Transport in the North-East

Debate between Lord Beamish and Nicholas Brown

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) on securing this Westminster Hall debate, which is important for our region, as I am sure you can tell, Mr Caton, from the number of hon. Members who have turned up and want to take part.

All economies gravitate towards their centre, and ours is no exception. London and the south-east are a great powerhouse for the United Kingdom economy, but in our region we want to be part of that too. We are a net exporter, but crucial to our success as a region is connectivity with the rest of the world and, in particular, connectivity with the rest of our country. It is the function of Government to understand these economic laws and, where it is in the public interest, to push back against them. My criticism of the present Government is that they are just not taking regional policy seriously enough, and in no area of public activity is that more true than in transport.

We need only look at the funding figures. We receive a fraction of the transport funding that London receives. Per capita, funding in the north-east is £5; the same figure for London is £2,500. I put it to you, Mr Caton: is that fair? It clearly is not. If we are to have an integrated economy, bearing down on congestion in the south-east and dealing with the need for more economic development in the north-east, transport links are crucial and the funding formula should be more equitable.

In respect of national infrastructure spending, the north-east received 0.3% of the total, and we are 4% of the nation’s population, so we are not even getting a per capita share, but our needs are greater, so logically we should be a priority, not pushed to the back and out of the way. I hope that when the Minister sums up, he will address that point head-on. This is not just an argument about transport in the region, although that is vital; it is an argument about connectivity with the rest of the nation, of which we are a vibrant part. We should not be cut off from it because the transport links are not good enough.

I recently had the chance to visit one of the Government’s Work programme providers in the north-east. I asked what its biggest difficulties were in getting people into work, which is its function. Of course, it said that it was the lack of jobs. That is true, as all north-east Members of Parliament know; those who serve the Government nationally sometimes lose sight of that. However, the second biggest problem was getting people to work. When that was first said to me, I thought that it was the old business about youngsters not being able to get up in the morning, missing their buses and turning up late and all those other reprehensible things.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

And some older people.

[Mr Brown]

My hon. Friend helpfully says, “And some older people.” But no, it was not that. It was because the public transport links early in the morning, when people have to start work, are not good enough. Bus connectivity does not deliver in the way in which the pioneers of the Tyne and Wear integrated passenger transport network, of which we are all still proud, envisaged. Much has been said about whether the current bus services, and the relationship between the private operators and the public authorities, serve the region well. The present system clearly does not. Competition was a farce. I remember when it came in, and since its introduction the private sector has ganged up and monopolised certain routes and parts of the region. That is not private enterprise. A better solution needs to be found.

North-East Independent Economic Review

Debate between Lord Beamish and Nicholas Brown

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the North East Independent Economic Review report.

It is not often we get a chance to discuss English regional affairs, so I am grateful to have the opportunity to do so today and to focus on the north-east economic review, an independent review of the economy in the North Eastern local enterprise partnership area.

The debate is important for two reasons. First, it is about the most important single issue facing the north-east of England. The region, including Teesside, has the highest rate of unemployment of any part of the United Kingdom at more than 10%. That equates to more than 83,000 people, of whom 24,415 are young people. Long-term unemployment has increased by 8.6%, or more than 2,300, in the past year. In my constituency, approximately 3,000 people are looking for work, nearly a third of whom are aged between 18 and 24. Those people want to work, but the jobs are simply not available.

The debate is also important for every English region that has a local enterprise partnership. Although the report that we are considering is not the only one of its kind—I think that Manchester has produced something similar—it is clearly relevant to other UK regions that face similar problems.

There is no sustained political disagreement about the problems facing the north-east of England, which is why I am pleased that our debate has been supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). When I was Minister for the North East under the previous Government, I found that it was possible to get a broad consensus among all those who had the region’s best interests at heart.

The report identifies the key problems that the region faces, but it is weaker on what to do about them. The issue at the heart of all this is what we should be doing to bring down high rates of unemployment and to ensure that the citizens we represent have a chance of a job, a decent wage and a secure future in the north-east of England—including in Teesside, for the avoidance of doubt.

While the report focuses largely on structures, I would have preferred it to focus on outcomes. It could have offered practical ways forward, but it focuses on process and reorganising functions. I think that a better approach was the one adopted by the previous Labour Government, with the regional Minister, local authorities working with that Minister through the Association of North East Councils, and essential economic development input coming from One North East, the independent, business-led development agency. Given the need to reduce public expenditure, it would have been better to refocus the development agency on its core business, rather than abolishing it.

There needs to be single-minded focus on broadening and deepening the region’s private sector employment base. Promising individual projects were in the pipeline when I was regional Minister—I believe that they are still in place—so they should be assessed and pushed forward with a sense of urgency. There should be political leadership from an individual Minister appointed to focus on this issue. The crucial point is that such a Minister will have access to the great Departments of State and can act as an advocate for incoming private sector investment. Other parts of the United Kingdom with similar problems have their own economic development bodies, local political decision-making bodies and ministerial champions at Cabinet level. That is true for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the north-east, including Teesside, needs a ministerial champion of its own.

In my time as regional Minister, I was able to intervene effectively at the heart of government. I was able to intervene on the region’s side in crucial debates about Nissan, its battery manufacturing facility and the new electric car assembly line to sit alongside that. I worked behind the scenes—we were not allowed to say anything in public—in the campaign to find a future for what was then the Corus steelworks at Redcar. I worked closely with the North East of England Process Industry Cluster, and secured central Government support for public transport initiatives on Teesside and for the Newcastle metro. I also championed the north bank of the Tyne’s industrial strategy, as well as a partnership between the regional development agency, Newcastle city council and North Tyneside council that brought new industrial jobs to the Tyne. A substantial amount of work was undertaken with small and medium-sized employers and an effective Business Link organisation, which I am sorry to see go.

The principal recommendations of the LEP report involve creating a leadership board that is made up of the leaders of the seven local authorities and that will lead on the three functions of transport, economic development and skills training. I understand that the Government support those recommendations because they are similar to their existing policy, but I note that our ministerial presence has been upgraded so, if I have got that wrong, I am sure that the Minister for Universities and Science will tell us when he says a few words.

The recommendations in the report involve organisational change, with no very clear-sighted view of where there would be an improved outcome following the change. They also strike me as being labour intensive. Each local authority leader, perfectly properly from their point of view, will want their own advisers in each of the three policy areas. Tellingly, the report talks of “capacity building” and “joint teams of officers”, with senior leads

“from each Government Department and Agency”.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the one thing missing from the report is the fact that many local authorities, including my own in Durham, have had to take £209 million out of their budget during this period? The capacity for officers to take up these tasks will be very difficult.

[Mr Brown]

It would certainly be impossible for local authorities to do what the report suggests. My hon. Friend’s point is correct. If extra resources were to be supplied to enable them to do so, frankly it would not be the first priority for expenditure in local authorities, all of which are very hard-pressed at the moment even without taking on extra functions without the resources to carry them out. Let us remember that the recommendations, which effectively are for extra civil service support, be it central or local government—as I read the report, it is both—come just after the Government have closed the Government office for the region.

Of course there is a case for the seven local government leaders to meet. In effect, this replicates, but for a smaller area, the arrangement that pertained under the last Labour Government through the Association of North East Councils. Local authority leaders already take a close interest in economic development questions in their council areas, and they work with others when there is a common interest. But is not the lead on economic development supposed to lie with the LEP, not the local authority leaders alone? The local authority leaders are already all represented on the board of the LEP. What is the relationship between the two supposed to be?

A better approach to the Tyne and Wear passenger transport authority would be to amend the existing arrangements rather than create a whole new authority. The existing authority has the advantage of involving councillors who are not the leaders of their authority and can give the time to specialise in transport matters. Nexus and the integrated transport authority are already working hard to push ahead with many of the recommendations in the report, including smart ticketing and a consultation on a quality contracts scheme.

Similarly, I do not understand, and the report does not explain, what the specific input of the local authority leaders into skills training is expected to bring. The justification in the report is that the local government leaders know their own areas the best and therefore are best placed to identify skills needs and shortages. I am not sure that this is true. In any event, local authority leaders have a great deal to do already, and to demand that they specialise in skills and training issues as well as economic development and transport policy seems to me unreasonable.

A combined authority does not give the region any more access to Government, and it is Government who have the power and hold the purse-strings, and that is more so now than under the previous Government. We have had the LEP up and running now and that has not enhanced the region’s direct access to Government, where the big decisions are made. The LEP has had the lead on the enterprise zone policy for almost two years now. I am not an advocate of the policy, as I made clear at the time, but if it can be made to work, I want it to be made to work. But there is not much evidence of it working so far.

Congenital Cardiac Services for Children

Debate between Lord Beamish and Nicholas Brown

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) in debate, something that I have not done for 15 years in this place, and as ever I agree with the broad thrust of what he has said. I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate about the Safe and Sustainable review. I want to make two points about the case for the review itself and the case for children’s cardiac care at the Freeman hospital in my constituency.

The review of paediatric cardiac services in England and Wales was instigated in 2008 under the previous Government. It was instigated not by them, not by the civil service but by the health care professionals themselves. There were two previous reviews, in 2000 and 2003, recommending the establishment of fewer, larger cardiac surgical centres; in 2006, a national workshop of experts concluded that the current configuration was unsustainable; in 2007, the Royal College of Surgeons called for the concentration of surgical expertise in fewer, larger surgical centres.

The 2008 exercise has been carried out on behalf of the 10 specialised commissioning groups in England and their primary care trusts. The clinical case for the exercise is pretty formidable: clinical outcomes are better at high-volume centres; it is undesirable that surgical expertise is spread too thinly, because apart from anything else it mitigates against the provision of 24-hour surgical cover; the increasing complexity of what can be achieved argues for fewer specialist centres; it is easier for fewer units with larger case loads to retain surgeons and to develop expertise; and strong leadership from surgical centres underpins non-surgical cardiology care in local hospitals.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Nicholas Brown]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will not.

There is strong clinical support for the review. The relevant royal colleges have all endorsed it; the available research evidence underpins it; and all 10 specialised commissioning groups and their local primary care trusts committed themselves to it at the outset. That seems to be a pretty formidable case.

I am the constituency Member for the Freeman hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, and on 10 June I visited its paediatric surgery unit. I never cease to be impressed by the care, kindness and surgical skill that the national health service provides. It is very moving to see very young children whose lives are literally being saved, and to meet youngsters who, 20 years ago, would not have had a chance of life. The unit at the Freeman is one of two children’s heart transplant units in England, the other being Great Ormond Street in London, and of course the unit benefits enormously from its link with the internationally renowned adult cardiac services on the same site.

The expertise at the Freeman has been built up over decades. The first successful child heart transplant in the UK was carried out there 20 years ago, and I am happy to tell the House that the young lady is alive and well, living and working on Tyneside.

Clinical outcomes at the children’s heart unit at the Freeman are excellent. On my visit, I saw artificial ventricular device systems, known as Berlin hearts, attached to very young patients, but, if the unit closed, that pioneering work would move, probably to Birmingham, leaving the whole of the north without provision. There are similar issues with the extra corporeal membrane oxygenation services currently provided at the hospital. The children’s heart unit really is a national resource, with an international reputation.

No one can doubt the commitment of the senior management and of the trust board to the pioneering children’s cardiac work at the Freeman. The trust has invested in services and, pending the outcome of the review, has a further investment programme ready to go. The review team, in its assessment, has weighted quality, sustainability and deliverability more heavily than access and travel, and that seems to me to be the right prioritisation.

I want to make two final points. Although this is an England and Wales review, the people of Scotland could also be affected by the outcome, certainly as far as nationally commissioned services are concerned. As well as with Scotland, the Freeman hospital has well established connections with Northern Ireland and with the Republic of Ireland, and although I recognise that this was not formally part of the review team’s remit, I welcome its decision to invite observers from Scotland and Northern Ireland to its deliberations.

My final point echoes the point that the right hon. Member for Charnwood, the Health Committee Chair made. I welcome the effort made by the review team and its sponsors to meet MPs yesterday in the House. They made an impressive case for the review itself, and for the thorough and detailed way they have gone about it. We are constituency representatives, each trying to do our best for the communities we represent. Having said that, I believe we should think very carefully before trying to impose our political judgments—based on support for the constituencies that we represent—over the judgments of the health care professionals who have studied the issues in detail and spoken so clearly about the clinical priorities involved for the whole country.

Economic Development (North-East)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Nicholas Brown

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

Now is an appropriate time to sound a warning about the changes that are being made to economic development structures in north-east England. The extent to which the coalition Government intend to abandon the Labour Government’s approach to these issues is now clear, as is the outline of their successor strategy, such as it is. It is my contention that the coalition approach is fundamentally wrong on both counts.

The economic development issues facing north-east England are not typical of those facing the United Kingdom as a whole. Of course our region is not sheltered from national and international economic trends. Regional economic development in the north-east is dominated not so much by our unique industrial history as by our transition from it. No region has done more to help itself, and there was a broad consensus in the region on the economic development strategy until the last election.

I had the honour and privilege of being Minister for the North East in the Labour Government. I tried to do the job in a less partisan, party political way, certainly less so than my other ministerial job. My objective was to drive up the prosperity of the region by broadening and diversifying its employment base, with an emphasis on the private sector. That strategy was right for the north-east. It is not for the state to pick private sector winners and losers, but it is for the state to respond at regional level to private sector-led initiatives and to work closely with the private sector in bringing promising projects to fruition.

Our region is essentially two conurbations and a rural hinterland. We make up 4% of the United Kingdom’s population. The single regional structure of the Government Office and, in particular, the development agency worked well for us.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the unique thing about the north-east is that there has been support going back many years not just from councils and the public sector, but from the private sector, the TUC and other sectors recognising the need for the region to speak with one voice?

[Mr Brown]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the great things about economic development in our region is that it has proceeded with consensus, with buy-in right across the region sector by sector, including the public, private and voluntary sectors. We have understood the need to stick together, to talk to each other and to speak coherently on the issues. The fact that we did so is one of the great successes of our region.

Through the single approach that we took, we were able to avoid the poverty of ambition and the attendant dangers of parochialism. Working relationships across agencies and between the private and public sector were good, and there was a general feeling in the region that we were getting somewhere.

On Teesside, the issues relating to Corus and the process industry have features in common. The way forward has to be private sector-led. The private sector needs dialogue with national Government through the regional development agency. It is not reasonable to ask local government, even neighbouring local authorities acting in concert, to deal with issues of this scale. The same is true for the economic development potential of the underused industrial sites at the east end of the Tees valley.

In our region, there was general enthusiasm for the carbon reduction strategy, and for applying our traditional industrial and manufacturing skills to the challenges of combating climate change. There is excitement about the development of the electric car at Nissan. The region is also host to other electric vehicle manufacturers. The Clipper offshore wind factory at the Walker technology park is the only such factory in the UK so far. The potential for the development of printable electronics at Thorn, the innovative photovoltaic products of Romag glass, and the strong case made by Rio Tinto at BIyth and the mutually compatible bid from Tees Valley to be part of a carbon capture and storage pilot, all show how deep and widespread the region’s enthusiasm for this approach goes. We are, as the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) pointed out recently to the House, host to the United Kingdom’s green pub of the year, the outstanding Battlestead’s hotel at Wark.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Brown]

It is true that the new Government seem to find difficulty in making decisions and giving clear-cut answers. As Minister for the North East, I met representatives of Hitachi in Downing street and worked closely with my hon. Friend to ensure that the programme was understood right at the heart of the Government. We engaged as fully as we could with the Government office of the region, the development agency and the Department involved, and did everything we could to bring those private sector arrangements to fruition on Hitachi’s preferred site—it was of the company’s choosing, not the Government’s. Getting that programme would be a tremendous win for his constituency, and I urge Ministers to do everything they can to bring this to a conclusion and to bring the Hitachi programme to the north-east. The company has chosen the site, not the politicians, although if my hon. Friend and I were choosing, we would have chosen the same one.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are reliant on their supply chains. When those are public sector supply chains, SMEs will be hit by public expenditure constraints. SMEs are particularly significant to the north-east labour market. The arrangements for the public sector to work with them are being reduced dramatically, and their chances of making successful bids to the regional growth fund are practically non-existent, because the fund will not entertain bids of less than £1 million.

There is now no coherent interface with the private sector in the region. The Government closed its regional office, and the subsequent announcement that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will open six new departmental offices for the 10 English planning regions to deal with administration is truly pathetic. No doubt the office covering the north-east will be somewhere in Yorkshire.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the way in which the Government are dealing with European structural funds is an absolute scandal? Some £160 million is sitting there, ready for investment in the north-east, but because of the withdrawal from the region of match funding, it looks as though we might lose it?

[Mr Brown]

My hon. Friend is right that we cannot get the match funding, but, worse than that, we cannot start any new projects because of the constraints that the coalition Government have placed on what is left of the development agency. The RDA still has an unallocated sum—I think about £80 million or £90 million—but it is not allowed to spend it on anything new. As time goes on, that is something of a constraint.

My contention is that private sector economic development should be private sector led. It is ironic that I, as a former Labour Minister, advocate the structures that the CBI believes have served the north-east well, and that a Conservative-led Government are arguing that what is left of those functions should be led by local authorities.

Economic development in the north-east now has the wrong departmental lead. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills should lead, but in fact the Department for Communities and Local Government is leading. The local enterprise partnerships look as if they will be staffed by the wrong people—the correct skill set is professional economic development officers, as employed by One North East, not local government officers. Local enterprise partnership boards have the wrong executive lead. What is needed is representatives of private sector business, not local councillors. The geographical areas covered by LEPs are wrong: there should be one agency for the region, not multiple agencies duplicating effort and overlapping. Multiple agencies could also be too small to be effective.