Summer Adjournment

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and my hon. Friends the Members for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) and for Livingston (Graeme Morrice) on their maiden speeches. Good things are indeed worth waiting for.

I would like to raise an issue that is important to many of my constituents and that has been highlighted by two announcements this week—namely, employment in the Wigan borough. The first announcement was made by the hard-pressed Wigan council, which confirmed that more than 800 jobs were at risk due to the huge scale of the coalition’s proposed cuts of more than £55 million in Wigan.

The second blow to my constituents in Makerfield was the loss of 100 jobs and the possible closure of the Ingersoll Rand factory in Hindley Green. Time and again, I have heard Members on the coalition Front Bench state that public sector job losses will be mitigated by the growth of the private sector. Well, in my constituency, there appears to be a contraction of both sectors, and that is a blow that my constituents can ill afford.

Since last summer, the fall in unemployment in Wigan has been nearly 8%, due in part to the policies of the previous Labour Government and Wigan council of investing in businesses via the working neighbourhood fund, and investing in our young people, with more than 200 young people employed in the future jobs fund programme last year. They gained valuable skills and supported organisations such as Age Concern and the Wigan borough veterans council. Some of those young people, despite subsequently gaining paid work, have continued to volunteer with their placement organisations —the big society in action!

All this has been taken away by this Government, with no regard to the success of the scheme in my borough. The local authority intensive support start-up service, funded by the working neighbourhood fund and the Northwest Regional Development Agency, has been creating an average of one new business every day since the start of 2010. However, the axing of the RDA and the slashing of the working neighbourhood fund budget will leave the future growth of new businesses gravely in doubt in my constituency.

The coalfield communities regeneration programme has also supported new businesses in my area. Will the Minister commit to continuing to fund that vital programme, which supports the business and voluntary sectors in Makerfield? What support will he give to ensure that this and other funding streams continue to nurture new businesses in my constituency?

Another blow to the Wigan borough was the loss of our new schools under the Building Schools for the Future programme. That announcement was all the more devastating as Wigan council had received a letter from the Minister only the day before the cuts were announced, stating that where a local educational partnership had reached financial closure, as ours had, the schemes were to be allowed to proceed. Not only were the hopes of our young people, parents and teaching staff cruelly dashed, but many people—including many young people who believed that they could gain apprenticeships in the construction industry, building local schools—now have no hope of work.

I ask the Secretary of State for Education to look again at that decision, and to come to Wigan and speak to the parents, teachers and pupils there, particularly those in Hindley, the area already devastated by the job losses at Ingersoll Rand. In a visit to my local authority, he would see at first hand the impact of his decision on pupils and teachers seeking to achieve excellence in a building that is no longer fit for purpose, where teachers have to stick the tiles back on the walls before commencing lessons.

Another organisation employing many of my constituents who are living with daily uncertainty over their future is the Tote, which has its headquarters in the borough and employs some 600 people. I note early-day motion 578, tabled by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) and sponsored by my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), and I ask the Minister to commit to retaining the Tote’s headquarters in Wigan. This would protect the employment of its staff and the acknowledged expertise and professionalism that they possess.

Some of my constituents travel out of the Wigan borough to work, and I must mention the overcrowding on the trains to Liverpool and Manchester. The Greater Manchester chamber of commerce has rightly pointed out the significance of the rail network to the future economic success of the Greater Manchester area. I would welcome an indication from the Minister that investment in the northern hub, in electrification and in the commissioning of rolling stock to ease overcrowding will be forthcoming.

This Government seem determined to silence all the voices that speak for our region. They have already axed the regional development agency and abolished the Government office for the north-west. However, as one of my new Labour party members said, we have seen both parties in this coalition Government go through the Lobby and vote for measures that will disadvantage the poor and vulnerable, including introducing selective education and increasing VAT. They are standing up to be counted, and it is time for us to do the same.