Former Steelworks Site in Redcar

Debate between Simon Clarke and Anna Turley

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Anna Turley]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but that just demonstrates the urgency of the need to sort the site out and get it ready. We just cannot compete with other sites if we still do not own the site and it needs huge investment to get it ready. That is why this debate is so urgent.

Brilliant companies are investing in our area. I have mentioned Sirius’s $4.2 billion project. At full production, that will have the ability to increase the size of the Tees valley economy by 18%, and some 800 people are already working on the site. However, to reach its full potential, that project, like others I have mentioned, will require a Treasury guarantee to match commercially raised funds.

I sincerely hope that the Government back up our local ambitions with the finance necessary to support that project and others, and that they avoid their natural inclination to be risk averse when it comes to backing such major projects. I urge them to believe in us in the Tees valley and in the companies that want to invest in great projects there. I am raising a warning flag. The Government must pull their weight and put the required money behind those bids, or we will continue to lose out to devolved or other nations.

The biggest barrier to realising our ambitions is the ownership of the charge on the former SSI land, which remains with the Thai banks. That is holding back progress. Negotiations with those banks are ongoing following the signature of a memorandum of understanding between the banks and the development corporation in May. That was due to expire at the end of October, but I understand it has been extended until early next year, although no press release was issued to acknowledge that. The local team is working hard, supported by funding from the local councils, to conclude a deal for the SSI land and for land owned by others, such as Tata. It is hindered in those efforts by premature announcements of multi-million pound investments that are some way off. Such announcements put at risk the chance of securing an affordable, locally negotiated deal, and risk raising local expectations. Of course, we have compulsory purchase as a backstop should those efforts fail. That process has started—landowners know they will receive nothing for the land should a deal fail.

As a first step, we need the Government to do everything in their power to support ongoing negotiations and ensure that they result in a successful agreement at the earliest opportunity. If that involves providing funding to seal the deal, that option must be on the table. Failure to gain ownership of the land and assets is holding everything back, and Ministers need to go beyond ad hoc funding commitments to provide confidence that long-term support will be forthcoming.

That brings me to funding. Before the Budget, the development corporation had just £5 million to progress regeneration work, which is not enough to get the land ready. Given the complexity of the industrial assets involved and the huge amount of work that needs to be done to clean up the site, that will cost an awful lot of money—£5 million will not stretch far. Although the management funding of £118 million in last year’s Budget was welcome, it was just keep-safe money that the Government had a legal duty to provide to protect the public from industrial hazards. It was the absolute minimum required to keep the site safe and protect the lives of those who work there and of the local community. It was also aimed at reducing the Government’s management costs.

In this year’s Budget, three years on, the Government announced that the site is to become a special economic zone. It is not yet clear what that actually means. At this stage, the extra powers the area will be granted for being such a zone are limited to being able to retain 100% of business rates growth. There is little difference between such a zone and existing enterprise zones, of which we already have plenty around the Tees valley, and that power is already granted to local authorities. Business rates retention will increase to 75% in 2020-21 and to 100% for the pilot schemes that are already under way in 20 local authority areas.

I was concerned that that change would mean taking money that would otherwise have been received by Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, placing the cost on local people and public services. However, answers to written questions I tabled following the Budget reassure me that that will not be the case. All business rates growth over and above the current baseline will be retained locally and shared between the development corporation and the borough council according to a formula that is still to be agreed.

Although it makes sense that the private sector should help to fund the ongoing development of the site, I am concerned that progress will be extremely slow if that is the main source of funding for regeneration. That mechanism will begin to pay off only when new industries are established, and as we do not yet own the land, that is some time away. We would like reassurance from Ministers that that will not be the limit of central Government’s contribution to the clean-up of the site, not including their long-term legal responsibility to keep the site safe.

I recognise that the Budget also included £14 million to support short-term measures to help unlock two projects on the most shovel-ready land, which is currently owned by Tata. That is obviously welcome, but in the grand scheme of things it is a very limited measure when compared with the many millions that will be needed not only to prepare land but to provide crucial infrastructure.

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

It is really important that we clarify that that £14 million is instrumental to ensuring that those two sites are available for two metals projects that will create 1,500 jobs. Although in isolation those projects represent small parts of sites, they are viable and ready to roll, and they will create real jobs in a very short period of time.

[Anna Turley]

Absolutely. It is great to see those projects, but three years on we are still waiting for one job to be created. I cannot wait for those jobs to be developed. I welcome the £14 million in the Budget—that is positive—but we want more, and we want the pace to be quicker. That £14 million is not sufficient to undo the damage to the local economy, which lost 3,000 jobs, with the average salary declining by £10,000. The impact of that is not sustainable. We need jobs as quickly as possible. I welcome that start, but we must accelerate.

The £14 million also depends on a successful business case being presented to the Government and on businesses being prepared to invest. I have warned about lost projects for exactly that reason: there is no guarantee that interest will turn into real investment if there is not confidence in the site.

One of our biggest warnings when the steelworks closed was that the longer-term cost of managing and regenerating the site would far exceed the limited funding needed to mothball the blast furnace and keep the coke ovens alive. Given that the Government decided not to do that, despite their offering to step in to save Port Talbot a few months later, the onus remains on them to pick up the tab for the consequences. There can be no backing out. I wrote at the time to the Secretary of State:

“Any attempt by the Government to divest itself of this responsibility, without a proper jointly developed strategy, would be challenged.”

That is therefore what people would expect me to do should I begin to have concerns. I also remind everyone that, after his appointment as Government investment tsar for the Tees valley, Michael Heseltine said:

“The money to clean up the site will be what it costs. No-one knows what the condition of the site is and although there have been estimates, they are estimates based on guess work. So it is much better to make it clear, central government will pay the clean-up costs and underwrite them whatever the bill comes to.”

As we head to the comprehensive spending review in the spring, my constituents and I are looking to the Government to provide the guarantees we need that sufficient funding will be made available to help realise our ambitions. The site is and will remain a high-risk proposition for new investors until the Government confirm that they will provide the financial backing they promised in 2015. That would mean the STDC being able to purchase the land, start real investment in infrastructure, as set out in the masterplan, and ensure that new investors can invest with confidence. Without that, I fear the development corporation will follow the lead of INEOS and turn elsewhere. I really hope it does not come to that. That is why I was so determined to make the case for funding at the time of the Budget and why I secured this debate. We need a guarantee that when we have the land, the Government will stand fully behind us for the long haul.

I want to mention additional powers. Beyond central Government funding, there are other areas where the development corporation needs to be granted sufficient resources to maximise its potential. It needs to be able to offer financial incentives to potential investors so it is on the same level as other areas in the UK. Those may include enhanced capital allowances, which would help businesses on the site to invest in new technology and machinery—especially low-carbon, green infrastructure, on which we are keen to take a lead in the Tees valley. Powers to enhance the development corporation’s ability to raise cash for infrastructure, such as tax increment financing, would also be helpful. This would be a logical extension of the business rates retention scheme that has already been announced. I would like to know that Ministers are looking to expand the powers available through the special economic zone, which would offer further reassurance to investors as well.

Investing in infrastructure will also be an extremely important factor. Remediating the land, where necessary, is the first step. However, turning that land into a modern industrial site, with the roads, rail and services needed to function well and attract new investment, is crucial.

One especially important area is power, as affordable energy is vital if the site is to remain attractive to potential investors. As my Tees Valley colleagues and I have told the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the cap on the amount of electricity that can be supplied without paying supply levies on the private wire network operated by Sembcorp could be a deterrent to new industries.

Our local master plan sets out a vision for mixed energy sources focused on renewables, and includes the potential for either a gas or biomass-fuelled power plant. This will require significant investment, and in the medium term we have an established business here that is ready to invest its own resources in the development of a power plant, which could provide the affordable power needed for new industries looking at the site.

In conclusion, this issue is of overwhelming importance to my constituents. Barely a weekend goes by without people asking me what is happening on the site and when they will begin to see jobs. I know that locally everyone is working their socks off, and I pay tribute to all on the development corporation board, many of whom give up their time voluntarily.

However, I am afraid that I cannot bite my tongue as press releases lauding success continue to fly past when there is not yet a single new job on the site, and when we appear no nearer to a breakthrough on the ownership issue, or to seeing a firmer commitment from the Government on funding the overall clear-up. Although I understand the importance of commercial sensitivities and will always abide by them, it is important for the community and the country that there is some accountability about where we are and what is behind the delay.

I sincerely hope that this speech can prompt a constructive debate that is free from party politicking. No one here is talking Teesside down; we all want the best for the area, and we all know the brilliance and the potential of our constituents and our communities. This effort is a sincere and earnest one to do what I have pledged to do about something that is the responsibility of us all: to fight tooth and nail to secure the jobs and investment for this site and the wider Tees Valley, and to ensure the Government keep their promises and do right by the people we represent.

Leaving the EU: Customs

Debate between Simon Clarke and Anna Turley

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I agree, and I would draw another historical analogy: it is 60 years ago this year that Nye Bevan issued his famous warning to the Labour party not to send a British Foreign Secretary into the negotiating chamber naked, and that is precisely what this motion would do. It runs directly contrary to our national interest, and the whole country will see how profoundly misguided it is. There is no way of overstating this: every Member who votes for this motion—every one—will be damaging the principles of Cabinet government in the hope of inflicting partisan advantage. It is unforgivable. Coming a week after north-east Labour MPs called for a second referendum—or, as they now euphemistically call it, a people’s vote, as if a referendum were not exactly that—this shows the Opposition in the worst possible light.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given that documents the Government have produced show a devastating impact of at least 11% on the north-east economy, why does the hon. Gentleman continue to lash himself to the mast of this devastating Tory Brexit, which will harm his constituents and mine?

[Mr Clarke]

This is the same “Project Fear” prognosis that we heard in 2016, which has been comprehensively rubbished and which nearly 70% of the hon. Lady’s own constituents rejected—and she continues to lecture me about listening to my constituents and acting in their interests.

The Labour party is unreconciled to Brexit, unwilling to deliver it and unfit to run our country, but the Leader of the Opposition should be thanked for giving us another opportunity to point out the many reasons why Labour’s policy on the customs union and Brexit is so absurd. First, depending on who we ask and on which day, Labour has committed to staying in “a” or “the” customs union, but at the same time says it wants the UK to have a say over future trade deals and arrangements. The whole point is that if we are in the customs union but out of the EU, the UK will have no formal role or veto in trade negotiations, and the EU will have no incentive, let alone legal obligation, to negotiate deals that are in the UK’s interests.

Secondly, Labour’s U-turn towards stay in “a” or “the” customs union clearly breaks a manifesto commitment on which its Members all stood. That manifesto said:

“Labour will set out our priorities in an International Trade White Paper…on the future of Britain’s trade policy”.

We now discover that that White Paper would simply read: “Priority No. 1: give trade policy back to Brussels”.

Thirdly, the EU’s customs tariffs hit the poorest in this country the hardest. The highest EU tariffs are concentrated on food, clothing and footwear, which account for 37% of total tariff revenue, so the poorest British consumers are paying to prop up European industries.

Fourthly, the customs union not only hurts the poorest in our own country; it also supresses the economic growth of the developing world, because EU trade policy encourages cheap imports of raw materials from developing countries, such as coffee, but heavily taxes imports of processed versions of the same good. This means that poorer countries are stuck in a relationship of dependency, whereby there is no incentive to invest in processing technologies, which could lift them from their status as agrarian economies.

Finally, the House should be reminded that during negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, about which Opposition Members made so much fuss in 2015 and 2016, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) gave an impassioned speech to the House in which he concluded that, in negotiating TTIP, we were

“engaging in a race to the bottom”.—[Official Report, 15 January 2015; Vol. 590, c. 1108.]

As Leader of the Opposition, he is now proposing a policy that would completely abrogate the UK’s ability to veto such arrangements in the future, let alone influence their negotiation.

Police Funding

Debate between Simon Clarke and Anna Turley

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am extremely glad that we are having this debate this evening, because crime and antisocial behaviour is the number one issue raised with me on the doorstep, in my surgery and in my mailbox.

People in my community are deeply concerned about rising crime and antisocial behaviour. They tell me they are scared of leaving the house after dark and many say they feel besieged by the antisocial behaviour they see in their local areas. They are angry at the devastating damage being done, and I have received a huge number of petitions calling for more officers. Many people have attended public meetings to share their concerns. Local businesses on Redcar High Street and across our town centres in Eston, Normanby, Grangetown, South Bank, Ormesby, Dormanstown, and Marske have all told me they fear the threat of burglaries and damage to property, which is on the rise. As the Minister knows, these businesses already feel the pressure from huge job losses and stagnant wages in our area.

We have had a number of public meetings recently called by residents—not by politicians—who are desperate for action. I attended one recently in east Redcar. This is what people told me. One elderly lady said:

“We are too afraid to leave our homes after dark. We feel under siege in our own community.”

Another resident told me:

“When I am coming in on a night I feel very vulnerable.”

Another said:

“Whatever niceties are put in place in this town will be ruined in this lawless place.”

Another said:

“Bring back our police. At the moment it’s such a scary place to live.”

It gives me no pleasure to say that because Redcar is a fantastic place to live. I know that as a resident. It is full of wonderful people, but a small minority are causing problems. The police are desperate to tackle them, but they feel that they are working with at least one hand tied behind their back because their resources are stretched so thinly.

The crime statistics for our area are deeply worrying. Reported crime across the Cleveland police area has increased by 18.3% since 2010, when the Conservative Government came into office. For Redcar and Cleveland Borough, violent crime in particular is up by a massive 46.4% since March 2011. That is absolutely shocking.

[Mr Simon Clarke]

The hon. Lady and I share Redcar and Cleveland Borough between us. I fully accept that there is concern about crime, but there is also a question about how resource is allocated within the borough. Does she concede that Cleveland police have, I think, the fourth highest ratio of officers per head of population of any force in the country?

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. He has made the point about resources before. Given his concern about moving resources to east Cleveland, I ask him where exactly he would like to take those resources from. Whether they come from Redcar, Middlesbrough, Stockton or Hartlepool, we are all stretched for resources. He has made that point before, but resources are stretched extremely thin.

It is no coincidence that crime has gone up when there are fewer officers on our streets. The introduction of neighbourhood policing was a massive step forward in tackling crime and making people feel safe. The last Labour Government made it a priority to ensure that local neighbourhoods had their own dedicated teams, with a visible and accessible presence. Sadly, that important initiative is being slowly eroded. I do not for one moment fault the work of our police force, which has been fantastic. Our hard-working men and women are doing their utmost to protect our communities, but when there are fewer people to cover the same ground and deal with more crime, they are swimming against the tide, and the Government must take responsibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clarke]

Like everyone, I welcome signs of improvement in the force. I pay tribute to the work of outgoing Chief Constable Iain Spittal and I wish our new Chief Constable Mike Veale every success. However, the truth is that the consequences of these historical allegations continue to damage the force’s finances: the most recent pay-out was half a million to Mark Dias, again for bullying and discrimination. More than that, they damage public trust in the force. That ongoing legacy continues to damage the situation in Cleveland today.

In an earlier intervention, I promised that I would come back to the hon. Member for Redcar about the balance of how policing is deployed across Cleveland. There is an issue about how the force allocates resources across our area. The only manned police station in East Cleveland in my constituency is in Guisborough; it is manned by a slender force of a couple of officers and a few police community support officers.

There is real angst in those communities about the fact that the 1,300 officers of Cleveland police are so under-deployed in rural East Cleveland. I am the first to accept that the problems of crime can be less apparent in rural communities, but the truth is that there is a problem of under-reporting of crime in those communities. If there is one message that I want to get out this evening, it is that if my constituents see crime, they should report it to the authorities. I hear from too many people that they simply do not have faith that Cleveland police will follow it up. That is a real concern.

[Anna Turley]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he is content that Cleveland police has sufficient resources, and that this is just about deployment, despite the fact that we have lost more than 500 officers and £40 million?

[Mr Clarke]

I fully accept that there are real pressures on the police, but I also believe that the current deployment pattern could be improved upon. That would be a fair reflection of my position.

It is a mark of the concern that exists in East Cleveland that I attended a rally at the Railway Arms pub in Brotton just before Christmas. It was organised by the publican, Graham Cutler, who is a dedicated public servant, and by Barry Hunt, the local Independent councillor. Those are not people would regard themselves as natural figures to be calling out the police about the service they provide; they are law-abiding individuals who are on the side of the police and who want to see more officers in East Cleveland. My answer to them would be that I am going to raise the matter with our new chief constable, Mike Veale, to see what can be done, and perhaps look at trying to reopen the police station at Loftus, because as my colleagues will know, it is an awfully long way from Loftus to anywhere else in the patch. I hope we can find a way forward that will reflect the fact that, while these are difficult years for the police, there are real challenges for them in my more rural part of Cleveland.

I held a rural forum—the inaugural meeting of my rural club—at the Hunley Hall hotel in Brotton a few weeks ago. It was attended by a group of people who run rural businesses as well as by farmers. It was interesting to hear about the sorts of problems that they are facing. At a lower level, they include endemic theft, problems with cannabis farms hidden in their fields, and offences such as hare coursing, but there are also more serious threats. The farmers were saying that when they challenged people who were creating a nuisance on their land, they had been threatened with physical violence or with their crops and property being burned. I pay tribute to their resilience, but I think this needs to form part of the conversation we have within Cleveland police about how we allocate resource, because these are serious and sinister threats. I was quite shocked by the calm resolve that my constituents showed in the face of these, but they should not have to live with this.

Just yesterday, I presented my ten-minute rule Bill on the problem of drug needles, and I described some experiences in Loftus. I am calling for a change in the law so that we can criminalise those who recklessly or intentionally discarded needles in public places. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Redcar for sponsoring the Bill. This, too, is a matter that I would like to take up with Ministers in due course, because I believe that there is a gap in the law there.

As all of this comes together, my message is that Cleveland is a complex area to police. It is deprived and quite sparsely populated in parts, and, as I have said, historically it has a broken culture that we all want to fix. I believe that there are lessons we can learn to make the best of this challenging situation. I am not going to stand here today and say that all is well in the world of policing in Cleveland, because it is clearly not, but I believe that there are answers that will allow us to offer some comfort to my constituents that we are striking a better balance and achieving a healthier outcome for the communities that we serve.