Levelling-up Missions: East of England

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Peter Aldous]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. I am mindful of the fact that Jaywick, which is in his constituency, is statistically the most deprived area in the east of England. As he rightly says, pockets of deprivation can be hidden, because there are often areas of wealth within a few miles of them that camouflage that deprivation.

The east of England is an economic success story, and it is one of only three regions that are net contributors to the Exchequer. With the right policies and the necessary initiatives, we can significantly reduce poverty and create what, in effect, would be a global powerhouse, with specialist skills and expertise in such sectors as low-carbon energy, agritech, life sciences and sustainable fishing. Despite the drawbacks, a good start has been made locally in Waveney, and much of Lowestoft resembles a building site at present, with work well under way on the Gull Wing bridge—the long-awaited and much-needed third crossing of the port, which divides the town—as well as on the construction of permanent flood defences.

At this stage it is appropriate to pause and to recall that this evening is the 70th anniversary of the 1953 storm surge that hit our coast so cruelly, causing death, destruction and, ultimately, the demise of the beach village in Lowestoft. Today the region remains extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels and the threat of climate change, but the drive towards net zero presents our economy with significant opportunities, which we must grasp. In Lowestoft, work is also getting under way on the various towns fund projects designed to regenerate the town centre and the surrounds. These projects, together with the flood defence scheme and the new bridge, currently represent a public investment in the town of in excess of £220 million.

Due to inflation, the shortage of raw materials and supply chain challenges, delivering such construction projects is not easy at present, and I commend the project managers at Suffolk County Council, Coastal Partnership East and East Suffolk Council for their hard work. Our task locally is to ensure that the developments act as a catalyst for private sector investment and that they fit in with and complement the overall economic strategy for the region.

I will now briefly touch on the five missions where there is low confidence of meeting the 2030 targets.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman’s constituency and mine are very alike from a fishing point of view. He mentioned 1953, which is also an anniversary for us back home: the MV Princess Victoria went down that year, and I was at the service on Sunday, so 1953 also resonates with us.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it sometimes appears that the regions that shout the loudest get the lion’s share of the funding? Does he agree that the Government should consider introducing a scoring matrix, which would ensure that each constituency sees projects delivered? That would mean that my constituency could level up with the rest of the United Kingdom.

[Peter Aldous]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right that there are significant similarities between the east of England—East Anglia—and Northern Ireland. As far as a matrix is concerned, I am not 100% sure about that, but there needs to be much better feedback from Government on why particular bids are not successful. We probably need to look at the criteria that bids must satisfy before we come on to the next round.

I will comment on the five missions where there is low confidence in achieving the 2030 targets, and I will start with transport. It should be highlighted at the outset that the east of England, with 17 ports and airports—including two freeports and Stansted—is very much a strategic gateway to the whole UK. If the east of England has a fit-for-purpose, 21st-century transport system, the whole UK benefits; unfortunately, we are some way from achieving that. There is concern that the transport needs of the region are being overlooked in Whitehall, notwithstanding the good, co-ordinated work of our two strategic transport bodies, Transport East and England’s Economic Heartland.

On the railways, it is vital that funding is provided for the upgrading of the Ely and Haughley junctions. That will improve connectivity from the Felixstowe-Harwich freeport to the midlands and the north, thereby facilitating levelling up in those regions. It will get freight off the busy A14 and help to provide additional capacity for passenger services into London Liverpool Street. Reinstating the four trains per hour from Liverpool Street to Stansted would help to attract investment from airlines and to secure new routes to destinations such as San Francisco and Boston—that is the one in Massachusetts, not our near neighbour in Lincolnshire, although that road also needs improvement.

It is estimated that, if such routes are opened up, they will deliver £95 million in new investment to the east of England. However, if we are to deliver such investment, there is a need for good transport links to and from the airport. Locally, the Waveney constituency is served by two railway lines—the East Suffolk and the Wherry—which must be upgraded to improve accessibility and connectivity. That is vital to deliver meaningful levelling up to coastal communities such as Lowestoft and Yarmouth.

I will turn now to education. Achieving good grades not only benefits the individuals themselves, improving their life chances and sense of wellbeing, but enhances the prospects of economic growth. Unfortunately, the overall level of attainment across the region is behind that in England as a whole. That is predominantly because the funding for east of England schools is way below the national average. The f40 is a group of the lowest-funded education authorities in England; it is a club to which one does not aspire to belong but, unfortunately, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Central Bedfordshire are all members. To ensure that young people in the east of England have a fair opportunity to realise their full potential, attention should be given to revising the funding formula that applies to rural schools, and a significant part of the increased funding of £4.6 billion over the next few years should be allocated to councils to support children and young people with educational needs and disabilities.

On skills, exciting opportunities are emerging in the east of England, such as in the energy sector and in further education colleges such as East Coast College, with its campuses in Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth. Such colleges are doing great work, but they are hamstrung by a lack of revenue funding and a shortage of teachers and trainers. The key recommendations in the APPG’s report when it comes to meeting the region’s future needs are that there should be much greater in-work education provision and participation in further education and skills training for adults; improvements in the overall quality of training; better access to training, taking into account rurality and transport challenges; and better alignment with employers’ needs.

Local skills improvement plans, which are being worked up by chambers of commerce, councils and local enterprise partnerships, are the vehicle for bringing about that sea change. However, when we look at energy—with the construction of Sizewell C, with 50% of the UK’s offshore wind fleet anchored off our coast and with the potential for hydrogen production distribution starting from the gas terminal at Bacton—there is concern that the scale of the opportunity has not been fully recognised and acknowledged. The fact that we do not have a bespoke institute of technology is a disappointment.

With regard to the health mission, insufficient regard is had to the fact that population of the east of England is increasing and that a higher percentage of elderly people are resident in the area than in other areas. Those factors apply added pressure to our health and care sector, which is grappling with unprecedented demand and a workforce crisis. There are also significant health inequalities, including an increasing number of children living in poverty and an alarming gap in healthy life expectancy between areas that are often only a few miles apart. To meet those challenges, Government policy should recognise the significant population growth and pressures in the east of England to ensure that the region gets a fair share of funding overall for its demography and that the most deprived areas are recognised within that.

While home ownership in the east of England is the highest of any English region, at 67.4% in 2021, those homes are less affordable than in the rest of the UK. In 42 out of 48 areas in the region, average house prices are more than eight times the median wage. The bottom rungs of the housing ladder have, in effect, been sawn off. In my own constituency casework, the No. 1 issue is the challenges faced by many people seeking a comfortable, warm and dry place to live that they can truly call home. To meet that challenge, we need to build more houses, with the necessary supporting infrastructure, across all tenures, including social housing. We need to meet the needs of all people, whether those setting up home for the first time, those starting families or those looking to downsize or rightsize as their children leave home.

Moreover, the Government need to follow up on their recently announced and welcome ambition to reduce energy demand by driving forward a national retrofit programme. We have successful individual schemes, such as the energy company obligation, but we are yet to embark on the journey to upgrade the bulk of the UK’s existing building stock. Policies should be set in Whitehall—hopefully, the Chancellor will have more to say on that next month—and then delivered locally, carried out by local craftsmen who are trained in local colleges and overseen by local councils.

In conclusion, I will make three observations about levelling up in the east of England. First, those living in the east of England will clearly benefit if we achieve the 2030 targets for the 12 missions, but so will the rest of the UK. For example, as I mentioned, improved connectivity and transport links across the region will lead to benefits flowing to all corners of Great Britain.

Secondly, there is the opportunity not just to level up but to create global exemplars in sectors such as low-carbon energy, life sciences and agritech. Low-carbon energy is particularly important in my constituency on the East Anglian coast—the all-energy coast. Nowhere else in the UK, quite likely nowhere else in Europe and possibly nowhere else in the world, do we find offshore wind, nuclear, carbon capture and hydrogen clustered so closely together. We must realise the full potential of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It is an open goal staring us in the face, and it is vital that we do not kick the ball over the bar.

Thirdly, in these uncertain times, we need to have in mind our national security, which the east of England played a crucial role in providing during world war two, when the RAF and the US air force flew from our network of airfields across the region. I hope that security in that form will not be necessary again, but in a geopolitical context, we are in worrying and uncertain times. As the breadbasket of Britain, and as the aforementioned all-energy coast, we have a vital role to play in providing food and energy security.

Delivering on the levelling-up missions, not just in the east of England but across the country, requires collaboration. There is a need for Departments to be properly co-ordinated—I am conscious that I have commented on many issues that do not fall within the Minister’s remit, and I apologise for that. There is also a need for collaboration between national Government and local government, and with the region’s businesses. We need a delivery vehicle to achieve that. I look forward to the Minister’s summing up, and I hope she can pledge that the Government will commit to this important partnership approach.