Points of Order

Debate between Andy McDonald and Alex Cunningham

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Cleveland Police area now has the highest crime rate in the country, yet according to the latest Home Office figures, the force has 250 fewer police officers than in 2010. ITV Tyne Tees has run a series of features on these terrible failures by the Government and their effect on our communities on Teesside, yet Home Office Ministers continue to refuse to speak to reporter Rachel Bullock, who wants to give them a chance to respond to her report. Could you please advise me on how I can encourage Ministers to engage with regional media? Do any of them have any plans to come to this House so that Members can hold them to account on this matter?

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I support my hon. Friend in his request for a statement, because Cleveland Police has not only the highest incidence of crime, but the lowest rate of recruitment. Crime is surging and we are relying on a return of a couple of hundred recruits. We are still hundreds short. I support my hon. Friend’s request for guidance on how we might secure a statement from the Minister on this critical point for our communities.

Middlesbrough Development Corporation

Debate between Andy McDonald and Alex Cunningham

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Middlesbrough Development Corporation.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Paisley.

On Friday 24 February, Middlesbrough Council held an extraordinary general meeting, convened by the monitoring officer, to determine whether the council supported the proposal to create a Middlesbrough development corporation. The proposal was put to the vote, and 13 councillors voted to approve and 17 voted against. Many councillors from the ruling Tory-independent coalition did not attend, although they were all given proper notice of the meeting. Obviously, not all councillors can be expected to turn up for every single meeting and there will be good reasons for some absences, but, quite frankly, the appallingly low turnout for such an important vote was pathetic.

The council decided not to approve the MDC, but three days after the council had made that decision, 25 councillors, led by the elected Mayor, Andy Preston, wrote to the Government saying that the council decision should be ignored and the Minister should instead accept their letter of acquiescence as being the true position of the council. I do not need to stress just how ridiculous it is that the Government, in their determination to overreach local democracy, are prepared to ignore the formal council decision.

Indeed, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has subsequently written a letter in which he outrageously describes the vote of the local authority as being born of “misinformation and mischief making”. That is incredibly partisan language from the Secretary of State, but perhaps we should not be surprised.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that this sets a precedent for Tory Mayors or Tory Governments to ride roughshod over local democracy and local decision making in our local authorities? There could be more land grabs elsewhere in the Tees Valley, such as in Darlington and in Stockton.

[Andy McDonald]

My hon. Friend and neighbour makes a very valid point. That is one of the facets of the debate that I have sought today; I want to stress that that is a danger.

We all want to see good development in our towns, but how that development is done is important. Over the years, Middlesbrough Council has acquired and assembled assets using public money, and it holds those assets on behalf of all of us in Middlesbrough. The proposal is that if the council transfers these assets to the MDC, the MDC will, in turn, use money from central Government for development. Councillors were not elected to give our town away, but we now know that money is available. The bargain proposed is that if—and only if—the council gives up those assets and planning powers to the MDC, £18 million will be released for development.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy McDonald]

Let us deal with all the rest of them; I am just about to do that very thing.

I was talking about a conflict of interest that the Mayor of Middlesbrough now has. The geographical boundary of the MDC takes in an area called Middlehaven and vast swathes of the town centre, and it includes an area of the town where Mr Preston owns or has owned property. According to the latest Tees Valley Combined Authority register of members’ interests, Mr Preston owns vast swathes of land and properties on both banks of the River Tees—well over 50 properties in total. Clearly, the decisions that the MDC board makes could have a direct bearing on any increase in value of any such interests, and they could potentially directly and financially benefit him.

In local government and in all public institutions, the greatest of care has to be taken regarding such potentially conflicting pecuniary interests. That is why Mr Preston was advised not to attend a vote at the crucial meeting. There is an obvious conflict of interest, and the question arises: if he cannot vote on the creation of such a corporation, how can he possibly lead on a letter to countermand that very vote and then serve on the board? It is utterly farcical; it is almost as though we have gone back to living in medieval times, with wealthy feudal landlords controlling political power over their lowly subjects without any proper democratic processes of accountability.

[Alex Cunningham]

My hon. Friend clearly shares my concerns about how development corporations are being managed on Teesside, with joint ventures being created and then used as vehicles to transfer hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of public assets to private companies, and all behind doors and in secret. Does he fear, as I do, that the new Middlesbrough and Hartlepool development corporations could see more of the same—deals made in private to transfer public assets to private companies?

[Jill Mortimer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Levelling-up Agenda: Tees Valley

Debate between Andy McDonald and Alex Cunningham

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham]

Again, we get jam tomorrow. It is all about jam tomorrow—something that is going to happen in three or five years’ time.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Can we just nail this business about state aid? It was pleaded for in Redcar. We can do that. This is a critically important point: the Tory Government decided that they would sit on their hands and let 9,000 jobs go down the pan. Do not kid me that suddenly there will be this conversion to intervention in our economy—that is absolute nonsense. The French did it; the Germans did it; the Italians did it; and the British Government sat on their hands, and we lost jobs.

[Alex Cunningham]

My hon. Friend does not need an answer from me on that point. Why has our area lost out? Where was the Tees Tory Mayor when the orders were being handed out? He was nowhere to be seen.

No doubt some will claim that jobs have been boosted in the area, but it is going to take a few more media pictures of the Mayor in a hard hat to convince me of that. The cost per job created in the Tees Valley Combined Authority area is calculated at £96,093. That means that for every job created in the last three years, the Mayor has spent nearly a hundred grand. How on earth is an approach like that going to deliver the sustainable job growth our region so desperately needs? The figures are astronomical. We urgently need a fully independent audit of exactly where the millions of pounds of taxpayer money have gone.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

Personally, I am still a little surprised that it ever happened. Labour-led authorities at that time supported the purchase of the airport. The Mayor was elected on the promise that he would buy the airport; it was in his manifesto and others facilitated his doing it. He is the person who will have to bear the brunt of the problems that we will face in the future, including the many millions of pounds that we are going to lose, year on year.

[Andy McDonald]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it might assist us if the various companies that have fallen under the umbrella of this organisation voluntarily agreed to be subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000? What we have here is a raft of public money, and a public body, put beyond the gaze of the public. Does he agree that that does not help scrutiny and transparency?

[Alex Cunningham]

Most certainly. I cannot understand why anybody wants to hide where the public money has been spent. I know that there are different people involved in all these different companies. I would like to know what their agenda is. Is it the agenda of the people of the Tees Valley?

The failure of the Government, both nationally and locally, angers and saddens me. The Tees Valley is fit to burst with potential. We are ripe and ready to be levelled up; we are calling out for it. We have the potential to exploit the amazing opportunities for green industry, including carbon capture and storage. We have a high skill base, tight-knit communities and local authorities that, despite political changes, have a track record of working together, and achieving great things when they do. Sometimes, local Tories try to claim that Labour politicians are talking down Teesside.