Kidderminster Enterprise Zone

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Garnier]

They certainly are, but I must say that one cannot get a better carpet than those made in Kidderminster. My hon. Friend makes a good point about Advantage West Midlands, which is now disappearing. The LEPs are incredibly strong because they bring together enterprise and business to try to structure what they need economically, and the way in which some enterprise zones in the west midlands have come together to take advantage of that opportunity and build on it is very encouraging.

I am pleased to see my friend and co-chair of the all-party group on the economy of the west midlands, the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), in the Chamber in support, because it is incredibly important that we work together across the whole of the west midlands to ensure that we have a strong local economy.

The carpet industry in Kidderminster, as I said, employed 20,000 people, but now we have fewer than 2,000 working locally in that once-great sector. Having said that, I must note that Kidderminster produces some of the finest carpets on the planet, and that is very encouraging. Kidderminster and the wider Wyre Forest now find themselves a post-industrial area, with a handful of significant employers but 5,000-plus small and micro-businesses. Local unemployment in Wyre Forest stands at 4.6% overall, but the figure I find most upsetting is that of the 18 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training, the so-called NEETs, who number 9.1% against an equally tragic but lower 7.2% for the wider county.

The Kidderminster and wider Wyre Forest area is made of stern stuff, and the local district council is keen to promote growth. In 2009, Wyre Forest district council created a private-led regeneration project known as the ReWyre initiative, which is helping to drive forward the economic growth of local businesses in Wyre Forest and, combined with the new LEP private enterprise, taking a firm lead in driving forward economic regeneration.

Owing to that already strong local drive and the early establishment of the Worcestershire LEP, the opportunity for a Kidderminster enterprise zone was seized unanimously. The proposal is to establish an enterprise zone, the South Kidderminster business park, in an area broadly defined by two main arterial roads through the district, the Stourport road and Worcester road business corridors. There is already significant economic activity in those areas, and, although some 3 hectares of previously speculatively developed site is available for immediate occupation, a further 44.5 hectares of brownfield site is available for redevelopment and the specific needs of new and relocating businesses to the enterprise zone.

It is anticipated that that redevelopment alone will bring some 4,000 new jobs to Kidderminster and Wyre Forest, and importantly not just the people of Kidderminster but the wider county of Worcestershire will benefit from those jobs. It is anticipated also that the enterprise zone’s local stimulus will benefit many existing businesses and create new jobs in the wider area, particularly in the towns of Stourport-on-Severn, Bewdley and Redditch.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and commend him for his valuable work for and great contribution to the all-party group that we have established for the regional economy. Does he agree that it is not just the towns of Stourport, Bewdley and Kidderminster that will benefit from the establishment of the enterprise zone, but the black country towns of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton? If greater enterprise, more jobs and prosperity can be brought to areas such as Kidderminster, that will only benefit the constituents I represent just a few miles away in the black country, and that is why I assure the hon. Gentleman that the bid will receive my support and, no doubt, that of other black country MPs.

[Mark Garnier]

I am incredibly grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It shows the cross-party support for the local economy in the black country and the west midlands, and that we are all coming together to try to support the local economy, to move things forward and to deal with the issues that face us. They include slightly stagnant economic growth, but we will deal with that through local enterprise partnerships and business expansion zones.

The development’s knock-on effect will be incredibly important. The Stourport road corridor runs through one of the most deprived wards in England and Wales, Oldington and Foley Park, where almost 8% of residents are on jobseeker’s allowance and almost 30% of 18 to 24-year-olds are NEETs. There will be not only an immediate impact on local unemployment, but a long-term change of prospects for the large numbers of families who have been hit by the long-term decline of the carpet industry—families whose unemployment can be measured not in weeks, months or years but, in far too many cases, in generations.

Specifically, it is anticipated that growth in the Kidderminster business park will come from a mix of new businesses moving to the area, the expansion of existing businesses benefiting from the local economic stimulus and, importantly, the creation of new businesses, all of which will take advantage of the local mix of good and available skills, existing supply-chain businesses, the availability of land and existing property for immediate use and, of course, the incentives available through the enterprise zone.

The existing and well established ReWyre initiative and the Worcestershire LEP, working together in partnership, will manage and implement the enterprise zone. Not only will they draw up a flexible and sustainable investment plan for the zone, but crucially they will create a single, strong marketing identity, developing a vision for the zone and the district for the next one or two decades. South Kidderminster business park already benefits from an up-to-date local development framework, with the Wyre Forest core strategy having been adopted in December last year. The core strategy already identifies the fact that South Kidderminster business park will offer attractive, accessible and high-quality employment locations. The area also provides a strong and clear basis for the designation of local development orders, simplifying planning requirements and thus accelerating development opportunities.

What is important about the Kidderminster business zone bid is that there are qualified, work-ready people willing to take on work immediately. I recently spoke to a local employer who was advertising for new staff and who told me that he was inundated with good-quality candidates, all of whom he could have taken on. That is as good an indicator as any of a willing and ready work force available to meet the needs of new businesses in Kidderminster.

The Wyre Forest and Kidderminster area is an incredibly wonderful place to live. At that all-important final meeting when the managing director of a company seeking to relocate to a town such as Kidderminster has to discuss moving home with his or her family, I am sure that the family members will relish the opportunity of living in an area with outstanding natural beauty, fascinating towns, excellent nearby shopping, good schools, and a wide range of activities to keep any family healthy and happy. [Interruption.] And good carpets, yes.

I am here to urge the Minister to do everything he can to help Kidderminster’s bid to pass successfully through the selection process. The ingredients for success are already there. We have an available and willing work force ready for immediate employment. We have available space for new businesses to take up immediately. We have a local development plan already in place supporting South Kidderminster business park. We have a local business organisation—the ReWyre initiative—already in place to drive the Kidderminster enterprise zone forward. We have the unanimous support of the local enterprise partnership behind Kidderminster. We have the will to rebalance the local economy towards private sector employment.

Crucially, an enterprise zone in Kidderminster will help to enable our third sector partners who work in more challenging areas to prepare the long-term unemployed for long-term employment. It will raise aspirations, drive economic regeneration and give breadth to the wider Worcestershire economy. I invite the Minister to visit, because I am sure that he will agree that there is no better candidate for a business expansion zone than Kidderminster.

[The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)]

How can I resist such an invitation when my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) has extolled the virtues of Kidderminster, and indeed Worcestershire, in such lyrical terms that I am surprised that every Member present is not changing their holiday plans to spend the summer there?

I sincerely congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on enterprise zones in general, and Kidderminster in particular. I was enormously impressed by the chorus of approval that greeted him when he got to his feet, not only from Members from Worcestershire, welcome though their support is, but from all over the country—Staffordshire, Dudley, Brighton, Yorkshire and Oxfordshire. If he is so skilled in putting together such a supportive chorus for the Kidderminster bid, I think it will fare well.

I have to be careful in what I say; my hon. Friend places me in a difficult position. He will understand that the application process is still open—it closes later this month—and that it would be invidious of me to favour the claims of Kidderminster above those from other parts of the country. However, he has put the merits of Kidderminster forcefully on the record and into my mind.

[Ian Austin]

I am delighted to hear the Minister accept the invitation to visit Kidderminster. When he does that, would he prepared to make a short detour—just 12 miles or so up the road—to visit Dudley to examine the case for Government support for measures that will bring enterprise, new industries and new jobs to my constituency so that we can see growth right across not only Worcestershire but the black country?

[Greg Clark]

I would be very happy to extend my trip to include the black country as well as Worcestershire.

Let me take the opportunity to set out some of the background to the process that has resulted in such an enthusiastic bid from Kidderminster. Like my hon. Friend, I pay tribute to and recognise the breadth of support that he has been given. The fact that Mr Woodman and his colleagues from Worcestershire have come to the House today shows the depth of support for the case that my hon. Friend mentions.

The coalition agreement, which was published a year ago, sets out two overriding aims for the Government’s term of office. The first was to get the economy back on track. The second was to achieve an historic shift in power and influence from central Government to local communities. What we are discussing encapsulates both aims. It is about living up to economic potential and realising that by giving communities their head and the ability to drive growth themselves.

This policy addresses the situation that we had before the election. My hon. Friend referred to the artificial constraints that divided some areas of the country and forced others into an uncomfortable relationship. The previous approach of regional development agencies being imposed from the top down clearly went against the grain of our historical geography and of how people live their lives locally. To that extent, it suppressed rather than enhanced the ability of different parts of the country to establish their economic identity in the same way that they have always had different characters. Part of the purpose of this degree of decentralisation is to empower different parts of the country to prosper economically.