Local Government Bill [Lords]

Anne Marie Morris Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) for his contribution. I hear what he is saying, but he and I have rather different memories of what happened at that time. He has implied that the county of Devon was in favour of the unitary proposal for Exeter, but that is certainly not my recollection. Indeed, the people of Devon were not at all in favour of such a unitary authority for a number of reasons, and that is why I rise to support the Bill.

Newton Abbot is part of Devon, and we are served by Devon county council. My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) made a good point earlier when he said that we need to consider the impact on those we leave behind, as well as those we put into a unitary authority. What would happen to the rest of Devon if we were to carve out Exeter? Exeter has a large population, and a unitary authority would attract a lot of funding. What would happen to the remaining rump? Devon has one of the largest geographical areas in the country. Parts of it are also in the lowest quartile of economic resilience. Across the county, 20% comprises rural villages and hamlets, and it has already been noted that Torbay and Plymouth—two other large centres of population—have already been carved out of it. The remainder of Devon is a large swathe of small villages.

Devon faces challenges not only of rurality but of an above-average number of older people, as a consequence of people liking to go there to retire. Why does that matter? It matters because of the way in which public funding formulae work. For the most part, rurality and the age of the population are not taken into account. The consequence for education in Devon can be seen in the league tables for the country; Devon is now 148th out of 151. That means that our children are getting £300 less per head spent on them, which adds up to a substantial amount for a sizeable secondary school. In health, we are also below average. It is true that statistics show a figure of only 1.1%, which seems like a very small number. That completely misrepresents the position, however, because of the number of ageing people in the county. If Exeter had become a unitary authority, my constituents and those in other parts of rural Devon would have been significantly worse off.

[Mr Bradshaw]

The hon. Lady seems to be making my point for me, which is that Exeter and Norwich have been the milch cows for rural Devon and Norfolk. That was denied by Devon county council all the way through the process, but she is making the point extremely well today.

[Anne Marie Morris]

I do not accept that. They have not been milch cows. I do not deny that Exeter is an important part of the Devon community, but I believe that we need wealth to be generated throughout Devon. We cannot look only at Exeter. I do not think that that detracts from my point that the rest of Devon would simply become worse off if Exeter became a unitary authority.

There are a number of things on which my constituents and, I suspect, other Devon constituents would prefer £40 million to be spent. A challenge is presented by our railway along the coast: we need funds to make it viable, and it is crucial to the viability of tourism in my constituency. I think that my constituents would like the bypass—the A380—to be finally completed, after 50 years of battling. They would also like the flood problem to be sorted out. In Teignmouth, I am currently battling to try to ensure that the flood prevention scheme proceeds. Notwithstanding what was said about flooding earlier, Opposition Members may recall that the Labour party proposed capital cuts of 50%, but the cuts that we have proposed are considerably smaller, and I am therefore hopeful that my friends in Teignmouth will get their scheme. Our water bills are 25% higher than water bills anywhere else in the country, and some of this money could be usefully spent on rectifying an injustice that has existed for many years.

I do not think that unitary status will be in the interests of Devon or of the country as a whole, but as the money simply is not there, the question becomes inappropriate in any event. I therefore support the Bill.