Economic Development (North-East)

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Pat Glass

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, because it demonstrates how this Government simply do not understand the needs of regions such as ours and the needs of young people in regions such as ours. Some 67% of the young people who attend my local further education college rely on EMA and they are telling me that they do not know how they will be able to continue their courses.

The previous Government recognised that money had to be put into developing the green economy. Some good examples of that include: the £20 million invested in a printable electronics technology centre in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson); the £12 million invested in biotechnology at Wilton on Teesside; and Clipper’s development in Newcastle. I name but a few, and investment also came from the private sector, mostly through Nissan. So our Government were doing their bit and they were also putting money into universities to enable them to undertake further research. Narec, a centre of excellence, and the Durham Energy Institute also do really important work on coal gasification in our region.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend was talking about green jobs and industry. Does she agree that when we lost One North East, we also lost £1 million of funding that was going into the eco-village in Weardale, in my constituency? That would have created many green jobs in an area where jobs are scarce.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We know that County Durham’s economy has suffered through the recession and we see few plans coming from this Government to correct the situation.

It is possible to argue that our region is well placed to become a centre of green energy production and green manufacturing, but for that to happen we need to continue to develop our skills base and there are worrying signs that that is faltering. I wrote to the Business Secretary asking what was going to happen to regional skills strategies, because they have been crucial for the north-east in developing the areas where we needed to reskill the population. The letter I received from the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning said:

“The Government no longer…expects Regional Skills Partnerships to produce skills strategies”

or even to meet. He said that instead the work should be undertaken by local enterprise partnerships, which represent the correct “geographies”. A number of us would query whether LEPs are the right level for discussing the skills needs of the region and for being able to identify opportunities for upskilling the population. This is extremely worrying, because we need to continue to invest in basic scientific research skills and in how to apply them to manufacturing.

Domestic Heating Oil

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Pat Glass

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

I certainly do.

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

The whole House will be concerned by the points that my hon. Friend is making, not only about prices and the way in which these companies operate, but about the fact that they seem not to have been considered at all by the Competition Commission? Does she intend to refer the matter to the commission?

[Pat Glass]

I want to hear what the Minister has to say. Then I will make a decision on that.

In its recent investigation, The Sunday Times found that, on any given day, those price comparison sites quoted exactly the same price, right down to two decimal points. DCC and the other companies that control large parts of the market deny that they are exploiting their market share unfairly to raise prices, or that a cartel is operating to fix prices, but I suggest that the Minister look at the evidence. If he does, he will be able to draw his own conclusions, as I did.

As a new Member, I have been really pleased that we can come to the House and raise issues such as these, when we see a clear injustice in the market, and that they are taken up by the press. These debates are a really powerful tool. Once I and other hon. Members started to raise this issue and the press picked up on it, I was contacted by many people from all across the country. Their interest is echoed by the interest shown here tonight. People were contacting me from places as far apart as south Kent and Northern Ireland. This is not just about my constituency; it is about all our constituencies.

I am grateful that the Government have finally agreed that there is a problem with this market. They have reluctantly and, I have to say, tardily referred these matters to the Office of Fair Trading. There are several questions that I would like the Minister to answer today. When I and others contacted the Department in early December to ask what it intended to do about this, why were we told that the Department did not believe there was a problem and that it did not intend to do anything about it? Why did it take a crisis and investigation by the press before the Minister was prepared to refer this to the Office of Fair Trading? Will he ensure that I and other hon. Members who have raised these issues are able to feed into the OFT investigation? When does he intend to regulate this market either by extending the role of Ofgem or by creating a regulator for the domestic oil and gas industry? Finally, what messages can I give to the many people who have contacted me and other MPs about the actions that the Government intend to take now and in the future to ensure that they are exploited no further?