Queen’s Speech

Lord McNally Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, the guidance invites us today to discuss the economy, infrastructure, transport, energy and local government. As it happens, I want to discuss all those topics but as they apply to one particular place.

My full title is Lord McNally of Blackpool. I chose it in recognition of my pride and affection for that town and its immediate locality, the Fylde, where I grew up in the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. In those days, Blackpool was one of the most successful holiday venues in Europe—an international centre for entertainment, with a hinterland supporting a diverse service and manufacturing base. It was an exciting place in which to grow up and one for which I retain an enduring affection. However, I am well aware that, although I retain many friends and family on the Fylde coast and although, as my son once shrewdly observed at the age of eight, “Daddy is always happier on a Saturday night when Blackpool have won”, I speak now as an exile of nearly 50 years.

My reason for using the opportunity of the gracious Speech to speak about Blackpool is that I worry that, without concerted effort by both local and national government, the town could reach a tipping point which would make regeneration impossible. I sometimes think that if Blackpool had had a manufacturing rather than a tourist-based economy, its need for help would have been more easily appreciated. If a mill, a pit, a steelworks or a shipyard closes down, the impact is more immediate and so is the response. Blackpool’s business is tourism, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, and my noble friend Lord Lee of Trafford have constantly argued with successive Governments, has never been given the priority it merits by dint of its capacity to create jobs and stimulate economic activity.

Over the past 30 years, Blackpool has had to deal with a variety of factors beyond its control, which together add up to the perfect storm. The decline of Britain’s old industrial base—the shipyards, the textile mills, the coal mines and the steelworks, to which I referred a minute ago—robbed Blackpool of its traditional holidaymaker market just at the time when those in the new and surviving industries were discovering package holidays and cheap flights to the sun. Blackpool is still Britain’s largest seaside resort, with iconic attractions such as the Tower, the Winter Gardens and the Pleasure Beach, which attract millions of visitors a year. However, unlike in my youth, most of those visitors are there for the day or the short term. This reduction in the length of visits has resulted in an oversupply of holiday accommodation. That, in turn, has resulted in many properties being converted into flats and houses for multiple occupation, which in turn become occupied by those on housing and other benefits. The result is high levels of social deprivation and poor housing conditions in parts of the town’s inner areas and an increasingly transient population, reinforcing social challenges.

The blunt fact is that Blackpool has had to spend a disproportionate amount of resources, manpower and energy responding to social care, health, housing and educational needs which are not of its making. This, in turn, diverts resources and energy from the task of revitalising the visitor economy and improving the housing stock and local environment so that the town becomes once again an attractive place to visit and in which to live. Blackpool urgently needs a coherent and co-ordinated programme of measures which will reverse the decline and create a benign circle of confidence and growth. I know that the Government are in the process of considering a strategic economic plan drawn up by the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership. I urge the Government, when they respond next month, to do so with a sense of urgency and imagination.

I have to say that I believe a great opportunity was missed when Blackpool was rejected as the location for a super-casino. It is ironic that Blackpool was refused a super-casino, which is probably the most thoroughly regulated of all gambling outlets, while Parliament waved through new opportunities to gamble from the ease of one’s own sofa or when strolling down the local high street. I still believe that the casino option should be revisited to revitalise the economy and to use Blackpool’s unique brand name to create a multi-activity resort, as has happened with many successful regenerations around the world.

Even after the disappointment of the casino decision, Blackpool has pressed ahead with a wide range of initiatives which I believe require a positive response from the Government. There is the proposal for a museum to celebrate Blackpool’s unique contribution to entertainment, and proposals for an energy academy. Work is already under way on refurbishments to Blackpool Tower and the Winter Gardens. The promenade has been upgraded and redesigned, new trams run on re-laid track, and the Pleasure Beach continues to provoke terror and delight with rides of space-age technology. I pay tribute to the town’s two MPs, Gordon Marsden MP and Paul Maynard MP, for their assiduous fight on the town’s behalf.

The Lancashire Enterprise Partnership measure to which I referred is before the Government as we speak, and the outcome is expected in July. If approved it will result in much-needed improvements to Blackpool’s economy and the creation of new jobs, with transport proposals to improve access to Blackpool’s tourist attractions and the arrival points to the town, a new major visitor attraction and the establishment of a new energy skills headquarters, as well as plans to address the quality and choice of housing on offer.

This is all good news but it must be the beginning and not the end of a process. The Government need, at long last, to give tourism the priority that it deserves. There is also a need for a holistic approach to the development of this coastal region. I wonder whether there is not a case for revisiting the concept of a City of the Fylde from the Wyre to the Ribble to tackle some of these issues. I mentioned earlier the very strong industrial history of the Fylde. I heard what the Minister said about the shale gas industry and the comments and observations from my noble friend Lord MacGregor. What I say now is only a personal observation, but I believe that if there is a region where fracking could be done safely and successfully it is west Lancashire, with its long association with the chemical industry, with British Nuclear Fuels and with offshore gas and wind. There is an industrial tradition on the west coast which could very quickly be revived. I was delighted to learn that the site of the old ICI works at Burn Naze, where my father worked for 47 years, is again a growth point for the manufacture of polymers and chemicals.

Higher education also has a part to play, and I am pleased that Fylde College and Lancaster University continue to co-operate to ensure that the sub-region has the required skills to match the needs of a regenerating economy. I have already referred to the idea of an energy centre of excellence, which would further strengthen the educational base.

I know that the Cities Minister, my right honourable friend Greg Clark, has visited the town and taken a personal interest in Blackpool and its future. I would like him now to do a “Heseltine” and make a personal commitment to Blackpool’s future or, even better, dispatch the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, to Blackpool with an “action this day” brief to get things moving. When Alderman Bickerstaff visited the Paris Great Exhibition in 1890 and saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time, he said “We’ll have one of them”, and we did. When the opportunity came to levy a cultural rate in the 1920s, Blackpool used the money to fund the illuminations, which are still going strong and delighting millions every year. That spirit is still there. Not for nothing is the town’s motto “Progress”.

Because I have retained my Blackpool accent I am often asked where I come from. When I say Blackpool, there is inevitably an outpouring of fond memories of days of fresh air and fun, particularly the fun. That positive name recognition and good will is still there but Blackpool needs a little help from its friends. The building blocks of recovery are all there. A good deal of groundwork has been done. There now is a need for a positive approach from government which will turn opportunities into realities. I look forward to my noble friend’s response.