Teesworks Joint Venture

Debate between Liam Byrne and Lee Rowley

Monday 29th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Gentleman said “the C-word”. That is inferring corruption, which has been absolutely comprehensively disproven in this report. The hon. Gentleman then went on to talk about value for money and the financial position, which is important. It is vital we put on record that the liability of this site—a massive site, which had liabilities in the hundreds of millions of pounds, if not more, and was costing the best part of £20 million a year just to keep in its dirty state prior to any clean-up—was falling on the taxpayer in the main.

The only reason these changes and the joint venture have been brought forward is to transform the area for the good of the area in the long term. I note, once again, what happens when Labour Members do not like a report that they called for—when it does not have the conclusions that they asked for and does not get to the place they wanted it to. What do they do? They just call for another one.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I am glad to hear that nothing illegal has happened, but sometimes in this world it is what is legal that really shocks us. Like me, the Minister probably remembers that when the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities came before the Business and Trade Committee, he said that this freeport was a flagship for the policy. Yet paragraph 1.7 of the report concludes:

“a number of decisions taken by the bodies involved do not meet the standards expected when managing public funds.”

The firm was allowed to buy 100 acres of land at £1 an acre; it was given rights to sell scrap metal of £50 million; it then went on to sell the lease it had for, I think, about £93 million; and it has booked £124 million of profit in the course of two years. Surely there are lessons to be drawn about how we absolutely maximise value for money in what is still a novel and important policy. It is for that reason that it would benefit all of us in this House if the NAO was allowed to get to the bottom of the question of how we ensure that profits like these are not just extracted from the taxpayer.

[Lee Rowley]

The right hon. Gentleman has clearly read some of the report. I just want to draw his attention to some other elements of it. Paragraph 12.7 states:

“The project is described as the largest regeneration project undertaken in the UK covering thousands of acres of land. The project is complex and the JV between the public and private sectors brings the inevitable cultural tensions between the desire to move at pace unencumbered by bureaucracy as opposed to the expectations of accountability and transparency”.

The report itself says that there was a debate to be weighed up on that, but it also states in paragraph 6.14, on the very point about the involvement of business and regeneration, that there was “no obvious viable commercial” proposition for regenerating part of the land, and that the joint venture

“was critical to being able to reach agreement with the Thai Banks”

to start it in the first place. It was necessary, it has been done, and it will be transformative for the people of Tees Valley.