Midlands Engine

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Maggie Throup

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I welcome this debate on the midlands engine, which my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) secured. It is also a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway), who is a fellow east midlands MP.

This year, among other special dates, I am celebrating 30 years of living in the midlands. When I first moved there, I thought I would move on and not stay, but the midlands has offered me so much, both socially and from a work point of view, that I have stayed. I moved from Yorkshire as a result of a promotion. People tend to move further south as they move on in their careers, but the midlands has so much to offer, as we have heard from both west midlands and east midlands MPs, that more people need to hear about what we have in the midlands, and that is what we are doing today.

[Mr Mitchell]

May I confirm, as everyone will agree, that in moving from Yorkshire to the midlands my hon. Friend has been promoted?

[Maggie Throup]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that. I do not want to offend anyone from Yorkshire who still lives there, but I am proud to say that I live in the midlands and represent a midlands seat. It is really important that we bang the drums and fight our corner to ensure that we get everything that we need to make the midlands a true engine for growth.

Just yesterday, the Green Paper on our new modern industrial strategy was published. Although I welcome that and its focus on skills and training, it would be remiss of me, as the representative of Erewash, not to stand up for traditional industries as well as new technologies. So many traditional industries are taking on board new technologies, and it is important that we combine those. I am proud to represent a constituency that still makes. Despite being called Nottingham lace, it is made in Ilkeston in Derbyshire—work that one out. It is still made on the traditional looms in historic mill buildings.

I am also proud to represent a constituency that proudly proclaims to those arriving at Long Eaton station that it is a UK centre of excellence for upholstery manufacture. We export sofas and chairs, and the upholstery is sold in some of the UK’s top stores; it can also be bought in some cheaper stores. Many seats that people sit on at home or in friends’ houses, and in hotels and public buildings, are made in Long Eaton. We must never forget that there are many traditional businesses that boost midlands growth.

Erewash is a place that provides a great example of how traditional and modern industry meet. Anyone driving through the constituency is likely to see storage yards full of concrete pipes and drains. Perhaps that seems strange, but I was delighted when a few weeks ago I officially opened a new “magic manhole” plant at Stanton Bonna, which will help to speed things up, provide consistent quality, and decrease waste. Interestingly, when the pipes leave my constituency we shall probably never see them again, because they go underground. Whether they are for new housing, industrial sites, Crossrail or—fingers crossed—HS2, those reinforced concrete pipes made in Erewash will form a critical part of construction in years to come.

As I have explained, Erewash already plays its part in the midlands engine; but I know it can go further. That is why I welcome the Government’s commitment to the area and their ambition to make the midlands a true engine for growth. We have heard about the west midlands, but I want to think about the east midlands. The commitment includes £250 million of investment funds providing access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises. My constituency has many SMEs rather than huge employers, so that is important for Erewash. There is £60 million for the energy research accelerator, and some of it is going to the University of Nottingham, which is close to my constituency. Also, there is multimillion pound investment to make the most of the HS2 hubs in the west and east midlands; the east midland HS2 hub abuts my constituency. That brings me to the subject of skills, specialist STEM subjects, and engineering in particular.

HS2 and the HS2 hub create economic and employment opportunities for my constituency, but we need to make sure people have the right skills. We should also not forget the residents who will lose their homes and the businesses that will lose their premises to make way for the track, which will come right through my constituency. It is vital that they get timely and appropriate compensation, especially as many of them have lived in their homes for 30 or 40 years; some have lived in them all their lives.

To maximise the potential of HS2, residents need the right skills—including employees of flagship companies, some of which have already been mentioned, such as Rolls-Royce, Bombardier and Toyota. Businesses and the local economy can continue to be successful only if people and goods can get around, as has been mentioned, and if there is the right infrastructure. The road network across and around Erewash is already creaking at the seams. I welcome the benefits from the east midlands HS2 hub and the additional proposals for 2,000 new homes, with light industry, on a brownfield site in Stanton, but we need dramatically to improve the road network, and to bring it into the 21st century. Otherwise the area will become a huge car park, and that will not stimulate growth but stifle it. That is why I am calling for an additional motorway junction on the M1, to help ease current gridlock and keep Erewash moving well into the future.

We need the investment and commitment that the midlands engine brings, but we also need more joined-up thinking; and we need to make sure that no area is left behind. It must not revolve around the big cities—Birmingham in the west midlands, and Nottingham and Derby in the east midlands. Too often I get the feeling that my local enterprise partnership, D2N2, puts Erewash at the bottom of the list. We need to address that. The midlands engine must be maximised, as a strategy and an investment mechanism. We must nurture full collaboration between businesses and universities. It should be used as a vehicle to attract domestic and foreign investment, on top of what the Government have put in, if we are to have long-term, sustained economic growth across the whole of the midlands. We need to make sure that the midlands is a true engine for growth for the whole UK.