Coastal Towns

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I extend my congratulations to the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) on securing the debate. I have been honorary president of British Destinations for some years, and it was one of the sponsors of the Fothergill report. We have already heard some useful references to that report, which gave a balanced view of seaside areas. The issue, however, is what drives the economies of coastal and seaside towns. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) said, the key element must be the regeneration of the public realm and of infrastructure for residents and visitors, because if either category is not satisfied, the town will not flourish.

The CCF has been, and must be, an important element in providing support. However—the hon. Member for Southport was good enough to refer to this—it came two years after the Government had abandoned the Sea Change programme introduced by the previous Government, and after the future jobs fund, which produced about 4,000 jobs in seaside towns, and the coastal change pathfinder had been abandoned. Things come and go, therefore, but the CCF has been important.

As many Members have said, small business is vital for tourism and non-tourism, not just directly, but as part of a supply chain. In Blackpool, for example, procurement has been a key issue. Get Started, which the previous Government originally funded using local enterprise growth initiative funding and which now has funding from the regional development fund, has produced more than 1,000 new businesses over the past seven years, with sponsorship from Blackpool council. The Build Up initiative from Blackpool and The Fylde college has seen large numbers of people take up employment in construction.

There are other challenges we have to look at. Small businesses need apprentices. As the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) said, they need appropriate support from funds such as the regional growth fund. The service sector also needs apprentices, although that sometimes gets lost in this process. Small businesses have been crucial in the South Shore area of Blackpool, which I and others have been trying to revive. We saw the effects of small businesses when we had small business Saturday last year. We had everything from the Lancashire Cheesecake Company, to a dolls collectables organisation, to a wool shop run by the local chair of the Federation of Small Businesses. Those are really important, but there must also be Government fiscal incentives for such things, which is why the Labour party’s promises to freeze and then to cut small business rates are important.

On structures, the regional development agencies did a lot to address some of the issues the hon. Member for Southport mentioned in relation to second-tier towns. The performance of the LEPs has been mixed; they could do much more, and we need to make changes. The direction of travel is for funding to move from Government to the LEPs across the piece, and it is important that we look at seaside and coastal towns in that context.

We must have decent economic drivers in seaside towns such as Blackpool. Small businesses need the regional bank proposals the Labour party has made in connection with a British investment bank. We need the Government to recognise the big issue of houses in multiple occupation and the unfairness of local government settlements, which has been spelled out since 2010, with skewed demography and pepper-pot deprivation not being recognised in funding.

Of course, it will never be easy for seaside towns to do everything they need to do. Using the funding it received from the previous Government, Blackpool has done an enormous amount with the tower and the Winter Gardens. Whoever is in government next, however, these processes should be an issue for all Departments, not just one. Embedding the interests of seaside and coastal towns across all Departments will be a key issue for whoever takes power in May.