Local Infrastructure (East Midlands)

Jake Berry Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) on securing the debate, moving the motion effectively and setting out clearly not just the problems facing his constituency but the solutions. Since he has been in this House, he has shown a positive way of working and of advocating for his constituency, which abuts mine.

I must admit that I do not quite recognise what the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) said about infrastructure spending. Infrastructure spending overall in the east midlands—in the whole country—has been very positive and very large indeed. At the moment, massive work is going on at Derby station. There is a £200 million investment, and a new platform and new signalling are being put in. That is real investment for the future of the east midlands. Likewise, there has been a lot of investment in Nottingham station. When I was Secretary of State for Transport, I closed the station for six weeks one summer and saw men working all hours to complete the job in that time. A fantastic job was done.

I want to talk about two other large infrastructure projects. One is the upgrading of the A38 around Derby, which is due to start in 2019. That will be another £250 million, to deal with the three islands around Derby, and it will significantly improve the infrastructure as far as the city is concerned. Secondly, I was pleased to be in Nottingham at the final opening of the dualling of the A453—long awaited but delivered by this Government —and the improvements to junction 24 of the M1. Those are big infrastructure projects that we have seen in the east midlands and I think they will make a big difference. There is no doubt that the upgrading of the M1 to a smart motorway, at the moment between junctions 23 and 25—it has already been done between junctions 25 and 28—causes a lot of disruption, but the long-term benefit is important, including for the region. So we can say that we have had a good share of the infrastructure investment made by the Government.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jake Berry)]

Does my right hon. Friend, who has vast experience of infrastructure spending, agree that it is not realistic to compare spending in a city with spending in a region? If the figures are conflated, a misleading balance is often produced.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

I completely agree with the Minister. There is always talk about the investment that goes on in London. At the moment, there is Crossrail, which is a big investment. It is a project that has been wanted in the city for more than 40 years. I was a junior Transport Minister when Cecil Parkinson first announced he had the go-ahead, and it will be completed by the end of the year. Yes, it distorts the figures as far as the rest of the country is concerned, but we in the east midlands should be pleased about Crossrail, because the trains that will go on it are being built by Bombardier. Projects such as Crossrail and HS2 are national projects and the thing to do is ensure that we get investment in companies right across the country. The fact that the Crossrail carriages are being built in Derby and will, hopefully by the end of the year, run on the Elizabeth line—the name of the Crossrail line—is a fantastic achievement and, what is more, a fantastic engineering achievement for our country. I want to pay tribute, in this year of the engineer, to those people who have been progressing the build and the design of Crossrail.

It is misleading for people to confuse the investment in London, saying, “We’re not getting the same as London”. The investment in St Pancras station is beneficial to the east midlands. I remember going there 20 years ago and at that time no one would have wanted to spend more than five minutes there, instead arriving just as their train was leaving. Now, for those arriving half an hour early it is a fantastic place to be, almost a destination in its own right. I believe that St Pancras station is good news for the east midlands, because journeys to the region from London start from one of the finest stations in the country—likewise with King’s Cross. We need to get that right.

Earlier this year, the Government announced some money out of their marginal viability fund—something from the housing investment fund I understand—dedicating £55 million to the east midlands for various schemes. Here I want to come on to something that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire said. I ask the Government to consider how they say to local authorities that money will be made available for schemes that lead to housing development. On the Staveley bypass, my hon. Friend said there would be housing development within the scheme. When I was Secretary of State for Transport, I had something called the local pinch point fund. It was £170 million in one year and was allocated on the basis of developers and local authorities coming forward with plans for road improvements of up to £10 million, which would lead to either more jobs or more housing. That seems a little like the marginal viability fund. I say to the Minister that sometimes such things are overcomplicated and should be much more straightforward and that future plans should be made available.

Seeing as we are all plugging our own schemes this morning, one scheme I would like to see—I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire will not mind me saying this—is the Ashbourne bypass. It would fit well into this particular project. It has already been partly bypassed on the A52, but the bit that links the A52 up to the A515 still needs to be done. If that scheme took place, that would lead to more housing development in the corridor where the new bypass would be.

It is important that we get the whole question of large-scale infrastructure investment right so that the region has the ability to attract business and companies. In the east midlands, we should not sell ourselves short. If we look at the Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire borders, we have world-class engineering in Bombardier, Rolls-Royce, JCB and Toyota. They are world leaders and world-beaters in engineering. There is no doubt that is important for the prosperity of the area.

I ask the Government to be more open about when the other funds will be available. Shovel-ready schemes are important so that work can be started and got under way very quickly. The annoying thing that people get really angry about is that plans for housing development seem to take forever before the houses get built. Also, having given planning permissions for schemes, I know that more attention should be given to what money goes locally, such as to local schools. Sometimes the funds available are kept a bit too quiet and not too public.

I take issue with the hon. Member for Chesterfield only in so far as in the 30 years I have been in the House of Commons, I have not seen infrastructure investment in the east midlands like that we have seen over the past few years and will see in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jake Berry)]

It is a pleasure to respond to this debate. In line with tradition, I intend to leave my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) a minute or two at the end to wind up.

I will rattle through some of the contributions. First, I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing the debate, and on the elegant and forceful way he put the case for his constituents. He is the first Conservative Member of Parliament for his constituency since 1931 and, my goodness, he is doing a fantastic job. It was great to have a contribution from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling), as a Government Whip, has been champing at the bit to champion her constituency. She took the opportunity over the weekend to lobby me about Rugeley power station. In addition, the electrification of the Chase line—something I know that she has been a huge advocate for—is a great demonstration of the Government’s investment in infrastructure. My hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar) made a great contribution, showing that the fox’s county still has a couple of wags left in its tail when correcting the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), saying that he had forgotten Leicester. It is unfortunate that my hon. Friend has gone to wag his tail somewhere else for the conclusion of the debate.

The hon. Member for Chesterfield spent some time castigating the Government for the number of houses that we are building. I gently point out that we inherited a housing system in which we were building fewer houses than we were in the 1920s, because of the recession caused in part by the Labour party. Recently, we have seen figures showing that the number of house-starts in construction increased by more than three quarters between 2009 and 2016. Just a few weeks ago, the Halifax survey showed that the number of first-time buyers is at its highest for 10 years.

The hon. Gentleman also spent some time saying that we should address youth unemployment and skills. I am pleased that we now have more people in employment than at any time since the 1970s, particularly with the introduction of T-levels and the Government’s drive to create 3 million high-level apprenticeships. That will ensure that young men and women come through our education system with the necessary skills to build an economy fit for the future.

My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) talked about devolution. I would happily have an entire debate devoted to that subject. In my view, devolution should be the golden thread of Brexit. When more than 60% of my constituents voted to leave the European Union, they did not do so to bring more powers back to Whitehall; they wanted to bring more power back to themselves and, in my case, to east Lancashire. Of those areas that voted remain, the vast majority—London, Manchester, Liverpool, large parts of Wales and Scotland—already benefit from devolution, which shows that where people feel more connected with local government and government in general, they were, in my opinion, more likely to vote to remain in the European Union.

My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South also correctly pointed out that there is huge pent-up demand for devolution and for local government reorganisation. Eric Pickles famously said that he had a nickel-plated, pearl-handled revolver in his desk drawer for the first MP to come and ask him about local government reorganisation. Recent progress in that area shows that the Government’s position has changed and we would now welcome discussions from any area about local government reorganisation. That big change, led by Dorset, may be the trickle that leads to a torrent.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) delivered a masterclass on transport and infrastructure. I was interested to hear how he has made himself massively popular by closing Nottingham station for six weeks—I am sure that was a pretty difficult thing to do. His point about housing infrastructure having to come before development, in order to support development, reflects a lot of the debate today. There are legitimate concerns about whether buses can take the capacity of new houses and whether local primary and secondary schools have the capacity. That is exactly why the Government set up the housing infrastructure fund; it is an acknowledgment that people want infrastructure first. That is what we are doing.

The announcement of the second phase of bids to the housing infrastructure fund is due to take place tomorrow. I say to all right hon. and hon. Members whose areas have submitted a bid that, even if the bid fails, Homes England has committed to continuing to work with areas to bring forward both the infrastructure and the housing development of the good bids.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales will of course be aware that our right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) is working on the Government’s plan to bring forward sites for development. It is a common problem across the country that people refer to anecdotally, saying that there are more planning permissions granted in their area than are being built out. Our right hon. Friend is looking at how we can tackle that issue.

I agree with comments from the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), about the idea of replacing housing. It is a very interesting area. Houses built in this day and age do not seem to last as long as the fantastic Victorian terraced houses that I have across my constituency. Of course, I remind the hon. Gentleman that when the Labour Government left office in 2010 there were 400,000 fewer social homes than there were when they took office. I would have hoped that they would spend a bit more time devoting themselves to delivering social homes, rather than removing them from our national housing stock.

The hon. Gentlemen used the issue of house prices in Derby interestingly and well to demonstrate the crisis in affordability. It neatly demonstrates that the housing crisis is a national crisis. When people talk about the focus that the Government are putting on tackling the housing crisis, all too often they talk about the housing crisis as being a problem in London. It clearly is not; it is as much a problem in the midlands engine or the northern powerhouse as in any other area of our country. Through the £5 billion in the housing infrastructure fund, the changes we are making to the national planning policy framework and other matters outlined in the housing White Paper and the Budget, we have set out an absolute determination to tackle the housing crisis not just for London and the south-east, which we have talked about a lot today in terms of spending, but for our entire nation and constituents all over the country.

With that in mind, on 1 February the Government announced the first wave of funding from the housing infrastructure fund: some £886 million for 133 local projects. I am delighted to say that £55.2 million of that went towards 49 projects in the east midlands, which shows how we are using housing infrastructure to drive development. It includes £2 million to Sleaford West to unlock 1,400 new homes, creating a new roundabout to unlock development; £3.6 million to the Desborough North project, creating 700 new homes, where the housing infrastructure paid for a school and community facilities; and £2 million to Hogshaw and the Granby Road sites in Buxton, which released 675 new homes by making new road junctions and improvements.

My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire mentioned the A61 corridor. He raised specific concerns about that corridor. From the Ford Cortina traffic jam to the Secretary of State for Transport traffic jam, the problem is obviously ongoing. We are taking action and have given £1.9 billion to the midlands through the local growth fund, which includes support for transport connectivity, as well as skills and support to grow the local economy. Some £257 million of that funding was earmarked for the D2N2 local enterprise partnership, which has been putting that money to good use, including by investing £12.8 million in improvements to the A61 corridor into and through Chesterfield. That will improve infrastructure and unlock opportunities for major housing development, including some of the houses we have discussed today, and the growth of Chesterfield and North East Derbyshire over the months and years to come.

A good way of demonstrating that commitment is the Avenue project in North East Derbyshire, which my hon. Friend referred to. I will conclude with that example because it is a particularly pertinent example of good practice. The project is located in Wingerworth—I am sure my hon. Friend will tell me after the debate whether I have pronounced that correctly—on a former coking works, once described as the most polluted site in the entirety of England. A completion ceremony is taking place on the site this very morning to mark the end of remediation and the new chapter of building homes. With support from Homes England, the site has been transformed and will deliver 489 new homes, all starting in the spring, a new primary school, 2.8 hectares of employment land, road improvements, including new access to the A61, and a wildlife habitat and country park.

That example, one of many we have heard about today, is a demonstration of how this Government, together with Homes England, working in partnership with local authorities, are prioritising the delivery of homes. My hon. Friend started the debate by saying that it is still an ambition of people across this country to own their own homes. I absolutely agree. When I travel across the country, people will say that what they most desire to be able to afford is their own home. The Conservative party is the party of home ownership and this Government are on the side of all those aspirational young and old people who would like to own a home in the east midlands.