Skerne River: Discover Brightwater Project

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Rebecca Pow)]

It is an honour to respond to an Adjournment debate under your auspices again, Dame Eleanor.

I thank the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) so much for bringing the debate to the Chamber. It struck me how much we learn about our nation and our colleagues through the things that are said in this Chamber. I was fascinated to hear all about the Skerne river. The hon. Gentleman took us on a great journey down a river that I knew little about before he started, but I now know a great deal about it—and about the hon. Gentleman’s life and roots. I am very pleased to be here talking about the subject today.

I have been to Sedgefield because my son is at Durham University and we stayed in Sedgefield only recently. If I had only known about the pub, I would have gone for a beer. I would say that most people know Sedgefield only for the racecourse, but now we will be talking about the river.

As Minister for arts, heritage and tourism, it is of real interest to me to talk about the Discover Brightwater project, which will restore an important area of the north-east and bring wealth and benefits to the surrounding communities. Although it is still at a relatively early stage, it highlights how important projects that build on tourism and heritage can be to the local economy.

Let me say a little about tourism, which is a huge industry for the nation. As Minister, I see it as one of my roles to make sure it becomes even more important, and I know I have support on the Government Benches in that respect. Tourism already contributes £68 billion directly to the UK economy each year. Inbound tourism has risen in the past three years, and in 2018 more than 37 million people visited the country and spent a phenomenal £22 billion. That is not to be overlooked.

Visitors are spread far and wide throughout the country and travel to all parts of our nation—all regions and areas—so tourism is a good way to spread wealth. Whether they go to England’s coast, to historic cities, to the highlands of Scotland, to the glens of Antrim or to castles in Wales, there is all sorts to attract them. Indeed, there are also our natural landscapes, whether it is the Somerset levels in my constituency of Taunton Deane, the Yorkshire dales or the North York moors national park just beyond the boundaries of the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.

Tourism creates jobs in every local authority in the country, and the money that visitors spend directly supports local economies and benefits communities. It also creates great opportunities for investment and growth. Indeed, in the north-east the benefits have already been felt, to a great extent: international visits have hit new heights in the past five years, and visitors have spent a great deal of money, with £300 million spent in 2018. That is not insignificant.

I am of course fully aware of the importance of the UK’s unique and far-reaching heritage offer and the key role it plays in attracting visitors up and down the country, helping to drive tourism. Visitors travel in their thousands to see outstanding heritage sites such as Fountains Abbey and Belsay Hall—both in the north-east—or Wells cathedral and Glastonbury tor, both down in Somerset. There is a plethora of wonderful sites to choose from.

Heritage makes a big contribution to the economy: the heritage sector alone brings in £29 billion of the £68 billion that tourism attracts, and it employs 450,000 people. Heritage tourists made more than 230 million visits in 2018. I am well aware of the part that heritage plays, and we heard from the hon. Gentleman lots of examples of how heritage is part of the Discover Brightwater project.

If one builds around heritage, pride rises in the community. I recently responded to a debate in Westminster Hall about Hull, which has been a city of culture. All the investment in the culture and heritage in that city has meant that pride in the city has risen, and three out of every four people in Hull are now very proud to live there. Apparently, that was not the case a few years ago. A lot of that is because of the work to build on the projects in which people have been engaged.

For all those reasons, I was very interested to hear about the Discover Brightwater project, to which the National Lottery Heritage Fund, with which my Department enjoys a close relationship, committed £2.64 million of spending in spring 2018. As we have heard, the project brings together a partnership of local bodies and charities, all working to restore and reveal the considerably rich industrial and agricultural heritage along the length of the river. I was really interested to hear about the collieries and that side of things, as well as the armaments factory and the archaeological digs.

I wish to touch on a couple of the treasures that are already in this patch. One is the Stockton and Darlington railway, which was the first public railway in the world to use steam locomotives. It was opened in 1825 and connected the collieries with the port of Stockton-on-Tees. It crossed the River Skerne at Darlington on the impressive Skerne bridge, which is the oldest continuously operated railway bridge in existence—I have definitely learned something there. It was indeed on a stamp, and because the bridge was on the stamp, so too was the river, so it is already quite famous.

Then there is that amazing beast, the Durham ox, which we have heard about—an early example of the shorthorn cattle breed that helped to establish breed standards in the dairy industry. This matter is close to my heart, as I was brought up on a dairy farm where my father bred Ayrshire cattle, which I used to show with him at the local shows. Such examples are a really important part of our history that went on to influence our agricultural industry. The Discover Brightwater programme will build on that project to help interpret and share those stories, and I think it will be very popular.

I was pleased to learn about the wider community involvement and traineeships that are part of this project, including 20 short heritage skills courses and lots of community-led research. All these things chime very well with the tourism sector deal that we launched recently. I will mention that a bit more in a minute.

As a great lover of the great outdoors, I was especially glad to hear that the project will open up access to green spaces. I was also pleased to hear about the community involvement. Of course, access to green open space provides rewards for our mental health and physical wellbeing. There is a lot of data to show that access to green space can really help in those areas. The project is near some quite deprived areas, which often do not have such good access to green space, so I see it as being really beneficial there.

In a world where sustainability and the environment are increasingly important, I was glad to hear about the wider environmental benefits of the project, particularly with regard to improving water quality. We heard how terribly polluted the river was before, and that the situation has really been turned around. I was very interested to hear about the former wetland and the work to alleviate flooding and strengthen the nature-rich habitats. All this work will be a draw to visitors, as I know from experience because I come from the Somerset levels area—one of the world’s most famous international wetland sites. The area is really popular for tourists because of all the nature and wildlife it attracts. We have already heard that the otters and trout have returned to the River Skerne, which is absolutely wonderful, especially when one thinks of how polluted it was before. There has been a real turnaround and I think it will be a big draw.

I gather that the project will also open up better access, as well as cycle routes, walkways and walking routes, all of which I am sure will be popular. For lots of those reasons, I commend the Discover Brightwater project and other similar examples around the country, because they build on strengths such as heritage, working with communities and developing our already attractive areas, and make a great deal more of them. Tourism is a growing industry, with the number of international visitors set to rise, and we need to be ready for them with a good offer once we attract them here. That offer has to be of the highest calibre, and that means not just the attractions, but the accommodation—places for the people to stay, just as I stayed in Sedgefield—as well as the provenance of the food and drink. All these things can be built into the project, together with working on the prized landscape. The River Skerne project offers all this potential.

The £40 million Discover England fund, which was launched in 2016, demonstrated that this Government are committed to investing in the country’s visitor offer, making it as easy as possible for travellers to discover the variety and range that England has to offer. I will give a couple of examples. The England’s Coast project allows visitors to build itineraries and experiences based on England’s glorious coastal offer. We have a fabulous coast and fabulous beaches. In the north-east, that includes the Durham heritage coast—I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows it well—and the historic seaside resorts of Redcar and Saltburn-by-the-Sea. The Discover England fund is not the only way the Government have invested in tourism in the north-east either. Earlier this year, the coastal communities fund awarded £1.3 million to the Durham heritage coast partnership to create a visitor and events hub at Crimdon beach.

Those projects, and indeed all those supported by the Discover England fund and other funds in the past three years, illustrate the Government’s commitment to tourism in regions all around the country. I particularly welcome the Chancellor’s announcement yesterday, which I was pleased to play a small part in, of another £5.5 million for the Discover England fund, which will enable it to carry on for the next year and, we hope, for a long time into the future. These projects demonstrate how well they work and what they can generate for the economy.

The Chancellor also announced an excellent deal yesterday for our arm’s length bodies, which include the Arts Council, which dispenses funds around the country for projects, and all our museums and galleries, all of which play a part in our visitor and heritage offer and attract many visitors. That was a really welcome announcement in the spending round yesterday.

The tourism sector deal, which was launched in June, is a clear demonstration of the Government’s commitment to the tourism industry and its potential for boosting productivity and ensuring that we are ready for the extra visitors we are expecting. It was the 10th sector deal that the Government have announced, and it includes a raft of measures that the whole industry came to agree were important to grow the industry. Those measures include a £250,000 conference centre broadband competition so that events and conference centres can bid for money to improve the connectivity of their conference centres. That is a big and growing sector with a lot of opportunity. I am not sure if there are any opportunities on the River Skerne for a conference or a centre, but you never know.

The sector deal also includes an ambition to build another 130,000 hotel rooms across the UK and to build in apprenticeships and mentoring schemes with business, all of which will help to strengthen this and make the whole industry increasingly professional. I was pleased, therefore, to hear from the hon. Member about the skills and the training in relation to the Skerne project. It will be very important to upskilling locals and keeping them in the area to earn their living.

To sum up, tourism is vital to the UK economy, and of course heritage is a big part of that, as well as all the things we have mentioned today, such as landscapes, access, places to stay—all the suggestions and ideas going into this project, not least the Durham Ox. I do not know if that is going to be a museum about the ox or a model being built of the ox, but I will be fascinated to find out what happens. I really hope that the hon. Member keeps the Department posted about how it is going. I wish him all the best of luck with it. Such projects always deserve a champion, and the House of Commons is just the right place to raise it, to get a bit of attention for the project and to entice more people up there. As the arts, heritage and tourism Minister, I would like to commend it and celebrate it. We need to celebrate and showcase these great things about our nation that will benefit the economy, bring local communities together, make them proud of where they live and make the rest of us proud of our glorious UK.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I apologise for the unusual nature of raising a point of order at this time of day, after the Adjournment debate, but I wonder whether you have had any notice of a possible statement at some point by the Home Secretary to explain why the Prime Minister is currently attending a clearly party political electioneering stunt in Wakefield with what appears to be upwards of 50 police officers surrounding him for the benefit of the media and the Prime Minister’s clearly political speech. This is clearly entirely inappropriate.

I am a member of the Home Affairs Committee and we have regularly raised concerns about the lack of police resources. Many of us are often pictured with police officers—I am sure you have been yourself, Madam Deputy Speaker—when they are doing hard work in our communities, as they should be. Serious questions need to be asked about the use of police time in this way and the potential politicisation of the police. I wonder whether you have had any notice of the Home Secretary coming to explain why on earth this is going on.