North of England: Infrastructure Spending

Debate between Jonathan Gullis and James Gray

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I feel a bit of an intruder, because Stoke-on-Trent might geographically be placed in the west midlands, at the very tip of the midlands engine, but we very much see ourselves as the gatekeepers to the northern powerhouse. For too long, Stoke-on-Trent has been forgotten, stuck between Manchester and Birmingham, where money is being poured in, left, right and centre. Stoke-on-Trent is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom, but is sadly in the bottom 20% for social mobility and for level 3 and 4 qualification take-up. The average house price is £114,000. It is a city with plenty of brownfield sites, but, sadly, buildings are rotting away, because the negative land value means that, to developers, it is not worth investing.

When it comes to infrastructure, I concur with many of the comments made today. People are wary of “shiny” and “new” in our area, because they have seen vanity projects being built time and again which have resulted in no real, drastic change in their personal circumstances. Therefore, I am not asking the Minister from the Treasury to just build lots of shiny stuff; what I am asking for is a real focus on how we spend that money.

I build on the superb comments from my hon. Friends the Members for Bury South (Christian Wakeford), for Bury North (James Daly), and for North West Durham (Mr Holden), who talked about education. I have too many schools in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke that are simply not hitting the mark. They are producing results that ensure that children stay trapped in a cycle of low-skilled, low-wage jobs. Education means free school investment. It also means ensuring that adult education—the lifetime skills guarantee—is applied in areas such as Stoke-on-Trent, and ensuring the local college has the funding to deliver. People may not be aware of this, but 12% of my workforce have no formal qualifications—8% higher than the national average.

It also means homes—not just affordable homes, because as I said earlier, Stoke-on-Trent has those. What we need are the four and five-bed executive homes that can attract commuters to Manchester and Birmingham to the area, to help bring regeneration and wealth. However, that also means giving us money, as the Government did at the Royal Doulton site, where we knocked down the empty factory and managed to build over 200 brand new homes, each of which will have gigabit installed directly—pure gigabit, not the stuff that BT and others claim that they are inserting into the network grid.

We need to ensure improved transport. That means finally giving Stoke the transforming cities fund money that it truly deserves. It means ensuring the Stoke to Leek line that connects North Staffordshire is delivered, and ensuring that Superbus, which has been paused due to covid, is reopened, so we can have better and affordable bus routes, and a big push on the hydrogen bus idea in Stoke. The towns fund is an example of how this Government have been superb in ensuring that areas have a chance to level up, and to take ownership of what they want to see. Kidsgrove’s bid is in with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and I am hoping we get our full £25 million ask.

The town of Tunstall was previously stuck in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, which meant it was excluded from the last round of the scheme. Stoke is a collection of six towns. Tunstall should not have to miss out. Burslem has the greatest number of closed high street shops in the UK; it is the perfect place for the Government to lead a pilot on how to repurpose and regenerate a high street with town housing, flats, office space and a mixture of small retail and restaurants—and, hopefully, some pubs, when we exit this lockdown. I hope the Government will add my shopping list to the long list of personal requests that I am sure the Minister has been making, and that they will ensure levelling up is a real opportunity for everyone we serve.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Before I call the next speaker, I congratulate colleagues on their self-restraint: we got 14 in Back-Bench speeches in the time available to us, which demonstrates that self-restraint works better than formal time limits.