Local Infrastructure (East Midlands)

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) on securing the debate, moving the motion effectively and setting out clearly not just the problems facing his constituency but the solutions. Since he has been in this House, he has shown a positive way of working and of advocating for his constituency, which abuts mine.

I must admit that I do not quite recognise what the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) said about infrastructure spending. Infrastructure spending overall in the east midlands—in the whole country—has been very positive and very large indeed. At the moment, massive work is going on at Derby station. There is a £200 million investment, and a new platform and new signalling are being put in. That is real investment for the future of the east midlands. Likewise, there has been a lot of investment in Nottingham station. When I was Secretary of State for Transport, I closed the station for six weeks one summer and saw men working all hours to complete the job in that time. A fantastic job was done.

I want to talk about two other large infrastructure projects. One is the upgrading of the A38 around Derby, which is due to start in 2019. That will be another £250 million, to deal with the three islands around Derby, and it will significantly improve the infrastructure as far as the city is concerned. Secondly, I was pleased to be in Nottingham at the final opening of the dualling of the A453—long awaited but delivered by this Government —and the improvements to junction 24 of the M1. Those are big infrastructure projects that we have seen in the east midlands and I think they will make a big difference. There is no doubt that the upgrading of the M1 to a smart motorway, at the moment between junctions 23 and 25—it has already been done between junctions 25 and 28—causes a lot of disruption, but the long-term benefit is important, including for the region. So we can say that we have had a good share of the infrastructure investment made by the Government.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jake Berry)]

Does my right hon. Friend, who has vast experience of infrastructure spending, agree that it is not realistic to compare spending in a city with spending in a region? If the figures are conflated, a misleading balance is often produced.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

I completely agree with the Minister. There is always talk about the investment that goes on in London. At the moment, there is Crossrail, which is a big investment. It is a project that has been wanted in the city for more than 40 years. I was a junior Transport Minister when Cecil Parkinson first announced he had the go-ahead, and it will be completed by the end of the year. Yes, it distorts the figures as far as the rest of the country is concerned, but we in the east midlands should be pleased about Crossrail, because the trains that will go on it are being built by Bombardier. Projects such as Crossrail and HS2 are national projects and the thing to do is ensure that we get investment in companies right across the country. The fact that the Crossrail carriages are being built in Derby and will, hopefully by the end of the year, run on the Elizabeth line—the name of the Crossrail line—is a fantastic achievement and, what is more, a fantastic engineering achievement for our country. I want to pay tribute, in this year of the engineer, to those people who have been progressing the build and the design of Crossrail.

It is misleading for people to confuse the investment in London, saying, “We’re not getting the same as London”. The investment in St Pancras station is beneficial to the east midlands. I remember going there 20 years ago and at that time no one would have wanted to spend more than five minutes there, instead arriving just as their train was leaving. Now, for those arriving half an hour early it is a fantastic place to be, almost a destination in its own right. I believe that St Pancras station is good news for the east midlands, because journeys to the region from London start from one of the finest stations in the country—likewise with King’s Cross. We need to get that right.

Earlier this year, the Government announced some money out of their marginal viability fund—something from the housing investment fund I understand—dedicating £55 million to the east midlands for various schemes. Here I want to come on to something that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire said. I ask the Government to consider how they say to local authorities that money will be made available for schemes that lead to housing development. On the Staveley bypass, my hon. Friend said there would be housing development within the scheme. When I was Secretary of State for Transport, I had something called the local pinch point fund. It was £170 million in one year and was allocated on the basis of developers and local authorities coming forward with plans for road improvements of up to £10 million, which would lead to either more jobs or more housing. That seems a little like the marginal viability fund. I say to the Minister that sometimes such things are overcomplicated and should be much more straightforward and that future plans should be made available.

Seeing as we are all plugging our own schemes this morning, one scheme I would like to see—I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire will not mind me saying this—is the Ashbourne bypass. It would fit well into this particular project. It has already been partly bypassed on the A52, but the bit that links the A52 up to the A515 still needs to be done. If that scheme took place, that would lead to more housing development in the corridor where the new bypass would be.

It is important that we get the whole question of large-scale infrastructure investment right so that the region has the ability to attract business and companies. In the east midlands, we should not sell ourselves short. If we look at the Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire borders, we have world-class engineering in Bombardier, Rolls-Royce, JCB and Toyota. They are world leaders and world-beaters in engineering. There is no doubt that is important for the prosperity of the area.

I ask the Government to be more open about when the other funds will be available. Shovel-ready schemes are important so that work can be started and got under way very quickly. The annoying thing that people get really angry about is that plans for housing development seem to take forever before the houses get built. Also, having given planning permissions for schemes, I know that more attention should be given to what money goes locally, such as to local schools. Sometimes the funds available are kept a bit too quiet and not too public.

I take issue with the hon. Member for Chesterfield only in so far as in the 30 years I have been in the House of Commons, I have not seen infrastructure investment in the east midlands like that we have seen over the past few years and will see in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) on securing an interesting debate that has covered a huge range—from Sandy Lane all the way through to Crossrail and investment in St Pancras. There have been important contributions across the piece on which I will comment as I go along.

Housing has shot up the political agenda dramatically. My own party has been banging the drum for some time, but it is good that the Government are beginning to talk about the fundamental importance of housing both as a social and an economic driver. That must be welcomed. However, we are still not where we ought to be: intelligent public policy, mixed with the private sector and working with local government. The hon. Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) has already mentioned the importance of local government in the mix.

We ought to have a policy of housing replacement. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire referred to the fact that in the east midlands there is a higher rate of housing formation than in most other parts of the country, but it will still take 135 years for it to replace its existing housing stocks. Houses that were built 50 years ago will not last the next 85 years, so we have to do massively better.

We need a mix of housing, but we do not have that in the east midlands. Of the roughly 15,000 new homes built in 2015-16, the overwhelming majority, 12,500, were built by the private sector for owner occupation. Some 2,000 were built by housing associations, but they are often for sale as well. Only 200 were built by local authorities. That does not provide the housing mix that allows people to be properly housed.

In Derby, for example, the average house price is just short of £170,000. Someone needs an income of £37,000 to £40,000 to service such a purchase, and that is above the levels of income typical in large parts of the east midlands. We know there will always be a need for social rented accommodation and we must see local authorities as part of that mix. I endorse the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) about the need to look at the right to buy and how councils build houses that simply disappear from the stock. We must at least see adequate replacement.

We must recognise that houses are people’s homes in their own communities. That emphasises the importance of infrastructure. If we do not integrate the planning process and make infrastructure an integral part of planning for people’s homes, then we miss a huge trick. That means public involvement because only the public sector can have such a planning framework. However, there are problems with that.

People who know my background are aware that I spent time working on the devolution agenda in a very practical way. I profoundly believe that there should be devolution from central Government, who have been far too centralising. Frankly, Government Department does not talk to Government Department; it is much easier at the level of a Northamptonshire or Derbyshire local authority.

For the sake of brevity, I will not name every east midlands county. Localism is important for coherent planning. It is possible to integrate, although I recognise there are difficulties and different arm wrestles between counties and districts. I will not get into the local government reorganisation debate, but devolution is fundamental to the delivery of good infrastructure. We are not there yet across the country.

We must also recognise that the Government are preoccupied with London. I disagree with the right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin). Crossrail might be necessary for London, but London should not get the lion’s share of investment too often, whether it is for transport or across the piece. Of course the national capital is economically important, but we do not have a balance. It is not reasonable for public infrastructure investment in the east midlands to be only half that of London. In terms of economic investment, for example, it is only a third of that that goes into the national capital. That is not efficient for the nation’s economy.

Hon. Members have rightly emphasised the importance of the industrial traditions of the east midlands. I have studied and worked in the east midlands, so I am well aware of both the challenges and the opportunities. To liberate the capacity of that industry, we need public investment on a more equitable footing. The Government have to begin to rethink their allocation processes. Interestingly, in the week when the Government re-committed to Crossrail 2, they announced that the electrification of the midland line would not go ahead. That was a symbolic and interesting commentary on the Government’s priorities.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

From the hon. Gentleman’s previous experience in Manchester, he will know that HS2 and the whole concept of the Northern powerhouse, which was pushed heavily by the previous Chancellor, are very important. In the hon. Gentleman’s area, there will be one of the biggest upgrades of Northern Rail in the next eight or nine months, with brand new rolling stock—something that was completely missed out when the last franchise was awarded under the previous Labour Government.