Summer Adjournment

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Let me first pay tribute to the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) and commend him on his maiden speech. It was good to hear from a Member who, like me, was born in the constituency that he represents. Given his description of his constituency’s stunning natural beauty, it clearly has similarities with Cleethorpes.

I will be as brief as possible, Mr Deputy Speaker. The economy of northern Lincolnshire could be described as “stuttering” at the moment. It has taken many knocks, but it has the potential of a new dawn from the renewables sector. Despite its name, Cleethorpes is a highly industrialised constituency, containing Immingham docks and much of the Humber bank. Associated British Ports operates the Grimsby-Immingham docks complex, which is the largest in the country. However, expansion and regeneration are being held back by transport infrastructure that is in urgent need of improvement.

The northernmost town in my constituency is Barton-upon-Humber, which is just 20 minutes’ drive from the centre of Hull, but Humber bridge tolls are a tax on jobs. The free movement of labour is restricted. It is totally unrealistic to expect someone in Barton to accept a job in Hull paying the minimum wage, and even more unrealistic to expect people to take part-time work.

The hopes of all local people are resting on the current Treasury-led review, which is due to report in November. The business community and local people are encouraged by the work of the review team, and by Ministers’ determination to deliver a sustainable solution that may well be based on a social enterprise model. It is essential to have lower tolls in the relatively near future; we do not want promises that may never materialise.

In the East Halton and Killingholme area of my constituency sits the site of the proposed south Humber gateway development—in which Able UK Ltd has invested £100 million—alongside the largest undeveloped deep-water channel in the UK. It is thought that £1.5 billion of private sector development may follow, much of it in the renewable sector. That would offer an opportunity to develop a cluster for the sector, involving the construction of wind turbines. The ports of Immingham and Grimsby are ideally located for the service and supply of offshore wind farms—and offshore is where we want them to be, rather than in the countryside.

A major problem with the gateway development is the bottleneck in the planning process. It has been caused by a number of Government agencies, notably Natural England. Such agencies, including the Environment Agency, must appreciate that planning issues are commercial issues, and that they must move at the same speed as the demands of investors and developers. The current leisurely pace is not acceptable.

Northern Lincolnshire has taken a bit of a body blow in recent times, with the announcement of 1,200 job losses. Many of those jobs were done by my constituents at the Tata Steel works in Scunthorpe. It is encouraging that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills will be visiting the steelworks tomorrow. It is also encouraging that the Prime Minister has taken an interest, and we eagerly await a meeting with him. I hope, however, that Ministers will be able to give us some confidence that not only the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, but the Government as a whole, will support the local infrastructure. The highways, particularly the A160 route to Immingham, urgently need an upgrade, and it is desperately important for that to be included in the first phase of the next building programme. I hope that the Minister will be able to assure me that he will press our case with transport Ministers at the earliest opportunity.

The area is building itself up for the renewables sector. There are great training prospects at the Grimsby institute, Lincoln university and other institutions—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman's time is up.