Devolution (East Anglia)

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I congratulate the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) on securing this debate. Unusually, we might find ourselves in agreement on one or two issues today.

From my very first contribution in the House, I have been banging on not about Europe, but about the real and immediate challenges facing Cambridge on housing and transport. In the last year, the problems have only become more acute. We have some of the fastest rising house prices in the country—they are even outstripping London—and too many occasions when the city has been near gridlocked.

I am sorry to say that the policy response from the Government has made the situation worse. Cambridge City Council and local housing associations have rightly been horrified by the range of Government housing proposals that will dramatically reduce the already limited amount of affordable housing in the city and undermine the only recently agreed long-term business plan underpinning the building of new affordable homes for rent. Moreover, the much-vaunted city deal plan inherited from the previous Government has morphed into the mess before us today.

The devolution deal at the heart of this debate, while much trumpeted by the Government, is not much welcomed by anyone else. It is a devolution deal for Norfolk and Suffolk, with Cambridgeshire bolted on as a last-minute add-on, with an unwanted elected mayor bolted on top of that. Let us be clear: Cambridge and the surrounding area need the freedom to make the investments needed to tackle the housing and transport challenges.

A detailed case has been developed by the local business-led organisation Cambridge Ahead, and I urge the Minister to revisit it. “The Case for Cambridge” enjoyed strong local support across councils, local MPs, all sectors of business, the LEP, the chamber of commerce and our universities, which are a unique asset. Unfortunately, instead of responding to that locally agreed and developed proposal—the very bottom-up proposal that the Government sought—the Government instead came back late in the day with a completely different solution. They basically said, “You’ve got three weeks to take it or leave it.” The reaction was rightly furious. The LEP rejected it, business leaders rejected it, Cambridge City Council rejected it and Cambridgeshire County Council rejected it. So far as I am aware, only one district in the area has any real enthusiasm.

I do not have much time, so I will jump straight to my final conclusions, although I note in passing that the National Audit Office highlighted a discrepancy in funding between regions. Why does the west of England get £27 per capita additional investment per head, while in East Anglia we are offered just £13?

As a more optimistic conclusion, may I say that we need to get more flexibility and funding into the region? I suggest that the Minister look again at the suggestions coming from Cambridgeshire and the very special opportunities in Cambridge in particular. Why can those two deals not be folded into one? No one really wants your mayor, Minister. If we have to have it, I dare say they can be safely ignored. There is a much bigger prize for Cambridge. We can be the catalyst for UK prosperity. We are already hugely successful, but that future success is at risk. Of course there are always risks with major investments—we know that, and we have explained how those can be underwritten. Cambridge is up to the task, but as it stands we do not have the powers we need.