet with Age UK to discuss how we can unlock some of that community’s potential. As he mentioned, they have tremendous knowledge and experience and our voluntary sector is propped up by them. They also have a tremendous amount of business experience that we can capitalise on.

On our care reforms, although they are not strictly in my brief, as well as helping alleviate the situation in which self-funders become reliant on state funding, we have also pushed for people to receive or be signposted towards independent financial advice when looking for a care home place or sheltered housing. That is sensible, because it is better for the individual, who gets advice, and for the local authority, which will not wind up with an enormous bill in future years. Our coastal communities are really embracing the opportunity. One community that has a lot of difficulties to overcome is Jaywick, but it has seen the care sector as the route to driving its economic growth. It is not just providing accommodation, but having a centre of excellence for innovation in the sector, providing jobs to the local community. It is a matter of seeing opportunities, not problems, and turning them into positives.

There is more to do. We recently set up the coastal heritage revival fund, which will be a fantastic catalyst. We understand the difficulty of unlocking private sector funding. Sometimes, with heritage assets in seaside towns, whether piers or lidos, we get a perfect storm. Perhaps the local authority does not want to get involved because it is worried about liabilities and the private owner does not have cash to put in, so a huge amount of community good will cannot be unlocked. That fund is designed to be a catalyst in unlocking that and helping those organisations, whether through charitable means, crowdsourcing and all that stuff or through levering in private sector investment. That is what the fund is there to do. I hope that we will see the coastal communities fund evolve and continue its good work.

[Mr Sanders]

The Minister has spoken a lot about peripheral funds. Sadly, Brixham and Whiterock are not in my constituency, but they are important to my constituents because many of them work there and there is a lot of interaction. She has not, however, addressed local government funding—the bread and butter, core funding for the area—which has gone down by 11%, 4%, 5%, 10% and, in the last year, by 17%. We have done well on the periphery, but the core funding has been reduced.

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates my finale. We are clearly aware of the Barnet graph of doom, which years ago predicted that all local authority budgets would have to be spent on adult social care. Our local authorities are having to adapt. In today’s Budget, we had announcements about some areas getting 100% business rate retention, but we need to shift how we fund our local authorities.

Councils across the country have been doing a fantastic job in becoming more efficient, pushing more money to the front line and finding new ways of doing things. We have supplemented those pots of money with new initiatives. For example, the power to change fund, which will come on stream soon, will enable local people to pick up services that a local authority does not wish to continue. We must think of new ways of working. We recognise the additional challenges that coastal communities face, which is why we set up bespoke support and why they have the first ever Coastal Communities Minister.

From the work I have seen in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and around the country, I know that local people have the resilience, creativity and drive to be successful. We need to keep listening to them, learning and sharing good practice, but I am confident about the future. The journey has just started; we have got to continue growth, creating jobs and sticking with our long-term economic plan.

Question put and agreed to.