A11 (Dualling)

George Freeman Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Williams, for the chance to contribute to this important debate, and for chairing it. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) on securing it. I hope that the presence of so many of us from across East Anglia will make the point that the case has huge cross-party and cross-county support, and that the Minister will recognise that the issue has a head of steam.

I am conscious of time restrictions, so I will focus on some specific economic benefits. I speak as someone who came to politics after a 14-year career in technology venturing, and who has spent most of his childhood and adult life on the A11 in one way or another. I have some experience of the frustrations involved when travelling within or out of Norfolk.

I shall concentrate on three types of economic benefit: local, regional and national. On the local level, as I said in my maiden speech, my constituency is the jewel in the crown that is Norfolk. It is in the landlocked heart of Norfolk and centres on Dereham. My constituency suffers from all the problems relating to marginalisation and detachment from the mainstream economy. Average incomes in Mid Norfolk are less than £20,000, and we have pockets of extreme, often hidden, rural deprivation and of pensioner poverty. Frustratingly, there are many fast-growing small businesses in the constituency that are desperate to grow and spread prosperity, but they are unable to do so because they are cut off and lie in the heart of a county that is also cut off, as Norfolk is the only county not connected to the national dual carriageway system. That serves only to strengthen the perception in Mid Norfolk that we are destined to be either a quaint rural backwater—perhaps not quaint to those struggling to pay their bills, but quaint to those passing through—or, as under the last Government, a giant housing estate, zoned for growth, and described with ugly terms such as “growth point status”.

Neither of those models is what my constituents want. They want a richer and more organic way—dare I say, a Norfolk way, an idea that hon. Members have heard me discuss. It involves a vision of a vibrant rural economy based on jobs in villages, smaller pockets of housing, and entrepreneurship in the countryside. All of that can happen; the only thing holding it back is a lack of infrastructure and a lack of ability to get in and out of the area, whether by broadband, road or rail.

My constituency sits between Norwich and Cambridge, two world centres for innovation in technology and enterprise. It is ironic that it languishes in rural poverty and marginalisation, given that to the west and east are growth hot spots struggling to provide capacity when it comes to housing and transport infrastructure. We do not want a handout; we want a way in and out, so that our local businesses can thrive.

Turning to the regional argument, anybody looking at East Anglia will find it striking that although over the past 15 to 20 years it has had high growth rates, particularly in and around Cambridge and Norwich, it also contains pockets of extreme deprivation. How can Cambridge, an inflationary hot spot of new technologies, be so close to centres of deprivation in Peterborough, King’s Lynn, Cromer, parts of Norwich, Yarmouth, Lowestoft and parts of the Suffolk coast? Anybody coming to the area would think that it must be prosperous. It is as though California had around its perimeter pockets of the extreme deprivation recognisable in bits of the Bronx in New York. The reason is that it is so difficult to get around. Despite having worked in Cambridge for 10 years, I know nobody there who does business with companies in Yarmouth. Companies in Yarmouth should be doing business with companies in Cambridge, but if it reliably takes more than three hours to get there, that will not happen. That key piece of dualling would unlock the regional economy.

Additionally, on the east coast of our county there are national assets in the form of container ports, where huge amounts of national trade arrive before setting off on a journey through East Anglia to the rest of the UK economy over a non-dualled section of road—the A47, to which another hon. Member referred. It is ridiculous, from the point of view of national infrastructure and the national economy, that at the heart of the county is a bottleneck holding back so much growth.

On the national economic picture, the Government have proposed a clear and important programme for getting the public sector deficit under control and promoting private sector growth through the “open for business” programme. East Anglia can lead in such growth and in rebalancing our economy geographically, as well rebalancing it away from an over-dependence on the City, housing and consumer spending. We can lead in three of the world’s biggest growth sectors: biomedicine, clean technology and food science.

In the Norwich research park, more than 2,500 scientists work in what is recognised as a global centre of excellence. A team there under Professor Jonathan Jones has just pioneered the world’s first blight-resistant potato, an enormous innovation with the potential to transform food growing not just in this country but around the world. How ridiculous is it that when companies come here to inspect that technology and discuss licensing it, they may fly to Stansted and then face an impossible journey to a world-class centre of excellence over a single carriageway? That reality is holding back our potential. All we ask is for the Minister to acknowledge the potential that our economy would have if we had that section of dualling.

The section of the A11 that is in my constituency is dualled. However, although that makes it convenient to get around Attleborough, it is not much good if our business people hit a traffic jam when they head south to interact with the national and world economy. We have all made a compelling case on this matter. I thank hon. Members for listening and very much look forward to the Minister’s reply.