New Towns

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I give my huge congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan), who initiated this debate. She is a real champion for Telford and has done much to help to improve her town since she was elected.

As has been said, Harlow is 70 this year. Our town was built as a place of aspiration, opportunity and achievement for people, mainly from east London, who lived in poor accommodation. They moved to Harlow for the chance to make their lives better. We are now a sculpture town. Harlow is the birthplace of fibre optic communications. Hon. Members may be pleased to learn we even invented the formula for Bailey’s Irish Cream in Harlow.

We have a bright future ahead of us: £400 million is being invested by the Government in Public Health England. We have an enterprise zone. We have one of the best colleges in England, which has led the way in apprenticeships and in helping to deal with the problems of youth unemployment.

I think this is common among new towns, but certainly in Harlow: although we have lower levels of economic capital, we are not as prosperous as we would like to be, and there is significant deprivation, we have incredibly high levels of social capital and community spirit. We have organisations of people looking after one another, including faith groups; charities; neighbourhood associations; residents’ groups; housing groups; and many clubs and societies. There is an extraordinary level of social capital that brings people together and makes our town more prosperous.

However, we face three challenges, and my hon. Friend the Member for Telford touched on one of them. The first is reputation. She rightly said that there is a stereotype of new towns. Whenever we have a tragedy or something terrible happens, stereotypical journalism paints Harlow and new towns in a certain way. Journalists go to the worst part of the town and say, “This is what it’s like: a place full of anti-social behaviour.” They do not go to see the art, the sculptures, or the beautiful new housing estates and the regeneration that is going on. It is incredibly frustrating because it is very damaging. Such reports are damaging because they stop aspirational people coming into new towns. Much of it, of course, involves a huge amount of snobbery.

The second problem, which has been touched on by all hon. Members who have spoken thus far, relates to infrastructure. We were built all at once and we are breaking all at the same time. A lot of money is being invested in our roads, but we do not have enough housing. We are lucky to have huge amounts of green space. Harlow is a beautiful green town, but we do not have enough housing. I am glad new council houses have been built, partly thanks to the new homes bonus from the Government, but housing remains a significant problem. It comes up again and again in my constituency. People are not able to get a house or they live in overcrowded accommodation.

Although we have a lot of investment in infrastructure and roads, there are problems. When the town was built it was imagined that everyone would have one small car with one small garage, so we do not have enough spaces for parking. People now have two cars and there is simply no room to park them, so people park on the grass verges. I hope the Government will use some of the £23 billion infrastructure fund to help new towns. The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) said there should be a new towns fund, and he is right. If we have a northern powerhouse, we should have a new towns powerhouse.

Many good things are happening in Harlow. We are becoming a scientific, technological and vocational education powerhouse of the east of England. We are becoming a cultural powerhouse, too, with our sculptures and our beautiful Gibberd Gallery, but there has to be a focus on the problems that all the new towns have in common. The regeneration issue is important. Although part of our town centre is beautiful—the water gardens particularly—the other part badly needs regeneration and new builds. However, the money cannot come unless we have more housing. By the time we get more housing, it will have been a long time coming. The Government must look at where town centres badly need funding and support.

Our hospital was built a while ago and we desperately need a new one. The Health Secretary has visited Princess Alexandra Hospital three times. Its brilliant staff provide a wonderful service, even though we have had difficulties. The hospital is literally not fit for purpose—sewage gets into the operating theatres—so I urge the Minister to lobby the Health Secretary for a new hospital. He has said that if capital funding is available, Harlow will be considered as a top priority for a new hospital.

I will conclude because I know other Members wish to speak. As I have said, Harlow is very much an apprenticeship and vocational town. The Government’s investment in skills and apprenticeships is important. Anglia Ruskin University is introducing degree apprenticeships for our residents. Our schools are greatly improving, but we need to do more to make sure our children are educated even better and to ensure schools improve across the board.

I said that Harlow is a place of aspiration, opportunity and achievement. If we get continued investment from the Government, if there is a focus on new towns, and if we can use part of that £23 billion infrastructure fund to focus on the desperate needs that new towns have and to deal with the deprivation and infrastructure problems that we have, not only can we celebrate our 70th birthday, but we will easily be fit for another 70 years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) on securing the debate, and I wish her town and the respective constituency towns of the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) a happy birthday. I also welcome the Minister to his new post in what I believe is his first outing. Is he the Minister for pubs? For the northern powerhouse? For devolution? Yes? All of the above, but not for parks, apparently, which I think his predecessor was. I think he should fight for that, given the comments today on green spaces in new towns.

Nobody listening to the debate can have failed to hear the passion and pride that all hon. Members have in their new towns—or cities, as in the case of Milton Keynes. The hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) certainly demonstrated a “Whole Lotta Love” for her town—as well as for Led Zeppelin—while recognising the challenges faced by new towns.

As the anniversaries show, many new towns no longer consider themselves new and, as hon. Members have outlined, there is now a need to look to renewal and investment. I am afraid that some of the issues raised today have only been exacerbated since 2010. As the hon. Members for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) and for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) said, many town centres across the UK have been starved of investment and are in desperate need of regeneration. The Government will surely have to look at the complications mentioned of dealing with multiple private companies in town centres when trying to address this. I have been looking closely at regeneration with my local authority and Departments to try to improve the situation in my constituency of Great Grimsby, so I am well aware of the difficulties and challenges that people face.

The Government, of course, commissioned Mary Portas to write a review of the future of high streets in 2011, but she slammed them just three years later for making only “token gestures” in response. Many of the things we have heard today reflect a frustration that, on the one hand, the Government say they want to support towns, new towns and house building, but on the other, as two hon. Members mentioned, there is a loss of Government jobs in these towns. Those jobs are critical for not only the local economy but individuals. The loss of HMRC jobs—really good, secure jobs—is having an impact in my constituency as well.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) and the hon. Members for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and for Redditch mentioned transport infrastructure. There was quite a strong emphasis on rail, but I was pleased also to hear a reference to buses. There is a significant issue around bus transportation, particularly for those on lower incomes. Buses are essential, but unfortunately since 2010 funding for buses across England and Wales has been cut by a third, with thousands of routes cut or downgraded as a result. Ensuring that there are good bus routes is essential for people’s ability to move around their local areas.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the hon. Lady for her kind birthday wishes to Harlow on its 70th anniversary. She mentioned Government jobs, but would it be fair to say that that does not reflect the whole picture? I mentioned that the Government invested £400 million to bring Public Health England to Harlow, to make us, except for Atlanta in the United States, the public health science capital of the world. That will bring thousands of jobs, including skilled scientific jobs, to our town.

[Melanie Onn]

I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency is benefiting from that investment. I am sure that lots of Members around the room will be hoping for something similar or the same; I certainly would not be disappointed if the Minister came to me and offered something similar.

Broadband, which I thought might come up, has not been touched on today. In 2015 we were promised ultrafast broadband to nearly all homes in the country. Maybe someone will leap from their seat and say, “It’s all absolutely fine; we’ve got ultrafast broadband,” but I know that across the board, only a handful of constituencies have more than 1% of connections receiving ultrafast broadband speeds. To make all our towns across the country successful, the Government must take that seriously and press forward on it.