EU Structural Funds: Least Developed Regions

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, in particular about investment in transport infrastructure. Without that, the wider area of my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) would have seen none of the road network in the Dearne valley that facilitated growth, with a whole series of new companies and the new jobs to go with them. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) is also right—he pre-empted my final question—to say that we need exactly that assurance from the Minister.

In South Yorkshire, the objective 1 funding worked: our economy grew by 8.5%. However, regional inequality has soared again since 2010. We are back in the same situation, qualifying as a least developed region and eligible for the highest level of EU funding had we been continuing as a member.

I know that the regional disparities concern both sides of the Chamber. Inner London is, unsurprisingly, our richest region, with GDP at 614% of the EU average—though I recognise that in London, too, there are pockets of deep poverty—but that figure falls to 69% for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. London is obviously represented overwhelmingly by colleagues from my party, but Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly by the Conservative party—this debate is about a fair deal for all our regions and about rebalancing our economy.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Given those regional imbalances and the question of how funding should be spent, is it not completely outrageous and unacceptable that we were promised a consultation on the shape of the shared prosperity fund, which should have started in late 2018, but have still not had one? My colleagues and I on the all-party parliamentary group for post-Brexit funding for nations, regions and local areas are sensing that there will not be a consultation before the comprehensive spending review. Does he share my view that that is completely unacceptable? Will he ask the Minister to confirm that he too thinks it is completely unacceptable?

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A feature of the wider debate on Brexit is that so many critical issues that will shape the outcome—structural funds, immigration and others—are just being kicked down the road. I hope that the Minister will respond directly to my hon. Friend’s point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing this debate, which builds on the excellent debate about the shared prosperity fund led by the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis).

All of us here would like to be evidence-based policy makers. There is inconclusive data about how successful the European funding programmes have been; the London School of Economics study and the excellent House of Commons studies all show that. It is important that we learn the lessons about how that money has been invested. From my own constituency, and Cornwall more widely, I can see that this money has been absolutely essential, but we need to draw the right conclusions from previous programmes so that the Government’s commitment to regional growth funding is done right and builds on the success we have seen.

[Stephen Kinnock]

How does the hon. Lady propose that the lessons be learned and things be improved if there is no consultation exercise?

[Sarah Newton]

I will come to that in a moment. At the last debate, the Minister invited us to put forward our suggestions. We do not need to wait for a formal consultation; my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) has demonstrated that. There have been consultation meetings with local enterprise partnerships and with the business community all over the country. It is up to us; we are leaders in our own communities. We should be making the most of these opportunities—today is one opportunity—so I will make some suggestions to the Minister, as he has invited suggestions about how we should go about allocating the funding.

First, we want to have designated funding for our regions. The EU funding that has been used so successfully is seldom the only source of funding. As other Members mentioned, it is often an opportunity to leverage additional funding. I want to get across the message that the huge investment in rail and buses in my constituency, where we have two universities, was enabled by European funding, but it was brought about by leveraging and working in partnership.

The way that the Treasury allocates funding and looks at gross added value often disadvantages areas with populations that are dispersed over large geographical areas. In the last five years, investment in cities and city regions has been successful, but those of us without cities—or even towns that meet the Government’s criteria of a population of 135,000—are disadvantaged. That geographical designation is really important for us to meet the opportunities of our local economy to grow, through the regional industrial strategies that feed into the national industrial strategies.