Economic Growth (Waveney)

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Friday 25th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I am very pleased to have secured this debate. Its timing is particularly appropriate, coming as it does just before the Chancellor’s autumn statement on Tuesday.

The Waveney constituency is in north-east Suffolk and its main town, Lowestoft, is the most easterly point in Britain. Lowestoft has a proud history, and much of its heritage is based on fishing. Some 40 years ago it could be viewed as the model of how the economy in a coastal town should operate, with a diverse and prosperous economic base underpinned by fishing and its allied industries, the Richards and Brooke shipyards, the emerging oil and gas sector, food processing factories such as Birds Eye and Beechams, the Eastern Coach Works, the Co-op canning factory, the Boulton and Paul timber yard and the Pye television factory, as well as a flourishing tourism sector.

Gradually, over the years, those businesses have gone, though Birds Eye remains. Some people feel forgotten and neglected by the Government, but new businesses are arriving, many in the emerging energy sector, and there is a real desire across the whole of the Waveney district for them to succeed and for the area to play a full role in the economic recovery, creating jobs and helping rebalance the economy away from its over-reliance on financial services and London and the south-east. In many respects, Waveney is now at a crossroads. We can take the low road of limited aspirations and just trundle along or we can take the high road and be ambitious and a key player in working with the Government to deliver the growth strategy, creating jobs and helping Britain emerge from the most savage economic downturn for a generation.

Over the past 18 months, the coalition Government have laid the foundations on which the Waveney economy can grow. The deficit reduction strategy means that interest rates remain low, and although there is no such place as a safe harbour in today’s global economy, the Chancellor has steered Britain out of the eye of the storm. We should not forget that, last May, Britain was viewed by many as in the same category as Greece, Italy and Spain.

The New Anglia local economic partnership, formed at the beginning of the year and covering Norfolk and Suffolk, can play a key role in creating jobs across the two counties. The LEP has hit the ground running and is approaching its job in a targeted, pinpointed and coherent way, focusing on three areas: food production and processing; tourism; and, most importantly for Waveney, the energy sector, building on the opportunities along the coast from the gas terminal at Bacton, the oil and gas sector, the nuclear industry at Sizewell and offshore renewables. Lowestoft is at the centre of the world’s largest market for offshore wind energy, and the UK’s most dense area for offshore development is between the Humber, the Wash and the Thames estuary.

The LEP and the four councils—Waveney district council, Great Yarmouth borough council and Suffolk and Norfolk county councils—are to be congratulated on their successful enterprise zone bid for Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth, which is aimed at the energy sector. That can also play a crucial role in creating jobs. Also welcome is the creation of the Green investment bank, which will play an important role in leveraging in the large amount of private sector investment needed to transform our energy sector.

The Government’s ambition to provide superfast broadband across the UK by 2015 is also good news, with the granting of funding from Broadband Delivery UK to Suffolk county council to reach the “not spots”, many of which are in Waveney, whether on the south Lowestoft industrial estate or in the rural area around Bungay and Beccles where the market will not deliver on its own.

The Government’s emphasis on apprenticeships and skills is important, as there is a need to provide people in Waveney with the skills that energy businesses and those in their supply chains are looking for. Much has been done in the past 18 months, but with the problems in the eurozone, now is not the time to be resting on our laurels. We need to redouble our efforts and work overtime to ensure we do everything possible to create economic growth in Waveney.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is making a very eloquent case for his constituents—there is no greater champion of Waveney than he. I share Waveney district council with him and our area is known for tourism, with Southwold. Will he pay tribute to the students and particularly to the teachers and supporting schools who help the North Suffolk skills centre in Halesworth, which does a lot to help people with vocational careers, especially in engineering?

[Peter Aldous]

I am very happy to do that. The North Suffolk skills centre, which serves the northern end of my hon. Friend’s constituency and much of mine, plays a vital role in giving people vocational training in engineering and other such skills.

As I was saying, the endgame is not the announcement of a policy—that is only the beginning. We need to be driving policies through and ensuring that they deliver what they are intended to achieve. There may be times when we need to take stock of a particular initiative and ask whether it is working and whether we need to be tackling the problem in a different way.

In the time remaining, I shall outline the areas in which I believe we need to redouble our efforts. As I have said, the Government are to be commended for their focus on skills and apprenticeships. In Waveney, that focus has already had positive results, with a provisional 810 apprenticeships having been delivered in the 2010-11 academic year—an increase of 48% on 2009-10. However, more needs to be done not only to provide businesses with the support they need but to work with business, Lowestoft college and the high schools, all of which are very much up for the challenge. The creation of guilds that concentrate on a particular industry such as energy could well be a way forward. We also need to tackle deep-rooted worklessness: in some places, there are three generations of families who have never worked.

If Waveney’s contribution to Britain’s economy is to be successful in the long term, our poor infrastructure links must be improved. In making small talk, the British talk about the weather, but East Anglians talk about roads and railways either because we do not have any or because those we do have are substandard. There are reasonable prospects for upgrading the railways to Waveney with the provision of funding for the Beccles loop, which will enable an hourly service to operate on the east Suffolk line. Longer franchises will provide opportunities for further improvements to the railways and I am working with Network Rail to ensure that everything is done to upgrade Lowestoft and Beccles stations, which are both in a shocking condition.

The road network provides a greater challenge. It is vital that regional links across East Anglia are improved and that the roads in Waveney are upgraded. The dualling of the A11 at Elvedon is good news and work needs to be done at the A14 bottleneck between Cambridge and Huntingdon. Locally, the Beccles southern relief road will open up further employment opportunities at Ellough and it is vital that the road system in Lowestoft is improved. I am working with Suffolk county council and Waveney district council to come up with a blueprint of the roads we need, which will include a new crossing of Lake Lothing, which divides the town. The enterprise zone challenge fund provides a means of promoting and building new roads. I issue a challenge to the Government: if we can demonstrate that jobs will flow if new roads are built, will they provide the money to do the work?

Let me address the issue of the 21st-century highway—broadband. As became apparent at the Suffolk broadband conference that I hosted in April, broadband is a huge enabler of economic growth. It will help the retention and growth of small businesses and will provide access to a global market. It will also help to raise and modernise skills and achievement levels. Broadband Delivery UK has made it clear that community engagement is the key to the roll-out of superfast broadband, very much in line with the big society and localism agendas.

The reference to the big society provides me with the opportunity for a short commercial break to congratulate the Beccles Lido on winning the Prime Minister’s big society award. In 2010, Beccles Lido bought the swimming pool from the local council, and has since raised over £300,000, carried out significant improvements and this year attracted nearly 30,000 visitors, up from 8,500 in 2008, turning a £60,000 loss into a profit. I congratulate the organisation on its great work and I wish it all the best with its new project, the public hall.

As I said before the interlude, community engagement with broadband is the right approach, as it is only local people who know what their communities need and the challenges they face. It appears that small local providers may be having difficulties in their attempts to provide services as part of local broadband plans. This is due to a combination of the sheer cost of procurement and other factors, such as European state aid rules and network security. I urge the Government to do all they can to resolve these issues so that we can ensure that the remote rural parts of the country, and Waveney in particular, from my viewpoint, have every opportunity possible of receiving next generation broadband.

Turning to the energy sector, there are encouraging signs. Orbis Energy in Lowestoft is a global centre of excellence for drawing together innovation and technology, supporting supply chain development and acting as a catalyst for development in the offshore renewables sector. SSE’s operations and maintenance base for the Greater Gabbard wind farm is already in Lowestoft port, and last month Scottish Power Renewables and Vattenfall signed a memorandum of understanding with both ABP Lowestoft and East Port in Great Yarmouth for the development of the East Anglia Array wind farm.

On Monday, SSE submitted its development consent order to the Infrastructure Planning Commission for the Galloper wind farm. It is vital that the planning process operates in a smooth and timely fashion, and also that the Government provide a clear, consistent and stable framework in which investors can operate, making long-term financial commitments in the offshore renewables sector. This means that there should be no sudden change in the fiscal regime, and electricity market reform must be addressed at an early stage in the next Session. It is important that the Government liaise with the industry now on this issue.

A particular feature of the East Anglian and Waveney economies is the large number of small businesses and SMEs, as well as a spirit of enterprise, which needs to be properly harnessed. In 2009, Lowestoft won the award for being the most enterprising place in Britain. More needs to be done to help small businesses set up and then flourish. That means, first, reducing red tape. I am conscious that the Government have already done much work in this area, though from what local businesses tell me they have yet to see the full benefits of that on the ground. Red tape is like Japanese knotweed—once it is there, it takes a superhuman effort to get rid of it.

Secondly, more work should be done with banks to ensure that they work with and support small businesses. The bid made by NWES and others, along with Barclays bank, to the regional growth fund for funding a national start-up programme, which will also operate in Waveney, will help to address that. Thirdly, it is important that in promoting business, Ministers do not just hold press conferences and stage PR announcements at high-profile showcase companies. It is important that they also visit smaller start-up and early-stage businesses so as to encourage entrepreneurship. So many people will be able to relate to and identify with such businesses and take inspiration from them.

I am fully aware of the impact of high fuel prices on small businesses and those travelling long distances to work. Waveney is out on a limb and, although the public transport network is gradually being improved, many have no choice but to use private transport. People in Waveney spend on average £68.09 a month on fuel, while those in the City of London, who have far higher incomes, spend on average only £26.93. I urge the Minister to reinforce the message to the Chancellor to cancel the fuel duty rise due in January.

In conclusion, in the summer of 2010, the CBI for the east of England launched its blueprint for growth. It highlighted a variety of factors: East Anglia is a world leader in many emerging sectors, including renewable energy; the east of England is forecast to create 400,000 new jobs by 2031; the area produces more entrepreneurs per head than the UK average, and the businesses they create survive longer; and £1 for every £5 of venture capital investment in the UK flows to east of England businesses.

My message to the Government is that if they work with us and invest alongside us, Waveney and East Anglia can play a pivotal role in promoting sustainable growth and creating new jobs. A good start has been made. We now need to deliver and to take that high road so that Lowestoft is again the model economy for a coastal town.