Business Support (Lancaster and Fleetwood)

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about my constituency. It is always a pleasure and an opportunity to give Ministers more information about the needs of the area, as I am sure it is a pleasure for them to hear it. I want to focus on the experiences and needs of businesses there, and say a little about the economic development that is also needed.

By way of background, Fleetwood is an old fishing port that is celebrating its 175th anniversary this year; I am almost repeating what I said in the previous debate. The fishing fleet has seriously declined over the past few decades, to the point that, although a few dozen fishing boats are registered at Fleetwood, only three boats actually now fish from the site. Until recently, Stena Lines ran a ferry route from Fleetwood to Larne in Northern Ireland; it withdrew the route back in December.

Fish processing is the main industry, and the internationally famous Fisherman’s Friend is also a large employer. Transport links are poor, however. According to the Association of Train Operators, Fleetwood is part of one of the largest urban areas in the country without a direct rail link, something that I raised—

--- Later in debate ---

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mr Newmark.)

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I raised the issue of a direct rail link in a Westminster Hall debate a couple of weeks ago, and the only other transport link is a single-lane road, the A585, from the motorway. The overriding story, as everyone in Fleetwood will say, is that the town has suffered significantly in recent years, largely as the use of the port has declined.

Lancaster, at the other extreme of the constituency, is also an old port city, and it has a great heritage. Its medieval castle includes the only example left in England of anything that was built by John of Gaunt, and its tourist potential is strong. Lancaster university is ranked in the top 10 by The Times, it has a large campus and its research is driving many business developments in the area. What Lancaster lacks is a large modern department store, meaning that its retail business pales in comparison with places such as Preston, which is increasingly taking business away. I hope that a proposed development, known as Centros, will resolve that in the next few years, so long as English Heritage can overcome some points of detail which have held up the project.

We also have a large rural area, with small hill farms and various other businesses established around the city boundaries, but again there is a problem with a lack of rural broadband, particularly in the hills surrounding Lancaster, so the question is: how do we help business and the private sector in Lancaster and Fleetwood to grow?

Much of what is needed is the same as what businesses need all over the country, and I will start with the generic, throw in some local examples and then move on to some more constituency concerns. The outcome of Project Merlin, to get the banks to lend more—an extra £11 billion this year compared with 2010—is obviously welcome, but perhaps one of the biggest complaints that I still receive, from small businesses especially, is that they continue to struggle to secure finance from the banks, whether new capital or just an overdraft extension. In many cases there is simply a lack of good customer service, with bank managers and decision makers not being available.

For example, Mr lain Bailey, a small businessman based in Lancaster, says that he still struggles to engage productively with his bank when he needs to; that

“many businesses feel banks have left us all adrift”;

and that it is simply

“up to the businesses themselves to sort things out!”

My local chamber of commerce, Lancaster chamber of commerce, in its most recent members survey on finance and banking, received a number of disconcerting comments. Here are just a few examples from individual businesses in Lancaster. One said:

“Our bank is very unhelpful at the moment and have no leeway and appear to be too inflexible.”

Another business person said:

“I was refused a formal overdraft increase but allowed excess at punitive cost.”

A further business noted:

“Even though we had a business account with our bank for over 25 years they refused to even give us an answer when we applied for a loan.”

And finally, one more business explained:

“I asked to increase my overdraft to help ease cash flow but our bank forced us to reduce it by £10,000 instead!"

It is clear that in some cases the banks are still not living up to their end of the bargain, so perhaps the Minister will let me know where we are on bank lending, and whether there is any mechanism that will allow businesses, or perhaps MPs acting on their behalf, to report ongoing problems for his Department to follow up.

I welcome the end of the Northwest Regional Development Agency, and the new local enterprise partnership structure should lead to more targeted, specific and relevant assistance for places such as Lancaster and Fleetwood. One problem with the Northwest Regional Development Agency involved the fact that, for many of us in the region, the view rapidly developed that the north-west began and ended in Manchester and on Merseyside. Sadly, I will have to return to that theme later, but if I do nothing else today I hope to make it clear to the Minister that that is definitely not the case.

I also think that the new local enterprise partnership—LEP—structures can lead to more direct input from local businesses, and that can only be good for ensuring that schemes are of real practical value. In Lancashire we have taken slightly longer than some other places to get our LEP agreed, but I thank the Minister’s Department for its help in finally enabling us to bring the various parts of Lancashire together. I put on record my personal thanks to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) for his efforts in trying to ensure that Lancashire finally got a Lancashire-wide LEP.

However, in the interim period local businesses are very uncertain about how the new regime will work. The Lancaster chamber of commerce—and it is not alone—says that it needs more clarification on what support there will be, who will deliver it, and how to access it. Once Business Link regional services close, people wonder what vehicle will be used to keep businesses informed of what support is available. They need to know more about the mechanisms that will be available to support and encourage new businesses, to assist potential high-growth businesses and to encourage business development in areas of deprivation, and about how the interrelations between the various councils, regenerations and Government bodies is to develop. There is still work to be done, especially as our LEP has only just started to be set up. I urge the Minister to ensure that there is as much communication as possible with local businesses, and particularly local chambers of commerce, over the next few months so that the various communities can begin to plan properly for the future.

According to the Library, 42.2% of the population of Lancaster and Fleetwood is employed in the public sector—the 37th highest proportion in the UK. As cuts are made to public spending, the Government’s agenda for growth in the private sector will be disproportionately important in constituencies such as mine, and I want to ensure that we get our fair share of resources and that all that can be done to encourage private sector growth in my area is done.

The regional growth fund is a big opportunity for businesses, an opportunity for individual companies, and a help in regenerating the whole area. In the north-west we have welcomed the Government’s recognition of the distinction between the south-east and the east and the rest of the country, and the fact that the regional growth fund’s priority is our kind of area. The first round of successful regional growth fund bids lists an impressive number of jobs that the supported first round schemes will help to create or maintain in the wider north-west.

However, my concern about the first round process is that a lot of the criteria are determined by European subsidy rules, which in effect means that support for large companies can be offered only to particularly low-employment or deprived parts of the country. Assisted areas in the north-west include Liverpool, St Helens and parts of Manchester. The other parts of the north-west are missing. For example, a major manufacturer based in Lancaster that employs 150 people wanted to expand, and was looking into the possibility of bidding for regional growth fund money to do so. It was determined that it could provide 50% more jobs through its expansion. However, its turnover was above the threshold for assistance outside the special assisted areas, and it was effectively hamstrung in terms of accessing regional growth fund money. I remind the Minister that this is about the possibility of new jobs.

Those rules have thus resulted in most of the resources of the first round regional growth fund bids going to big city areas such as Manchester and Liverpool—precisely the situation that I had hoped the break up of the RDAs was going to help to avoid. We accept that this will help my constituents, many of whom either already commute to Manchester each day or would be prepared to do so. However, I hope that phase 2 of the bidding process will include more support for north-west companies outside Manchester and Liverpool—companies that can show that they can provide the extra jobs and growth that I understood were this Government’s priority.

Perhaps that would be more likely to happen if more bids were accepted from small and medium-sized enterprises, but the return on investment required for a successful regional growth fund bid has in some ways limited applications from that sector. SMEs often do not have the resources to compile the data required for entering into the bidding process—at least not on their own—and so we come back to support for businesses in terms of information and guidance to help them through the bidding process.

That brings me on to the related subject of enterprise zones. I broadly welcome the Government’s creation of enterprise zones. They have the potential to bring much-needed investment into areas that need jobs and regeneration. They also have a key role to play in closing the north-south divide and rebalancing the economy, which is a major aim of the Government. Of the 11 zones that have been announced, the two in the north-west are in—you’ve guessed it—Manchester and Liverpool. Although I welcome those zones because they will drag business northwards and create hubs of industry that neighbouring areas can feed off, I am concerned that, yet again, it is the big cities of the north-west that will get the immediate benefit. I hope that more original locations will emerge when the remaining 10 enterprise zones are allocated, possibly helping areas further north than Manchester. An enterprise zone on the Fylde coast, for example, would be welcome, because it would help to provide jobs not only for my constituents in Fleetwood, but in the wider areas of Blackpool and Fylde, as well as providing new business orders for local businesses.

Transport infrastructure is also necessary for businesses to thrive. The coalition has done well in that area so far. After years of underinvestment in our transport network under Labour, in just one year there has been a lot of good news for the north-west, and for my constituents in particular. The renewal of the west coast franchise offers extra capacity for the overcrowded rail services on that route. In the longer term, High Speed 2 offers more capacity, speed and choice for journeys to London and, ultimately, Scotland. It might also open a direct link to Heathrow and the channel tunnel.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

As usual, my hon. Friend is making a passionate case for his business community. He makes an important point about high-speed rail. Is he aware that evidence from other countries shows that the success of a high-speed line often depends on the degree of connectivity to the termini of those lines from areas such as his? We should do all we can to encourage businesses to make their voices heard in the current high-speed rail consultation.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

My hon. Friend makes a significant point. High Speed 2 is critical to the north-west and to Yorkshire. We should talk about it as a line that will go from London to Manchester and from London to Leeds, and eventually from London to Glasgow and from London to Edinburgh. As hon. Members may know, I have said in other places that I do not see why we do not start building south from Glasgow and Edinburgh now, while the areas around London argue about where their terminus will be. The point is clear: High Speed 2 is vital in the long term for business in my area, and in my constituency in particular.

The other helpful development is the proposed northern hub, which will allow faster and more frequent services between the cities of the north and bring an estimated £4 billion of benefits to the region. That will be good for business and for job creation. In particular, the electrification of the line from Preston to Blackpool will be a major help to the growth of business in my area.

I am also pleased that the Department for Transport has finally agreed that the M6 to Heysham link road should go ahead. It has been on the drawing board for 50-odd years. When it is finally built, it should lead to better communication to the port of Heysham, which will help businesses and attract new businesses on both the Morecambe and Lancaster sides of the River Lune, and along the M6 corridor.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the new link road will create pockets of investment in my constituency and in his constituency next door?

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for his support in working with the chamber of commerce, the county council and Ministers to help them see the importance of that scheme, which promises much for business.

The transport links to Fleetwood remain poor. I have raised with Ministers the fact that although there is about four and a half or five miles of railway line in Fleetwood, unfortunately there are no trains on it. There is a plan, with the support of the council, to get that development, which needs capital of about £6 million. I will come back to those figures in a minute.

My last general point is that I fully support the plans to reduce the amount of red tape that businesses have to fight through. We need economic growth, and it is only right that we should make it as easy as possible for businesses and entrepreneurs to start up companies and create the jobs that are so badly needed. That is the greatest area in which businesses have asked me for support and talked about their hopes from the coalition.

The Government’s war on red tape—the red tape challenge, I think it has been branded—is welcomed by all businesses. I know that many previous Governments have talked the talk, but I hope this Administration will finally walk the walk. I am particularly hopeful of that because I know that the Minister has that type of background and has personal experience. I am sure that he will put his full weight behind the deregulation drive.

Those are the general issues, but I also wish to mention one or two specific local examples to demonstrate the problems. The first is that of a company called Nitratec, which is based in Fleetwood and supplies trucks and trailers both new and used for the UK and export markets. It asked me to visit last year. It was having a particular problem in getting help to access export markets, particularly in some less usual export destinations. For instance, it was keen to grow into Africa and Kurdistan. As it happened, I was able to put it on to the British embassy in Iraq via a couple of contacts, and I understand that that side of things is now going well. The lesson is that perhaps we could still be doing more to help companies understand where they can go to get assistance if they want to export goods or services. In that instance, it was just a fluke that I had contacts in the particular area where the company wanted to develop, but why should a business that has such potential have to rely on the chance nature of its MP’s contacts?

Increasing exports is, of course, a major policy plank for the UK. I note that only yesterday, the Foreign Secretary told the House that if we could increase the number of small and medium-sized enterprise exporters in this country from one in five to the EU average of one in four, the extra exports from Britain would more than cancel out the trade deficits that we have experienced in recent years. I hope that more can be done to help companies get on the right track.

I shall give another example. Paul Banks is a constituent of mine who has a start-up business in Lancaster called Image Alchemy. It is highly innovative, as I saw when I visited him a couple of months ago. His potential for further growth is extremely high, and Lancaster university’s environment centre has recently “adopted” him, marking his business out as worthy of support. His new prototype system was an immediate hit at a recent German trade fair and a fair at the national exhibition centre in Birmingham, and order inquiries came pouring in. To get the system to production he needs to get finance, which could mean the immediate creation of five new jobs in the community.

Mr Banks has funded the new product with his own money, but he has struggled to access local and EU funding designed to help expand small start-ups such as his. The bureaucracy that he has encountered in seeking a small five-figure sum has bogged him down with repetitive form-filling, but the rewards if his expansion can be aided are potentially huge. The key point that I wish to underline is the small sum needed to get the company launched. We need to make it easier for such businesses to find funding, especially when the sums needed are so small.

Another example is a scheme called the fish park in Fleetwood. One of the plans for the regeneration of Fleetwood was to develop a sea and shellfish processing park, providing a new unit for the already resident company AM Seafoods and various other units for some 20 SMEs. The industry is already worth some £135 million and 660 jobs to the local economy, but the enhancement and modern premises could mean the addition of 150 new jobs in a town that needs private sector growth.

A partnership between Wyre borough council, Lancashire county council and AM Seafoods is in place, and the plan is to split the costs 50:50 between the private and public sector. The public sector amount required is £6 million. The point that I am trying to make is that the sums needed in areas outside the major areas of deprivation are quite small, but the resulting employment would be quite large. In my postbag and my surgeries, virtually every fortnight I hear of a new business, whether small or large—although the businesses in my area are not huge—that has the same problem. Through innovation or expanding on existing orders, they could provide the extra jobs that the economy needs, but at the moment there seems no way for them to get assistance with that growth, and certainly not from the banks.

I need to give the Minister time to reply. I should like him to reconsider regional stock exchanges, and I should like him to consider enterprise zones being part and parcel of every university campus, to enable universities to develop innovation. Most of all, I look for some assistance from the Government, or for them to put pressure on banks to provide that much-needed assistance, so that we get the growth we need.

Disadvantaged Children

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I join other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing this debate, and I hope that they will pay attention to what he says later, because he has more ideas on how to progress this matter, which is key to many of us across the House. I shall try to keep to his principle of seeing this as a cross-party effort. As an ex-teacher, I have learned lessons today from legal experts and about early intervention.

I want to talk about an aspect of disadvantage that has not been mentioned yet. I am glad to see the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) in her place, because she has fought for this for a number of years. We talk about poverty, but there is also disadvantage in regard to race and culture. Year in, year out, she has gone on about the underperformance of black boys in particular, but, after all this time, there is still underperformance among children of Pakistani, Bengali and Kurdish origin. I do not know how many reports on that subject have come through the system.

As I said, I am an ex-history teacher, and it might seem that I am giving the House a history lesson, although I hope that things can be learned from history. My speech might bring back reminiscences of an old history teacher. I want to say something about my experience. I do not think there is anyone here who cannot think back to either a teacher or a school that made a difference to them. I support the Secretary of State when he said that

“our schools should be engines of social mobility”.

After 27 years in teaching, I passionately believe that to be the case. I went to a grammar school, and before Members raise their eyes to the ceiling, let me assure them that I am not going to give them a lecture about bringing back grammar schools across the country. My constituency does, however, have the advantage of having the very successful Lancaster royal grammar school for boys and Lancaster girls’ grammar school, which I shall say more about later.

I have 27 years’ experience of teaching in comprehensives, 25 of them in social priority schools. The lessons that I have learned apply to Governments of all persuasions, because they are all tempted to take certain actions. Comprehensives were supposed to be the vehicle for raising social mobility. When I started teaching in them, I was told that they would be the grammar schools for everyone. Then, certain schemes were introduced, including mixed-ability classes and special needs. Then we had special needs teaching in the classroom, and special needs teaching outside it. Then came integrated studies, environmental studies and humanities.

Often, more than 50% of the children whom professionals in those schools were dealing with were entitled to free school meals. Often, for more than 50% of them English was a second language. That is still the case in some of those schools today, although that has not yet been mentioned. Those factors existed alongside all the other problems that hon. Members have pointed out. Every few years, a Government scheme would be introduced in which the teacher was taken out of the classroom and trained to do something new. Any teacher dealing with circumstances of disadvantage will say that the key thing is how much stability, security and aspiration can be given to those children. Why is it that the most way-out education experiments are always done for the lowest achievers and the most disadvantaged?

[Andrew Percy]

It is precisely this issue of having initiative after initiative after initiative that we must end. One particularly damaging example from recent years, given the important role teachers can play in young people’s lives, was hiving off the pastoral role of teachers to other people working in schools. That left teachers simply to deliver the curriculum, never to nurture the children. This provides another example of the constant “initiativitis” from which we must move.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is always the schools undergoing initiatives that need the greatest stability. That is why I welcome the Secretary of State’s reform of the national curriculum, which will put real history and geography back into it. When those schools attained the achievement and stability they wanted and lifted their pupils A to C grades, they faced another problem. When the students left the school or entered university, the subjects they had studied were not counted as equal to other subjects learned in the more advantaged schools. This happened for the best of intentions, but it amounted to underselling. In my experience, however, with security, good teaching and, particularly, a good head teacher, there is nothing those children cannot achieve. They can match anybody and should be given the right to do so. That means having the right to learn the same subjects that are taught in the best schools. That would provide a level playing field and support could be continued through the system.

I want to give Ministers a case study from Lancaster. In 2003, with the best intentions, the previous Government set up an excellent cluster in Lancashire that linked the primary schools—Bowerham, Dallas Road, Willow Lane, Ridge and Moorside—with the following secondary schools: the Central Lancaster High school, Lancaster Royal Boys’ grammar, Lancaster Girls’ grammar and nine other schools in Morecambe. Teachers had to apply to participate in the initiative, which was conducted under a programme called “Excellence in Cities”, combined with another called the behaviour improvement programme. Civil servants draw up these initiatives, but teachers have to deal with the applications. What this achieved for those schools was, I think, roughly £1 million extra a year, which went to providing learning mentors.

The scheme was abolished in 2008—after just five years. After a few years, the Government no longer even measured the success of the scheme, but it can be measured. Performance at key stage 2 consistently went up year on year above the county average, while exclusions went down far below the county average—and there were some tough primary schools in this cohort. Attendance was also above the county average. Despite the achievements, it was stopped. We were told that the money was being moved to the school development grant. The poor heads were told that they had to reapply to go through the new system, which they did successfully. If we move to the present, we find that the school development grant has been amalgamated into the general schools grant. A successful system, therefore, which stopped being measured—except by the schools—has been moved, moved and moved again by all Governments.

I believe that this case study provides an example of what the pupil premium can achieve. In my view, the schools can get money through the pupil premium, but it is a year away. There are now 12 months in between, during which the whole system might well collapse. There is a gap in the process of one policy following another policy, which has happened before. It provides a warning to the coalition parties. If we want seriously to achieve things, it is not good enough just to agree to great schemes. What is important is what the schemes do on the ground and their impact on the teachers. That brings me back to my point about the teachers who are trying to create stability for what we call the most disadvantaged pupils—the very children who need that stability. I hope that we can continue monitoring these aspects, which will be key to any and every Government.

I acknowledge what the previous Government did with, for instance, academies and Sure Start, but we will have a job to do in tying up the pupil premium and what is left of the education maintenance allowance with the national scholarship for students. We need to tie up that golden thread to maintain support for disadvantaged children in every sector of education, and I hope the Government will pick that up and drive with it.

The lessons that I learn from history are that not only must this issue be dealt with—and it can be dealt with through the provision of good schools and good teachers—but we should pursue it beyond the next month and the next scheme.

Funding and Schools Reform

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

Like others, I declare an interest. I was, until 2000, a teacher, having taught in three state comprehensive schools, two of which were classed as social priority. I was a member of the Inner London education authority, the mention of which calls to mind not only political battles of the past but, perhaps, the importance of those battles in changing education structures and of what that can do to raise standards.

I want to cover three points: spending, teaching in deprived areas and ideology. Although the Labour party does not like it, the sad truth is, as the Secretary of State underlined, that for the next couple of years everything that we do must be seen in the context of the financial mess we have been left with—not only the huge budget deficit and the record national debt, but the fact that Labour went into the last election with blank cheques, of which, for me, Building Schools for the Future was the last. Those are Labour’s legacies, and, although today we have been told that we are making cuts, they were phantom legacies with no money to back them up. I congratulate the Secretary of State on what he achieved in the comprehensive spending review—the increase of £3.6 billion over the next four years and the pupil premium, which other Members have mentioned.

On Building Schools for the Future, we accept that in certain areas there is obviously worry and panic, but the Labour party’s suggestion that the capital programme has entirely disappeared and there will be no repairs to schools and no new schools built is a fallacy. In Fleetwood, which has an extremely good Conservative county council that looks after its money, seven primary schools in some of the most deprived areas in my constituency will have been rebuilt and refurbished by the end of this financial year. That work is still going on, whatever Labour claims.

For me, the learning environment is not just about teaching. It is more than bricks and mortar and, these days, steel and glass. We need quality teaching, good leadership from heads and legislation that allows professionals the freedom to innovate and get on with what they do best.

I remember starting out as a young teacher—we were all young once—in the 1970s when there was another “building schools for the future” programme under a Prime Minister called Jim Callaghan. My first teaching post was in Tottenham, a deprived area then and now, which is perhaps a comment on a series of Governments in between. One could not imagine this today, but we were offered a purpose-built comprehensive for 11 to 18-year-olds, with eight-form entry, on a brand-new site behind Spurs football club. Northumberland Park school, as it was called, was designed by the latest 1970s architects—hon. Members can imagine the result—and had a theatre and a swimming pool. We moved into the school with its first first-years—we had first-years in those days; I think they are called year 7s now—and a bunch of new, enthusiastic and excited teachers. That is where I learned my trade as a history teacher, and I have three anecdotes about my experience.

First, 10 years down the line, that school was in serious trouble, so the building was not the problem. Secondly, I was asked, as a history teacher, to choose the European A-level module, and I chose France and Louis XIV because that is what I knew, it was my specialism, and I could bring my best talents to bear on it. However, there was stiff opposition from the so-called education advisers. This is when I tuned into politics, because that opposition was all about questioning the ability of children in Tottenham, whatever their background, to achieve what other schoolchildren could achieve. I was sorry to hear the shadow Secretary of State’s comment about teaching Latin in Acton. Why should every child not get the best that other schools—even independent schools—provide? I can tell him that the students who studied Louis XIV have ended up in good jobs because they were well taught, not just by me, but by others.

My third anecdote is about social deprivation and poor schools. In that same school, I wanted to put on extra classes when we first had a sixth form, and I did so, for children going for their pre-university application. They were the first from that school to do so, but I was told by the local National Union of Teachers activist that I should perhaps not put on extra classes. Why? Because the school might expect other staff to do the same. I was naive enough to believe that getting a job in a socially deprived area and school involved going the extra mile. Through his reforms, the Secretary of State is attempting to allow teachers who are perhaps a bit younger than I am now to go that extra mile and to achieve for every single child.

Historic Towns and Cities

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity for this debate on historic towns. I understand from some hon. Members that there is debate about what constitutes an historic town—I see my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) is present; but definitions are definitions.

I spoke in a previous Westminster Hall debate about the economic development of seaside towns, and that enabled me to discuss some of the problems of the town of Fleetwood, in my constituency. Today’s debate gives me the opportunity to raise the issues that face another large part of my constituency—the city of Lancaster—and especially the issues concerning its economy and future growth prospects. The debate will also give others a chance to talk about the economies of their constituencies, and to raise areas of concern with the Minister.

I want to cover four main themes in my speech: heritage versus development; transport; tourism; and more general support for business and economic regeneration in Lancaster and the surrounding area. I am well aware that some of those issues are not the direct responsibility of the Minister, but they are all cross-cutting subjects that will ultimately affect the future of Lancaster, and I hope that you will give us some latitude, Mr Dobbin.

Lancaster’s heritage is what makes it unique. It has an ancient history, which is glaringly obvious in the fabric of its buildings and the layout of its roads. That is an economic strength, because it feeds tourism, but it can also prove a drawback when it comes to developing the city. There is an obvious tension between preserving the ancient and historic elements that give the city its character and soul, and allowing much-needed development to take place, so that residents can have access to 21st-century facilities and business can expand and create jobs. Often, those tensions can be resolved easily, but equally often positive proposals for change can be stymied. I want to focus on one example.

Lancaster lacks a large-scale department store development, which means that local people and outside custom must travel to Preston, Manchester or, increasingly, Kendal, to obtain access to the types of stores that residents of other cities take for granted. That means that we do not have the trade that other cities have. We pride ourselves on the individuality of our small and family-owned shops, which is one of the strengths of the Lancaster shopping experience, but there is a lack of balance in the retail offer that is available to attract outside custom. Accordingly, proposals were put forward, by a company called Centros, to develop land owned by Lancaster city council and Mitchell’s brewery, Lancaster’s own brewery, for the creation of a new shopping complex. The complex would include a 97,500 square feet Debenhams store, a residential area, improvements to local theatres and an enhancement of the canal-side environment. That represents an investment of £150 million, and the possibility of 1,000 extra jobs for the area.

There has been opposition to the scheme, as will always happen. It is mainly co-ordinated through the campaign group Save Our City, but in general Mr and Mrs Lancaster have the feeling that something needs to happen. The developer took two years to consult extensively on the project. I understand that English Heritage was difficult to contact and that it did not engage with the consultation until the end of the process was at hand. However, it submitted its views, and at the end of the developer’s consultation the plans were redesigned, to take account of concerns that were raised, including initial concerns that English Heritage had highlighted.

After that redesign stage English Heritage seemed happy, and accordingly decreed that the plans could be dealt with at the local level. The council then set aside two whole days for the planning application to be considered, at the end of which, in October 2008, the plans were passed, with a large majority—15 to four. Lancaster city council has continued to support the project since. I should point out that there is no overall control on the council. In fact, there are six political groups, and five in the cabinet, so it may be imagined how difficult it is to reach any kind of agreement at any time.

Most of the site that is due to be developed is flat already. Almost half the land that is designated for development is currently car parking space. However, part of the Mitchell’s brewery site is very old. It has 18th-century buildings, which would, at one point, have been of significance. However, the decision of the Secretary of State, on the initial advice of English Heritage, was not to list any of the buildings. It was considered that Mitchell’s brewery was “too altered” and not of sufficient architectural significance

“to merit listing in a national context.”

Moreover, the adviser’s report continued:

“Mitchell’s brewery has been assessed for listing on two previous occasions and was found to be not of sufficient quality or historic interest to merit addition to the statutory list.”

It added:

“The recent application for listing contains no new information, and thus there is no justification for revising the earlier assessments that the site was not listable.”

However, at the last minute—and hon. Members may see where I am going with this—at the end of that drawn-out process, almost five years after the plans were first conceived and after the local council had approved the development, English Heritage performed a U-turn. That seems to have been on the basis of a new concern lodged by a member of the campaign group Save Our City and evidence submitted by regional advisory staff at English Heritage. English Heritage subsequently submitted a new report to the then responsible Minister, who ruled that the plans must be put on hold.

What precisely had changed? The developers have been trying to establish the exact reasons for the U-turn ever since and are seeking a way forward. My predecessor as Member of Parliament for Lancaster, who is now my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), sought information from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport through the Freedom of Information Act. However, the Department has been less than forthcoming. The information released, especially the report to the Minister, is heavily redacted, which provides us with little opportunity to understand what actually went on.

To be fair, I understand that English Heritage is now engaging with the developers again, but also that it is undertaking a new analysis of the site, brick by brick, with no end to the process in sight. I sometimes wonder whether, if English Heritage had existed in 1945, every bomb site in Britain would have been declared an historic site. Obviously, genuine heritage needs to be protected. It is not in the interest of the city council to do anything to detract significantly from the beauty and history of its built environment. That would only lessen the tourism economy and detract from the character of a beautiful city. However, when a local council and local businesses come up with a sensible scheme that would retain the character of a city but also give residents access to better, modern facilities, and provide regeneration and jobs, surely it goes against the grain of our new localism agenda to allow central Government to veto those plans. Moreover, if English Heritage has the power to interrupt the plans at the last minute, surely it must have a responsibility to be open about why it has made such decisions and to complete whatever other surveys it feels are necessary as quickly as possible, so as not to delay further such an important scheme.

I have one other point to make on the matter before I move on. If English Heritage is to have resources pared back as part of the comprehensive spending review, will the already slow, drawn-out out process of its involvement slow down similar applications in future? This is a time when we need private investment and jobs, not least in the north-west of England and certainly in Lancaster.

I have mentioned the obvious benefit that tourism brings to historic cities. Lancaster is no different. According to the council’s website, the visitor economy is worth some £260 million a year to the area within the city council boundary. Many other cities have a focal point for their tourism industry: for Chester, its Roman history and walls; for York, the minster; and for Ludlow, its castle. Lancaster, too, has a castle, which is historically significant and contains the only remaining part of a building that was constructed by Henry IV; it is still owned by the Duke of Lancaster, Her Majesty the Queen.

However, the castle is not as big a tourist attraction as it could be. Large parts of it are still used as part of the oldest functioning prison in the world, leased by the Ministry of Justice from the Duchy of Lancaster. Courts also still operate inside the castle. The Prisons Minister has recently announced his Department’s wish to terminate its lease of the castle and it is suggested that the Duchy, together with the local council and other interested parties, can operate it as a more highly specialised tourist attraction. The council is certainly keen that that should happen, having sought such an outcome for several years and having included the possibility in its tourism strategy document of a few years ago.

Once again, we can see the problem of tension between the old and the new, although in this instance both the status quo and a change of use for the building have economic consequences for the city. If the prison is closed, many prison staff will lose their jobs or have to relocate. The Prison Service will lose one of its best performing prisons, despite the ancient nature of the building. At the same time, there is a degree of scepticism about where the funding will come from to remove a prison from an ancient castle and to terminate a lease—a lease from the duchy—and, in the present financial climate, about whether the county or the city council will have the wherewithal then to convert it into a major tourist attraction. We await events, but that is why I am trying to talk to the duchy, the Ministry of Justice, the council, prison employees and others to find the best way forward. I hope I am wished some luck.

Transportation, too, affects a lot of historic cities, and has a role to play in economic development. The narrow lay-out of streets in historic towns was often planned centuries ago, with little regard for modern modes of transport. Accordingly, transport links and road congestion are other problems faced by places such as Lancaster.

Often transport patterns have changed. New towns and cities have sprung up in recent decades, and new housing estates or industrial sites have been built, meaning that journeys are being made to places to which there was no need to travel in the past. Lancaster suffers particularly badly from traffic congestion.

One of the main contributors to the problem is the heavy vehicles travelling to Morecambe and the port of Heysham, because there is no link between the port and the M6. Traffic comes off the motorway and through Lancaster city, forcing queues to form as traffic waits to get over the only two bridges linking Lancaster and Morecambe en route to the port of Heysham. Plans for a link road have lain on the drawing board for some 50 years—but there has been no action. Now the plans for the link road are part of the proposals put on hold by the Department for Transport in the run-up to the spending review.

The link road has the support of the vast majority of businesses in the area and is championed by Lancaster chamber of commerce. I support the road, as does my next-door neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), through whose constituency the road would run. The road is important for future growth in Lancaster and, without it, links to the city are poor and businesses will continue to suffer. Moreover, the port of Heysham is to be improved, with its connections to the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, and there is the possibility of a new nuclear power station being built at Heysham, so we need the road to help such expansions take place. Those expansions should lead to new jobs for the area. I also hope that in the not-too-distant future the scheme will be approved and we will get our link road, after such a long wait.

However, the link road would not be a panacea for traffic congestion. Local transport movements of smaller vehicles would still mean congestion, especially at the choke points approaching the bridges. Local transport schemes need to be funded to allow better car movements—again, there will be tension between planning and keeping the character of the city centre. We need to encourage a modal shift to buses and other forms of sustainable transport. Once again, reduced congestion can only help local business.

I turn now to specific regeneration and business support measures. I welcome those Government decisions that are likely to help small businesses, such as a further extension to small business rate relief and a tapered drop in corporation tax over the next few years. They are welcome and will encourage growth across the city.

Lancaster has one of the highest proportions of public sector workers in the country, and the announcement on the comprehensive spending review tomorrow will lead to a reduction in the public sector work force. So, I am pleased that the Government have established the regional growth fund, which will create a £1 billion pot to help the transition from dependence on public sector jobs to the private sector. The fund will be vital in supporting private enterprise outside London and the south-east. I hope that Lancaster and Fleetwood, and the surrounding area, will get their fair share of the support package.

That leads me to my final point. I am pleased that the Government have stuck to their promise to abolish regional development agencies. Those bodies were bureaucratic and, in the north-west, a great deal of their funds ended up in the big city conurbations of Manchester and Liverpool. With respect to those cities, it too often seems to us in Lancaster that, for many people in London, the north-west seems to end on the outskirts of Manchester and Liverpool.

The new local enterprise partnerships, therefore, should allow smaller, more focused efforts at development, designed around the needs of more homogeneous communities. I know that there are a number of bids in Lancashire at the moment and I hope that we will end up with an LEP model that achieves the aim of bringing adequate, properly targeted investment into our area while providing suitable economies of scale.

In conclusion, Lancaster knows, as does the rest of the country, that it must face up to the deficit legacy of the previous Government. It knows that Government support, in terms of investment, will be tight. So please allow Lancaster, when it believes it has the local wherewithal, to encourage new investment and to protect what is best in its historical heritage. Please do not allow Government agencies and quangos to get in the way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

1. What plans he has for the future of adult and community learning; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

Adult and community learning make a vital contribution to building a big society founded on social mobility, social justice and social cohesion. We will strive to reinvigorate adult and community learning to make it part of the wider learning continuum and to enable providers to respond to the learning needs of their communities.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Has he managed to see research from the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education that demonstrates that 28% of adult learners show an increased involvement in social, community and volunteering activity as a direct result of their learning? Does he agree that that demonstrates the vital role that adult education will have to play in contributing to the big society?

[Mr Hayes]

Yes, indeed. As it happens, I have with me the response to the study that he describes. The transformative power of adult learning is well understood by this Government. We know that adult learning changes lives by changing life chances. It gives some of the most disadvantaged people in our community their chance to gain learning. It is frequently progressive to further learning and takes them to the world of work. This Government unequivocally back adult learning.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

We very much believe in the free trade of ideas, and we want Britain to be open. We are looking at the moment at how we can reconcile this with the coalition’s policy to maintain a cap on non-EU migration.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

T8. Cumbria university, which has one of its largest campuses in the Lancaster part of my constituency, has experienced a number of financial and managerial problems over the past few years. Can the Minister comment on the university’s viability, given its new business plan?

[Mr Willetts]

I know that my hon. Friend has been closely involved with that university, as have other hon. Members. The Higher Education Funding Council for England advises me that, with the university’s new management arrangements and its new plan, it will have a far better prospect for the future.