North-East Independent Economic Review

Lord Willetts Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

I will move on to my closing remarks. We need leadership from Ministers and real power—

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

I really must correct the record. What the hon. Lady said about apprenticeships is outrageous. We have spread apprenticeships across all age groups, including among older people. We are not devaluing apprenticeships; we are doing absolutely the opposite. We are saying that for an apprenticeship to be real, it has to involve genuine employment with an employer—that is what an apprenticeship means to most people—and we are insisting on that.

[Chi Onwurah]

The Minister should recognise that the changes made to the apprenticeship programme have not met with universal approval. Indeed, there is a report out today criticising the Government for changing the funding of apprenticeships for those over 24 years old.

We need leadership from Ministers and the devolution of real power, including over vital EU funding, which can help to boost our region and its people.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) and the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) on securing this lively debate. I have occasionally felt that I had found myself in a meeting of the north-east parliamentary caucus, which is clearly a very lively group. It just needs a little more political balance, but we are working on that. This has been a very interesting discussion of what I think is a very important report.

I will start with the important opening speech by the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East. I recognise that he has great expertise in this area. He criticised the Adonis report for focusing on structures, but many of his own comments were, in turn, about structures and organisations. He raised issues such as whether there should be regional Ministers. Let me make it clear that in the last few months, we have established the Local Growth Cabinet Committee, which is chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister and is directly involved in decisions on the powerful tools for regional development that we have put in place. Notable among those is the regional growth fund, from which the north-east has benefited substantially, and the city deals, which offer enormous opportunities for the cities that negotiate them.

I was rather disappointed by the approach that the right hon. Gentleman and several other Opposition Members took to the report. I hold no particular brief for this report. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) said, it was not commissioned by the Government. It was commissioned by the north-east for the north-east and produced by a former Labour Cabinet Minister. I think that it is a valuable report. We should congratulate the LEP on leading the way by producing such an important and substantial report that really tackles the economic challenges facing the north-east.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham on taking the right approach. He told the House that there will be a meeting in the north-east tomorrow, where 400 delegates will assess the ideas in the report. That will not be the final word, but I hope he will take to that meeting the message that the Government take the report very seriously indeed and consider it to be a high-quality piece of work. We will not get bogged down in endless arguments about process. We look forward to working with the LEP, local councils and local representatives in rising to the challenge, which has just been set by the hon. Member for Hartlepool, of improving further the growth and economic performance of the north-east. That is what this is all about.

There was a range of further contributions. I agreed with the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) that we should focus not just on the Russell Group, but look at the strength of all the universities in the north-east. As Minister for Universities I have, of course, visited all of them. They all have distinctive strengths, but they share a commitment to playing a constructive role in the local economy.

The hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) made some important points about the range of initiatives that are available to support economic growth. I have referred briefly to the regional growth fund. He mentioned the opportunities that are presented by enterprise zones and by securing funding from the European Union. He spoke about the commitment on access to superfast broadband, both urban and, very importantly, rural. He also mentioned the good news that comes from major investment decisions, such as that of Hitachi. A lot is going on, but there is always more that needs to be done.

We heard from the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) and then from the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who seemed to think that the review was a plot to ignore the views of Labour MPs—a plot so subtle that it involved putting a former Labour Cabinet Minister in charge of the exercise. He clearly has an obsession with Lord Adonis, which is rivalled only by his obsession with Wokingham. I do not think either obsession need detain us any longer, as time is so tight, but I think I represent the only party in the House with which Lord Adonis has not had a political connection at any point, so I can say that we should thank him for the important work that he has led. Of course, I can also repeat our commitment to another of his great visions, High Speed 2, which we know many key business organisations in the north-east welcome strongly.

The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland thought that the report was a plot commissioned by the Deputy Prime Minister. Again, we should treat it as what is—a report from the north-east, commissioned by the north-east, for the north-east.

I was fascinated to hear about onesies. It is great to know that they are one of the many contributions of north-east business to the national well-being

We heard quite a bit about transport, particularly from the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who made the touching plea that if only there were three-lane motorways, people could be charged with the new offence of driving slowly in the centre lane. We have a substantial programme of transport investment, including the £314 million scheme to upgrade 11 miles of the A1, which will begin in 2014, and the £60 million scheme to improve a further stretch of the A1 between Newcastle and the Gateshead western bypass, which is due to start by 2015. And yes, we will also be moving soon on the development of funding for schemes on the A19. There are also smaller-scale pinch point schemes—I have a note about them and will read it out, as Opposition Members will know more about them than I do—that are planned for completion by the end of 2014 on the A19 junction with the A1 at Seaton Burn and the A19 junction with the A1231 in Sunderland. There is investment in transport.

The hon. Members for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) and for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) also made contributions, but sadly I do not have time to comment on them.

We recognise that the report contains recommendations aimed at local government and businesses, but also those specifically aimed at the Government. We are absolutely up for rising to the challenge of those recommendations. Indeed, one of them is a north-east schools challenge, rather on the model of the London schools challenge, and we very much look forward to hearing full details of it. It is exactly the type of issue that I hope will be discussed at the major meeting tomorrow, because we would be interested to see the proposal worked up.

Skills funding, which Members of all parties talked about, is of course important. We absolutely understand the importance of skills, which is why we have doubled the number of apprenticeship starts since we came into office. As we make apprenticeships increasingly rigorous and expect high academic standards as well as high vocational standards, we are also creating traineeships to help to prepare people for apprenticeships. We are absolutely up for devolving decisions and power on the skills programmes of the greatest significance, and we will do so as part of our skills commitment.

We look forward to engaging with the imaginative proposals in the report, and I hope that message will go to tomorrow’s meeting.

[Mr Nicholas Brown]

It is a great pleasure to be able to tell the House that when I was a Minister of the Crown, I made ministerial announcements on points that Lord Adonis has now recommended, and the Minister has been able to make them as ministerial announcements again today. I say gently that some of these things are not new.

[Mr Willetts]

None the worse for that.

[Mr Brown]

Of course.

I thank the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) for joining me and my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) in securing this important debate on matters that concern our constituents. I draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that although the hon. Members for Redcar (Ian Swales) and for Hexham served their parties well in drawing on the positive things in the report, on which I think we all agree, if I had to pick one point that characterised the contributions of Opposition Members, it would be the fear that there will not be much delivery for our constituents on getting them back into work. If the Minister takes away my plea that he and his ministerial colleagues try to do something for the long-term unemployed, and young people in particular, in our constituencies, something will have come from the debate.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)).