Mark Prisk
Main Page: Mark Prisk (Conservative - Hertford and Stortford)Economic Regeneration (West Midlands)
Mark Prisk Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)
This is the first time that I have served under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke, and I am happy to be guided by you in ensuring that we maintain order.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal) on securing the debate. I had better get my geography right. I notice that north-west Wolverhampton is struggling here, but I am sure that the Wolverhampton Members have it all covered. This has been a really good debate, with an excellent and insightful contribution at the beginning by my hon. Friend who, like other right hon. and hon. Members, correctly pointed to the need for local collaboration, whether between Members—evidence of which we have seen today—or between different civic and business partners, looking at how the future of not just the Wolverhampton economy, but those economies that surround Wolverhampton, can flourish.
My private office will be appalled by yet another diary request, but the temptations of Dudley zoo are strong, so I shall have to see when a visit might be feasible. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) for his invitation, and I shall certainly be happy to receive a more formal one in due course.
Right hon. and hon. Members are absolutely right to start by looking back at the history of the area. I will not get into the local concerns about whether the spark was in Walsall, Dudley or Wolverhampton, because I do not think that my job is worth that. What is important is that—
Mr Prisk
No, I will not get into even that debate. What is important is that Wolverhampton and its surrounding areas—the black country—are a genuinely industrial heartland, and that context makes regeneration doubly difficult, as technology and industrial capabilities have moved on. I think that the point that the hon. Member for Dudley North made was that in more recent years, as technologies and capabilities have changed, it is difficult to regenerate an area that has a long history in contaminated land, or whatever. The renewal task, therefore, can be challenging, and highlights the importance of clear national economic policies and good local leadership. I shall come on to a number of the wide-ranging issues that have been raised today.
The Government and I feel that we need fiscal stability and clear policies to best promote future growth and jobs, which does mean supporting infrastructure, ensuring that we invest in things such as manufacturing, and setting free enterprise and that can-do spirit, to which my hon. Friend referred. That is why we have set out our £200 billion 10-year national infrastructure plan, with £14 billion going into rail and £10 billion into roads, and why we want to press ahead with High Speed 2 so that London and the midlands are conjoined more effectively and dynamically. It is why we are supporting small businesses by reducing the corporation tax rate from 21p to 20p, reversing the previously planned increase in the employers’ national insurance contributions, and increasing the limit for the 10% entrepreneurial relief rate on capital gains from £2 million to £5 million. It is important to send out a signal that taking the step of building a business will be rewarded by gains created, wealth generated and, of course, additional jobs.
That is why we seek to support sectors of the economy that have been largely ignored in recent years by what I call the commentariat. Advanced manufacturing is a strong example. Although we might have different road maps for getting there, I think that all Members share a belief that the role, importance and current capabilities of manufacturing in this country have too often been ignored, particularly by the media.
That is why we are cutting the main rate of corporation tax from 28p to 24p by 2014. To address an issue raised by various Members about skills and training, it is also why we are seeking to boost apprenticeships funding by up to £250 million by the end of this spending review, which will create up to 75,000 more places a year. To return to how apprenticeships are progressed, we are seeking to ensure that we consider higher qualification levels and strengthen the element of learning alongside experienced hands. Although the classroom has a role, my instinct is that, especially in engineering, the crucial gain for apprentices is working alongside someone whose skills they are trying to learn. That practical change will be important.
Paul Uppal
I am heartened to hear that. One thing that I hear increasingly in feedback from businesses and constituents is that sometimes apprentices come along who need to develop soft skills such as communication and social skills. The academic boxes might all be ticked and everything on the CV might look fine and dandy, but they need that final level of nuance in developing business contacts and sealing the deal. Sometimes the softer, fuzzier peripheral skills need developing as well.
Mr McFadden
I thank the Minister for giving way. I wanted to intervene before he moved on from apprenticeships, but I did not want to cut short his answer to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal).
When I was in the Minister’s shoes and had some responsibility for these issues, we put more funds into what we called higher-level or technician-level apprenticeships, precisely in order to address the skills gaps that have been referred to. Will he acknowledge that a significant proportion of the funds that the Government are putting into apprenticeships is coming from the Train to Gain scheme? Therefore—this is a factual question; I do not want to enter into a debate about the whys and wherefores of Train to Gain—will he acknowledge that, given the cost of one apprenticeship, for which we trained three or four people under the Train to Gain scheme, if we fast-forward two years or so, the Government will actually be funding fewer learners at work than they are today?
Mr Prisk
The difficulty is that we are not comparing apples with apples. What is gained under Train to Gain is different from what is secured by apprenticeships. That is why we have sought to increase the number of apprenticeships over that period. I do not think that one can say that it is just about head count; it is also about quality, not least because engineering employers say to me that they need the right people with the right range of skills.
Mr McFadden
We could have a debate about the benefits, but my question concerns the number of people at work being helped by Government support. The Minister must know the answer. Will he acknowledge that in two years, there will be fewer learners at work funded by Government as a result of the decision to switch Government money from the Train to Gain budget, as he outlined?
Mr Prisk
The point that I am trying to make is that we are talking to businesses and asking them what they need. I am not the Minister with responsibility for skills, so before he tells me that I have said something incorrect, I will check with him and write back to hon. Members here. I am wary of making a statement that might prove incorrect. However, the right hon. Gentleman has made a sensible point. I will double-check before giving an incorrect answer.
University technology colleges are important because students will be able to start at age 14. One of the first UTCs will open at Bloxwich in the black country this September. It is an important element.
Ian Austin
I am excited by the idea of university technology colleges. I have written to the leader of Dudley council asking whether she is prepared to consider having one. I do not see why Walsall should have one and not Dudley. Perhaps when the Minister comes to Dudley he can meet the council leader and extol the policy’s virtues to her.
I do not want to get into a debate about the rights and wrongs of abolishing the education maintenance allowance, but if student numbers in a place such as Dudley, where education skills must be our No. 1 priority, decline as a result of its abolition—although I know that the Minister hopes that they will not—will the Government think again and restore the funding that enables students to undertake studies? I am not trying to catch him out. It is a serious question.
Mr Prisk
I realise that. Our view is that by putting a strong emphasis on vocational education rather than on higher education alone, as has been the habit in recent years, we will help those numbers to grow. When the previous Government went from no tuition fees to £3,000, I suspect that we all thought that the number of participants would drop, but it rose. We must be careful when speculating, but I take the point.
A number of other issues were raised. I am aware that I have only four minutes left, so I will canter through them briefly. On the Moog deal, I say to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) and other Members that I was aware of it at the start and am pleased that regional, local and national officials were able to sort it out, because it was a concern early on. I agree with her on that point. On the broader issue of aerospace, we are strengthening our national focus on it, as we have tremendous national assets. However, we also recognise that local enterprise partnerships are best placed to lead. I know that several of them with a strong aerospace dimension are considering how they want to collaborate to work with us nationally. Getting the fusion right is important.
On the role of the local enterprise partnership, I was pleased that Wolverhampton became part of the black country LEP. Along with Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall and under the new chairmanship and board, it has drawn together strong civic and business leaders. The right hon. Gentleman was right to say that the board now looks outward, and it hopes to play on its Indian connections globally.
My hon. Friend mentioned business rates. We want to help, which is why we are simplifying how small business tax relief operates, so that it is automated and need not be bid for. We are considering greater discretion for local councils to ensure that they can use the business rate system in a way that helps locally.
Other questions were asked about assets. We have received a full register of assets from the regional development agencies. We are mindful of the balance that we need to strike between local economic regeneration and public value for money, and we will set out shortly exactly how the process will operate. The hon. Lady and others made several pitches. That is understandable, but as there are 450 applications, I will remain mute on the subject, for the obvious reason that we want to ensure that the process is open and fair.
We are investing an additional £50 million in the Manufacturing Advisory Service over the next three years. We want the service to be consistent. It has always been highly regarded, but it is of course an outreach service. I say to the hon. Lady that no decisions have yet been taken about where the headquarters might be. My concern is to ensure that the small and medium-sized businesses get a good, consistent service and, importantly, an outreach service that comes to them.
I was asked how foreign direct investment will work. Our view is that UK Trade and Investment abroad should be the voice and face of the UK when we seek inward investment, but that there should be a strong national network within England that handles inquiries. That should and will include the west midlands and the area represented by the hon. Lady.
A number of other questions relating to planning were asked, and I am sorry that I did not come to them. However, the long-term—