Pennine Lancashire Local Enterprise Partnership
Debate between Graham P Jones and Rosie CooperWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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Graham Jones
I accept that and I will come to that point.
The chamber of commerce in east Lancashire has a proven record of partnership development and business support delivery, not only locally but beyond its boundaries. However, its west Lancashire cousin hardly ever meets and does not function. The east Lancashire chamber has 800 members and covers 60,000 employees. One in four of the working population is covered by that chamber of commerce’s businesses. It has led a programme of consultation during the development of the LEP proposal and has circulated information to 8,000 businesses. The chamber’s elected board of directors fully endorse the Pennine proposal. Last week, the shadow east Lancashire private sector LEP board met to finalise governance arrangements and to give input into the development of a regional growth fund bid.
East Lancashire’s business leaders are getting on with the job in hand, so why are we having this debate today? Despite Pennine Lancashire fulfilling every criteria set out by the Government, the bid has yet to be approved—not because of the quality of the proposal or the private sector backing, but because of the conflicting bids from the county, particularly the county council. It is worth highlighting that the county council’s proposal does not cover the historic area of Lancashire and that it excludes Blackburn and Blackpool. They do not wish to participate. That is why I describe it as a Swiss cheese proposal—it leaves two great big holes in Lancashire and does not provide a pan-Lancashire solution. The proposal does not even command the support of the majority of district councils in Lancashire. On the other hand, east Lancashire local authority leaders are united and have been working on a cross-boundary and cross-party basis to promote economic growth in Pennine Lancashire for many years. In particular, Regenerate Pennine Lancashire is an exemplary example of economic co-operation.
East Lancashire welcomed the assurance given by the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) in his letter to the district councils’ network on 25 August. The letter reiterated what has been said before:
“we are not expecting County Councils to act as sole ‘building blocks.’ We want to see economic geographies reflected in proposals, not administrative ones”.
Experience has shown that pan-Lancashire structures put in place to deal with economic issues are ineffectual and that local arrangements reflecting local economic footprints work better. If we are not careful, we will have the unnecessary duplication of bureaucracy of region and locality. Indeed, only this year, Lancashire partners agreed that the existing pan-Lancashire economic partnership was no longer fit for purpose and that the attempt to create a Lancashire-wide skills board has failed. However, the private sector-led Pennine Lancashire Employment and Skills Board goes from strength to strength.
There are also two British Chambers of Commerce accredited chambers of commerce in Lancashire. This point relates to the comments made by the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle). One chamber of commerce is in the east and one is in the west. They both reflect the unique differences of the economies they serve. A two-LEP Lancashire solution is staring us in the face. A recent poll suggested that almost 70% of businesses in west Lancashire would back a two-LEP solution.
Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. None of the bids from Lancashire were accepted by the Secretary of State. In reply to a question I asked the Secretary of State, he said that the bids from Lancashire were
“overlapping…fiercely competitive and different.”—[Official Report, 28 October 2010; Vol. 517, c. 490.]
I understand my hon. Friend’s preferred position on dual Lancashire bids, but local authorities in Merseyside and Greater Manchester can work together, despite their areas being very different. Having two such dominant and powerful LEPs in the north-west will surely make it difficult for Manchester to compete for such resources—not to mention when we have to compete against other LEPs across the country. Does my hon. Friend agree that the predominantly Conservative administrations across the council need to act collectively to ensure that the people we represent are not at the back of the queue?
Graham Jones
I appreciate my hon. Friend’s comments, but I do not accept any of them. I do not accept that there is a pan-Lancashire solution because Blackburn refused such proposals and had the common sense to look south to Manchester. Blackpool is hesitant on the matter. I shall come on to some of the conflicts that exist. We do not have a pan-Lancashire solution; we have a proposal based on three separate areas. The problem is that three proposals are being labelled as one proposal. We will all lose out. There is no pan-Lancashire solution—there never has been and there never will be. There is Lancashire county council, Blackburn borough council and Blackpool borough council.