Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle Upon Tyne, North Tyneside, Northumberland, South Tyneside and Sunderland Combined Authority Order 2014

Lord Walton of Detchant Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, believe that what we are considering today is a very significant and welcome development, and echo the comments that were made on this by both previous speakers.

This combined authority brings together authorities of a distinctive part of the country, which have a common heritage. In many ways it is the core of the north-east and, if we go back even further, of the kingdom of Northumbria, although that covered a much wider area. It has a very strong industrial vocation, which it has had since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and still has a manufacturing and industrial vocation today, as well as many of the related skills of those sectors. Certainly the area covered has an economic coherence, which is important when we are talking about a combined authority, one of the main objectives of which is to be the promotion of economic development.

This move can also be very significant as regards transport, which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Adonis. To pick up on a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, it is good that in the combined authority we are bringing together urban and rural areas, particularly on transport issues. The authority will be able to make a success of bringing closer to the Tyne and Wear conurbation, through transport infrastructure, what we think of as the outlying areas of the old Durham and Northumberland coalfields, which are perhaps not classically rural, but which have become semi-rural today. There is a real need for people there to be able to access easily and successfully the conurbation itself.

The authority is an excellent basis for co-operation with the economic forces within the area. Certainly the authorities concerned are used to working with both industry and representatives of employees’ trade unions. It was the area where the regional development agency was the most successful and where good relationships, despite the change, have already been established with the LEP to try to promote the economic development of the area as positively as possible.

I very much echo what my noble friend Lord Adonis said about the excellence of universities in the area concerned. Again, they have a tradition of working together and of working with the wider community, in particular as regards research and development, looking for advantages for the local and regional economy as well as the wider economy.

I, too, echo what was said about the welcome investment we have seen, particularly the recent announcement about Hitachi. My only slight reservation here is that while I am delighted that Japanese investors have seen the potential of the north-east, I still urge British investors to look closely at the region, perhaps more than they have done. There is still a bit of a psychological north-south gap in that respect. It always seems to me that British investors do not fully appreciate what a great place the north-east is in which to live and work, and the fact that it has a positive trade balance and great economic assets and potential which need to be exploited.

I am glad that the council with which I have been most associated in my career, Gateshead Council, is a key part of this organisation. I always like to pay tribute to it at every possible opportunity; I happen to think that it is the best council in Britain. It has a proud record as a public entrepreneur, working with private industry and being very outward-looking in order to promote the regeneration of the region. I believe that the combined authority, too, will be able to work alongside the private sector and make a very successful public/private partnership. Very often, we see these two things as opposites, but I know from my experience that it makes huge sense for these sectors to work closely together for the future benefit of the region.

I conclude by again wishing this project every success. I hope that it will co-operate with neighbouring areas, both to the south on Teesside and to the north in Scotland—where I hope it will be able to continue to do so following a successful no vote in the Scottish referendum later this year. I am sure that, given the outward-looking nature of this enterprise and of the councils and the people involved in it, it will have every success. I think that this debate today, with the warmth of the tributes that have already been paid to the project, is strong evidence that that will be the case.

[Lord Walton of Detchant (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly because I have to confess that local government is not a matter which usually brings my interest to the attention of your Lordships. However, the order gives me the opportunity to make one or two personal remarks. I was born in a little place called Rowlands Gill, the son of a schoolteacher and the grandson of a miner. I went then to a little school at the Hobson colliery near Burnopfield in Durham county and later to a grammar school in Spennymoor, County Durham, before moving to the medical school in Newcastle, which was then part of Durham University.

I feel a great loyalty to the north-east of England, which has meant a great deal to me throughout my life. I now live in north Northumberland, but I spent much of my professional life in Newcastle. I am greatly honoured by the fact that, in 1980, 34 years ago when I was dean of the medical school in Newcastle, I was one of eight people honoured to become an honorary freeman of the City of Newcastle. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, played a part in that particular decision. Five of the eight honorary freemen were former lord mayors; the other four were Colonel George Brown of Newcastle Breweries, Cardinal Hume—whose father, Sir William Hume, was professor of medicine at Newcastle and taught me briefly as a medical student in wartime—and then Jackie Milburn and me. I shall never forget that, in his speech of acceptance on behalf of all the honorary freemen, Cardinal Hume said that it was the greatest day of his life—because it was the first time that he had an opportunity of meeting Jackie Milburn. That was his remark, which I have always remembered since that time.

I come to the reason why I am so enthusiastic about this new organisation. Its name is not exactly characterised by brevity, but it seems to me nevertheless to be the proper name for it because some of us look back upon the ill fated Tyne and Wear authority of many years ago. What that authority did was to impose an additional layer of bureaucracy on local government throughout the north-east. Within a few years, seeing that everybody had to recognise that almost every decision had to be stamped by the Tyne and Wear authority and discussed by it, even if it should have been made at local council level, that authority had to be dissolved. This is why I am glad that the new authority will not be called the Tyne and Wear authority, which I think would bring back to many people unhappy memories.

It is good to know, according to the information we have been given, that this new combined authority will use a light touch in its relationship with the local authorities. As such, it will continue nevertheless to have an extremely powerful voice. I am very glad that it is going to exercise its authority in collaboration with the local enterprise partnership. This means that it will probably bring back and be able to implement many of the policies which were, I think, effectively carried out by One North East. This should be greatly welcomed. It is good to know that the combined authority will have an overview and scrutiny committee made up of members across the parties, thereby increasing transparency and accountability. As a proud Northumbrian, I welcome the establishment of this new authority.