Coastal Towns

Debate between Andy Sawford and John Pugh

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) on securing this important debate, which has generated a huge amount of interest throughout the country and the House. We have heard some interesting and diverse contributions about the range of issues facing our seaside towns and coastal communities.

I have heard that it is important for people to claim their area as the premier resort, whatever their part of the country, but I can tell everyone that the Boating lake at Corby is the premier resort in north Northamptonshire. We, however, are located at the centre of the country—not the centre of the British isles, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) told us, but the centre of the mainland UK. We are therefore a centre of logistics and have all sorts of advantages from our location, although we are one of the furthest places from the seaside—it is two hours to Skegness and a little further to Hunstanton. However, the roads to the east coast and further afield are well travelled by Northamptonshire folk, and we have just as much of a love of the seaside and our coastal communities as has been shown by hon. Members from all across the country today.

In fact, when thinking ahead to this debate I thought of my experience just a few weeks ago in Cornwall. I visited some of its beautiful fishing villages, such as Port Isaac, Boscastle—famous, of course, for the flood there, which shows the importance of flood defences—and the now famous Padstow, known to some as “Padstein”; the culinary offer developed there has helped to regenerate that community. That shows us that coastal towns need a vision that goes beyond the core ingredients of an area and is developed into a vision of how to bring much wider economic benefits. For example, in Padstow there is now a cookery school, a huge amount of hotel accommodation and so on, and the community has really begun to develop.

Coastal communities are at different stages. The hon. Member for Southport characterised the types as those experiencing prosperity; those on a journey towards prosperity, and that are developing and regenerating—a journey common to many of the stories we have heard today—and those that still feel that, for a range of reasons, they face decline and so are looking for a way forward to make the most of the opportunities for their communities.

I went to Hastings recently to meet representatives of the local authority there and hear about the great work that, like many other local authorities across the country, it is doing to regenerate its area. I saw the historic pier being rebuilt and tasted a beautiful pint of Pier beer at the White Rock hotel. I also saw the interesting role the local authority is taking with its Grotbusters strategy to improve the built environment and get private landowners to improve premises, particularly on the beautiful seafront, and bring them up to standard. Local authorities can play an important role.

Government must also play an important role. We know that people like me from the midlands are often drawn to coastal communities for tourism and so perhaps are drawn to the most beautiful and picturesque parts of those communities. But there is a more mixed and complicated past, present and future for those communities, with issues of physical isolation, higher than average deprivation levels, inward migration of older people, large numbers of people passing through without settling, outward migration of young people—that has been referred to—and higher than average unemployment.

[John Pugh]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned Hastings, which was one of the places visited some years ago by the Select Committee of which I am a member. The people we met specifically mentioned that they did not see the revival of Hastings as necessarily being the same thing as the revival of the seaside industry. They were also thinking about IT and improved transport links, and did not necessarily put all their money on the seaside brand.

[Andy Sawford]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. The thumbnail sketch given by my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) of the range of industries in his constituency shows that we would be wrong to think of seaside towns and coastal communities as having a future only in tourism; although that sector may offer something important to many communities, we need a much more rounded picture of the types of jobs that can be created and the industries that can thrive in our coastal communities.

Tourism is Britain’s fifth largest industry. It accounts for 9% of jobs, supports nearly 250,000 businesses and generates huge revenue for the UK economy—£134 billion—so it must be part of our strategy. But coastal communities have distinctive geography. They are often on the periphery, and many hon. Members discussed some of the challenges that that can bring. They can also be jumping-off points or transit points, as other hon. Members mentioned. They balance new businesses and technologies while trying to retain their tourist market. Seaside towns experience a particularly high proportion of poor-quality housing. It is important that we support renters. We must take real action to tackle the issues that arise from houses in multiple occupation, and give renters greater security.

The hon. Member for Southport mentioned the sea change programme, which drove cultural and creative regeneration in many places. He will know that this Government abolished that programme. That is a symbol of the way in which the Government have let down our seaside and coastal communities. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) was right to highlight the future jobs fund, which created nearly 4,000 jobs for young people in seaside towns. Its abolition was wrong and was particularly damaging at the time. The Government also abolished the coastal change pathfinder scheme to help coastal communities deal with the consequences of flooding.

I recognise that the Government have set up the coastal communities fund, which I am sure the Minister will refer to. The fund is welcome, but coastal communities need more than a grant of £50,000, welcome though that is. I agree absolutely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) that they need long-term commitment to regeneration. The example of the Welsh Government, which we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), is a powerful one. The commitment to a wide range of regeneration projects—the harbour, the natural environment, new housing, a new school, the railway station—is the kind of commitment that our coastal communities, including those across England, need from their Government.

In his introductory remarks the hon. Member for Southport said that we need to place the issues in a wider context, and he is right. He will know as well as any hon. Member the impact of the Government’s cuts on local authority funding and their unfair distribution across the country. The National Audit Office recently found that the Government will have reduced funding to local authorities by 37% in real terms between 2010-11 and 2015-16. It also found that those cuts have hit the most disadvantaged communities hardest.

That is a concern for coastal communities. Blackpool has faced a cut of 20.6%, as the hon. Gentleman will know. Plymouth faced a grant cut of 14.3%, and Hastings a cut of 10.7%. They will face even greater challenges in maintaining the kinds of services their communities need, but the spending power of councils such as Wokingham, Surrey Heath and Elmbridge, in the centre of our country, has been increased. People living in places such as Blackpool will not understand why the Government have made such unfair cuts to different parts of the country.

NHS Funding

Debate between Andy Sawford and John Pugh

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

While you were not in the Chair, Mr Speaker, you missed a lively and interesting but predictably arid debate. We have reached a kind of stalemate. Those who understand the dark art of political messaging tell me that it is important to say the same things again and again, and psychologists tell me that those who do that are more likely to be believed. Prior to the election, the Tories were unique in having as an important part of their messaging the wish to ring-fence and preserve NHS spending.

That message was then embodied in the coalition agreement and has influenced subsequent spending decisions. We all recognise that there are good reasons for that—the NHS is a demand-led service. It is therefore perfectly sensible, in the Westminster bubble, for the Opposition to make an issue of it. Members have come to the debate with predictable information from the Whips-SpAd axis about the private finance initiative, the misdemeanours of Wales, evidence of unexpected service rationing, reconfiguration trouble, positive and negative variations in waiting lists and ambiguous data on productivity. We have all been given that stuff, and we can use it as we wish.

Meanwhile, the public have clocked that we have a real problem. The demands on and expectations of the NHS will continue to rise, resources are tight and there will potentially be a huge problem. They know that politicians cannot be seen to reduce the NHS offer—they simply would not tolerate that. They do not know quite how all the sums will ultimately stack up, and nor do we. That is the big question.

[Andy Sawford]

Will the hon. Gentleman accept, though, in the interests of being transparent with the public, last week’s letter from Andrew Dilnot, the chair of the UK Statistics Authority?

[Andy Sawford]

The letter stated unequivocally that

“we would conclude that expenditure on the NHS in real terms was lower in 2011-12 than it was in 2009-10.”

Until both Government parties acknowledge that truth, which independent experts have told us about, they will not have any credibility in health debates.

[John Pugh]

I think I will take the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) and move on.

I think we all agree that the only acceptable answer to the problem is to spend public money wisely. Currently, the NHS is holding up—sort of—by making economies and savings, largely off the back of a wage freeze, which is not sustainable. However, I am starting to be alarmed by the disagreement about what else we can do and what strategies we should follow. I will run briefly through the suggested options.

It has been suggested that we should keep people out of hospital, but we already have fewer hospital beds than almost anywhere else in Europe, and according to the NHS Confederation there is no clear evidence that treating people outside hospital would necessarily be cheaper.

Some people recommend personalisation and personal budgets, but it can be argued that that would not lead to better use of scarce resources, despite the fact that it would be more popular than some current service configurations. Telehealth has also been suggested, and I am a great enthusiast for it—it is my personal favourite suggestion, and I am chair of the all-party telehealth group. However, although there are cost-effective pilots, the Nuffield Trust has expressed some criticism of telehealth, saying that it may not save us anything like the money that we believe it will. The industry itself is concerned that if the roll-out is not efficient and effective enough, telehealth simply will not take off.