Business and the Economy

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this Queen’s Speech debate. I am particularly pleased that the Queen’s Speech produces a framework that will allow Government Members to give a narrative to the Government’s aims and objectives, from which we have been somewhat derailed in recent weeks. My experience campaigning in local elections in north-east Lincolnshire highlighted the fact that between the Budget and polling day, we had lost the debate about what the Government were trying to achieve with their economic policies. We lost the argument, for example, that we were taking millions of people out of income tax, because of the Opposition’s effective campaign on the 50p tax rate.

I not only campaigned in the Cleethorpes area of north-east Lincolnshire but went into the Scartho ward in Grimsby, which I represented until last year. It epitomised the need for a new narrative from Government Members. It was classed as the safest Conservative ward in Grimsby, although anyone who knows Grimsby will know that it was the only Conservative ward, so that it is perhaps not a great achievement. Over the 30 years when I lived in the ward, it was represented by all three major parties at some time or other, and in the mid-1990s I had an enforced rest from my council experience thanks to new Labour, as it was then, sweeping all before it. The seat that was up for election a couple of weeks ago went to the UK Independence party, and that is an important message to all our parties. There is strong anti-EU sentiment in the Grimsby and Cleethorpes area, mainly for historical reasons to do with fishing, but the message should go to all parties that there was something of an anti-political feeling.

Before I move to praising the Government—I assure Ministers that I intend to do so—I take this opportunity to say that static caravans are a big part of the Cleethorpes economy. Indeed, the Lincolnshire coast is the largest centre for static caravans in the UK. The consultation period on the imposition of VAT on static caravans concludes at the end of this week. I appeal to the Government to take careful note of the damaging impact that the measure could have on my area. Static caravans are used as second homes and holiday homes, and because they are occupied for nine or 10 months, they effectively extend the season and boost the local economy.

I was particularly pleased that the emphasis of the Queen’s Speech, right from line one, was on

“economic growth, justice and constitutional reform.”

As an aside on constitutional reform, I hope that we move ahead with an elected House of Lords as quickly as possible. I would prefer a 100% elected House, but let us at least get an elected element into the upper House as soon as possible. It is a scandal that the only way of getting into one of our Houses of Parliament is by an appointment that my constituents would regard as very lucrative.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I generally support the hon. Gentleman’s observations on House of Lords reform, but does he agree that one lesson of constitutional reform is that we should not allow the best to be the enemy of the good, and that we should not take an all-or-nothing attitude?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. May I remind Members that they are not supposed to face the back of the Chamber? They are supposed to address the Chamber, and particularly the Chair.

[Martin Vickers]

I take note of what my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) says and agree with much of it.

As I said, the Queen’s Speech provides an essential framework for the narrative that the Government must put forward. I spoke on Friday to the regeneration director of North East Lincolnshire council, who said that he was reasonably optimistic about the future. I think that is partly due to the fact that the Government have shown confidence in the area by creating enterprise zones, reducing tolls on the Humber bridge, which will bring £150 million into the area, and only last week giving the go-ahead to pre-construction work on the A160 into Immingham docks. That is vital if we are to develop the area for the green economy and the offshore energy industry. The director made the interesting point that the area is not looking for Government grants, but it does need some Government investment in vital infrastructure projects such as those.

I add a caveat about regional pay, which I know my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), spoke about in his contribution to the debate a few days ago. By coincidence, I was visiting the manager of a Jobcentre Plus on Friday morning at just the moment when my telephone rang, and it was a journalist wanting a comment about regional pay. I have reservations about it, and as the jobcentre manager pointed out to me, organisations in both the public and private sector have to pay premium salaries to attract specialists to the low-pay economy of northern Lincolnshire. I have had experience of that as a councillor.

I conclude by commending the report published today by the all-party group on small business. It highlights the desperate need to create enthusiasm for entrepreneurship among our young people. We go a long way towards that in the Gracious Speech, which I commend to the House.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the interesting speech of the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers). I am not sure whether he was saying that his constituency was better off under the Labour Government, but I think he should have done.

[Martin Vickers]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

I am sorry, I will not, because we are really short of time.

Despite a few reasonable measures, the overriding sense is that the Gracious Speech delivers priorities that are out of sync with those of my constituents and the rest of the country. It was more notable for what was left out than for what was included. The first line promised that the legislative programme would focus on

“economic growth, justice and constitutional reform”,

but in fact there was a complete lack of legislation to boost the economy in the north-east or anywhere else, or to address the concerns of people in my constituency and the region as a whole.

We need a plan for jobs and growth. The north-east has the highest unemployment rate in the country, with 11.6% of people of working age being without a job. Particularly worrying is the number of unemployed 16 to 24-year-olds. In County Durham, 8.6% of people in that age group are claiming benefits, and in my constituency long-term youth unemployment is up by a massive 129% on this time last year. Without strong Government action, we risk creating a generation of young people who will never experience stable employment and an economy that will take a worryingly long time to recover. It is no wonder then that business has slammed the content of the Queen’s Speech. This March, an Experian report showed that County Durham was in the top 20 areas for export potential and that businesses in the north-east, the north-west and Yorkshire and the Humber—the areas most likely to be hit by this new made-in-Downing-street recession—are doing the most to drive export growth.

Improving our infrastructure and links between the north and south is vital not only for the regions but for the British economy as a whole. Areas such as Durham are key to our international competitiveness and long-term economic success. It is therefore essential that I ask why so little Government attention has been paid to improving infrastructure in the north-east. The Government talk a lot about supporting manufacturing but where are the policies to back it up? The only thing that this coalition has manufactured is the double-dip recession. The recent welcome investment programmes in the north-east by Hitachi and Nissan were actually started under the previous Labour Government.

We saw last week that the regional growth fund is expected to deliver only 41,000 jobs—well below the 500,000 claimed by the Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg). What is more, those jobs cost an average of £33,000 each to create, compared with the £6,500 average under Labour’s future jobs fund. The shambles is partly due to the Government’s decision to do away with regional development agencies, which promoted and defended the interests of the regions, as One North East did so well. In particular, they should not have got rid of the RDAs without putting in place a viable alternative.

The loss of One North East has been keenly felt across the region. For instance, the announcement recently that more than 300 jobs will move to Ireland following the closure of the Kerry foods factory in my constituency is a disaster for many of my constituents, but it is only one of several closures of food processing factories in the north-east this year alone. There is no regional body to pick up this issue, to think about what can be done to improve the competitiveness of the food processing sector and, critically, to maintain and grow these jobs in the north-east, so we are seeing the loss of private sector jobs in addition to the huge loss of public sector jobs

There is no strategy either for innovation. One North East put universities at the heart of its plan for growing the north-east economy, and we needed that innovation, but it is now extremely difficult for universities to engage with economic development because of the fragmentation: we have two local enterprise partnerships, two enterprise zones, 12 local authorities, the regional growth fund, “BIS local” and further bids in several constituencies. As a result, there is no clear way for universities to engage. The Government would say that they created LEPs to take on that role, but in practice local government is bearing the brunt of the austerity measures, which means that it simply does not have the resources to create the much-needed jobs in my area and elsewhere.