Weather Events (South West England)

Debate between Ben Bradshaw and Anne Marie Morris

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Anne Marie Morris]

First, I do not think there is any question in anybody’s mind that any additional railway line or loop would be instead of the existing line—it must always be as well as the existing line, not least because any new building of railway will take a significant length of time, and whether someone lives in Plymouth, Exeter, Newton Abbot or Dawlish, they need the line and they need it for the long term. It is not a question of an alternative, but an addition.

[Mr Bradshaw]

Hear, hear.

[Anne Marie Morris]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s support. As for the hon. Lady’s comments about squeezing other budgets, I would request, as I am sure she would, that additional money is found elsewhere in the Government’s coffers. They have some big issues to deal with, and I am afraid I am going to be a bit controversial here. Almost without exception, constituents have come up to me and said, “Why have we got so much money in the international aid budget?” In many ways, that budget is absolutely right, but what about our own people? Does not charity begin at home? I am conscious that that budget is not big and would not cover all the flood prevention work that is needed. Although it is laudable to have a fund for international aid, there must be a balance, and the time for reviewing that balance is now.

The help offered by the Government to date has been welcome. We have had a business rates holiday for businesses, and the changes to the Bellwin scheme, which gave us 100% cover and lowered the level that had to be reached before money was forthcoming, were welcome, but I have a concern for the Minister to pass on to his Cabinet colleagues. My concern is that the Bellwin formula money did not assist district councils, but most of the expenditure in my area was incurred by the district council, not the county council.

I am equally grateful to the Government for the business support fund, which is to provide support for businesses that have lost trade as a result of this weather event. There is considerable confusion about what “flooding” means. In my constituency, yes, we have flooding and water standing in properties, but we also have storm damage and erosion. It is far from clear what that support covers, because businesses clearly have lost trade from all those things. When my constituents and the council ring the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills hotline—and, indeed, when people speak to Devon county council—they find that they do not know either. We need some clarity about exactly what the business support fund covers.

I am grateful for the £22,500 that has been earmarked for my district council, Teignbridge, but I am saddened that, even as I speak this morning, it has still not been paid. I wonder whether the Minister could raise that matter with his colleagues.

Going forward, we need a proper strategy and proper flood prevention and advice. Villagers who have been flooded are concerned because they feel that they did not have any advice about what to do to shore up their properties. Could we not talk to the fire service to see whether it could provide advice? Otherwise it will be a free-for-all for individuals who might be giving the wrong advice. Villagers were also concerned that there was no early warning and said that a siren would have helped, because this weather event was in the middle of the night. Indeed, Network Rail only discovered it was a double black rather late in the day. Perhaps something could be done about warning and notification, not just of individuals and organisations that can do something, but of residents. That would be helpful.

As the right hon. Member for Exeter said, this is no time for complacency. There is much to be done and it must be done now. That railway line along the coast is vital to the whole south-west and action is needed now. I do not think any of us would condone delay until 2019. Now means 2014 or 2015 and, at the latest, 2016.

Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill

Debate between Ben Bradshaw and Anne Marie Morris

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that despite the fact that the £50 cut will be impacted by high inflationary rises, those rises apply across the country, so one cannot say that we are worse off in the south-west, because we are still better off by that £50?

[Mr Bradshaw]

That is absolutely right. I am afraid that water customers across the country are paying the price for this Government losing control of inflation. The reason we are all facing these massive increases in the current financial year and the next is that inflation is out of control. We in the south-west are suffering like everybody else. However welcome the £50 cut is, it will already have been wiped out by the time we get it. People will not notice it because their bills will be no lower than they were before, as a result of the two years of increases that they will suffer this year and the next.

We must stop the culture of annual increases, and I hope that the Government will do that when they bring forward their full water Bill. The hon. Member for St Ives is absolutely right about this. We always talk about the water industry as though it were the same as the gas industry, the electricity industry and the other privatised utilities, but it is not—it is a monopoly private provider. Customers in the south-west cannot choose where they get their water from. Admittedly there is also a problem in the energy industry, but people do have a limited choice of provider for their gas and electricity.

The other reason it is completely wrong to put water in the same category as the other privatised utilities is that water is plentiful. We live in a wet country; it rains. If it stops raining, we might as well all pack up go home, but that is not going to happen—we hope. Water is not like gas, electricity or oil, where the resources are finite. The Government must challenge the assumption that water prices should always rise. Given the advances in modern technology, there are strong arguments for water bills coming down rather than going up. I ask the Minister to look carefully at the structure of the industry and the strength of the regulator. For the reasons that the hon. Member for St Ives and I have mentioned, there is a very good argument for the water regulator being much stronger than the regulators of the other privatised utilities.

The Prime Minister is fond of making speeches about crony capitalism; well, he can show us his mettle by dealing with an industry that is a private monopoly where customers have no choice. The industry has its hands round their necks, they cannot go anywhere else, they are fed up, and they do not understand the inevitability of year-on-year increases.

Of course we have to improve our outdated infrastructure, and a lot of work has been done on that. However, when I hear industry spokespeople and Ministers saying that we are about to face a terrible drought, worse than that in 1976, I wonder why the industry and the Government have not looked more carefully at the idea of water trading, which I think has been mentioned by a Government Member. Why do we not pipe water from the Severn catchment area, where it is plentiful, to the Thames catchment area? That could be done quite cheaply. It is not hugely expensive or terrible for climate change, as the Secretary of State said in her opening remarks. A similar thing could be done across the country. My right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) mentioned reservoir capacity.

There is no reason why in this country, which has a cool, temperate climate with plenty of rain, we should pay such high prices for our water. We should not accept inexorable rises year on year, particularly when families are feeling the pinch. I share the admiration of the hon. Member for St Ives for the current management of South West Water. However, in the increases that that company and the rest of the industry have asked for in this financial year and the next, they have not shown the sensitivity that they might have shown to the state of household finances.

Local Enterprise Partnerships (South-West)

Debate between Ben Bradshaw and Anne Marie Morris

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

A more accurate title for this debate than local economic partnerships in the south-west would be the absence or lack of local economic partnerships in the south-west. When the Government launched their flagship regional economic policy the week before last, most of the south-west was completely missing. Only Bristol and Cornwall are covered by these new bodies.

This sorry saga began with the Government’s ideologically driven determination to abolish the regional development agencies. That of the south-west, like most of those around the country, was successful. It had brought much-needed strategic coherence to our region, as well as valuable investment. It had managed to overcome the age-old political in-fighting between the different parts of the region, and the RDA could take a view as to what was in the interests of the region as a whole. I am afraid that, like so much of what the coalition Government are doing—and in spite of the Business Secretary’s support for RDAs before the election —regardless of their merits RDAs had to go, because they were a Labour creation.

Soon after the election, in preparation for the new policy, the local business leaders in our half of the region—led by Tim Jones and the Devon and Cornwall business council—started an early promotion of the idea of a peninsular local economic partnership, comprising Cornwall, Devon and Somerset. The business community felt scale and capacity were vital for these local economic partnerships to succeed, and I wholeheartedly agree. In his letter of 29 June, the Secretary of State invited local areas to come together and put forward bids for LEPs in their areas by 6 September. That precipitated a two-month period of chaotic negotiations, lobbying and planning. That happened largely behind closed doors and was led, not primarily by business, as was supposed to be the case, but by the upper-tier local authorities—in our case, Cornwall, Devon, Plymouth and Torbay. Somerset county council was effectively frozen out of those discussions. It was clear that the four upper-tier authorities in Devon and Cornwall did not want Somerset’s involvement in the discussions or in any subsequent local economic partnership for the area.

My own local authority, Exeter city council, and the Exeter business community, led by our chamber of commerce, were totally excluded from the discussions. They were never formally consulted on any of the emerging proposals. That was in spite of numerous requests to be involved as one of the two key economic drivers in our peninsula. Exeter’s exclusion was also in clear contravention of an instruction in a letter of 25 August from the Minister with responsibility for decentralisation, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), to Gary Porter, chair of the district council network, in which the Minister said,

“It is essential that district authorities are included.”

He went on to say that he did not expect county councils to act as “sole building blocks”, and that

“We want to see economic geographies reflected in proposals, not just administrative ones.”

It soon became clear that Cornwall, as is so often the case, wanted to go it alone—a move unfortunately endorsed by the Government for political purposes, much to the consternation of the Cornwall business community and business leaders in the rest of the peninsula.

I have a number of questions for the Minister today. First, does he agree with me and the business community in the west country that local economic partnerships should have sufficient scale to add value and to have clout? Does he also agree that they should reflect real functional economic areas? Is it not the case that the first of those objectives has been compromised by his Government’s decision to accept Cornwall’s bid to go it alone? Is it not also the case that the Cornwall bid did not meet the criteria the Government laid down and did not enjoy sufficient business support? Will he explain how, exactly, a Cornwall local economic partnership will differ from or add value to the economic development functions of the unitary Cornwall county council? Does he also agree with me that it is vital urgently to salvage something from this sorry mess, and that the most sensible solution would be for Devon, including Plymouth and Torbay, to work with Somerset and, if they are interested, those western parts of Dorset that look west rather than east? Will he confirm that the Government have been pressing such a solution?

When questioned in the House on the day of the announcement, the Business Secretary blamed the situation in the west country on the lack of agreement between the local authorities involved. That, I am afraid, is an understatement. In spite of the fact that Devon, Somerset, Plymouth and Torbay are all Conservative-controlled councils, which one might think would make the process of negotiation easier, they have been fighting like rats in a sack. We have seen a return to the worst sort of petty political in-fighting that blighted economic development so badly in our region in the past, and was one reason why Labour set up the RDAs in the first place. I understand that there is little love lost between the Conservative leaders and the councils involved. At one stage, to illustrate the ludicrousness of the whole process, Somerset became so frustrated by Devon county council’s behaviour that Somerset suggested a tie-up between it and Cumbria, based on the nuclear industry.

Will the Minister please start banging some heads together and tell his political friends in the south-west that they must stop their childish squabbling and work together in the interests of the public and local businesses? If they cannot, or will not, do that, will he please tell them to get out of the way, and let the business community get on with it? Business leaders are keen to move forward with a partnership on the basis I have outlined.

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman has given this debate an airing, because it is crucial that we have LEPs in the south-west. Would he agree with me that, in the vein of what he has just said, we should put political divides aside and move forward and get an LEP for Devon, and I suspect for Somerset, as quickly as possible? I believe the business community is now absolutely behind it.

[Mr Bradshaw]

The hon. Lady is right; the business community is behind it. The point I was trying to make is that this is not about putting political differences aside, because the four local authorities involved are all Conservative controlled. They do not—or should not—have political differences but they have been completely incapable of working together on a sensible local economic partnership for our region. I hope we can see them make swift progress toward doing so now. If they will not do it, I want the Minister to tell the local authorities to get out of the way and leave the field clear for the business community, which, as the hon. Lady rightly says, is keen to make progress, so it can put in a bid. Will the Minister confirm, on that basis, that the business community is entitled to come forward with a bid—that it is perfectly possible for it to bypass the fractious local authorities? Will he assure the business community and me today that the Government would look favourably on such a bid? Will he also reaffirm the instruction of the Minister with responsibility for decentralisation: that it is essential that Exeter, which is so important for our region’s future prosperity, be included at the table? If I were the Minister here today, I would be hopping mad at Devon’s deliberate and calculated rebuff to his colleague’s instruction that Exeter should be included in the process.

As the head of Britain’s leading business organisation, the CBI, said recently, this process has been a shambles. We now know that the Minister’s own colleague, the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), warned the Business Secretary in a letter of 14 September that the Government’s local economic partnerships were in danger of failing. I quote from his letter:

“There is a strong view amongst the business community that many LEPs lack the ambition to make significant economic impact undermining our agenda for growth. Key messages I have been made aware of include: a lack of credible business representation on LEPs Boards; negotiations dominated by local politics and a lack of a clear focus on economic growth. They also report different messages coming from Government about LEPs. John Cridland [of the CBI] specifically was concerned that the process has not been transparent, business engagement was poor overall and exacerbated by a tight timescale. He and other senior business leaders from Tesco and Ford have expressed their concern that in their view the policy is in danger of failing to aid economic growth.”

That is exactly what the Labour party warned would happen if the Government went ahead and abolished RDAs. The public and businesses of Devon and most of the south-west have been badly let down by the Government, and the Minister and the Government need to get a grip before it is too late.

Local Government Bill [Lords]

Debate between Ben Bradshaw and Anne Marie Morris

Thursday 21st October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) for his contribution. I hear what he is saying, but he and I have rather different memories of what happened at that time. He has implied that the county of Devon was in favour of the unitary proposal for Exeter, but that is certainly not my recollection. Indeed, the people of Devon were not at all in favour of such a unitary authority for a number of reasons, and that is why I rise to support the Bill.

Newton Abbot is part of Devon, and we are served by Devon county council. My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) made a good point earlier when he said that we need to consider the impact on those we leave behind, as well as those we put into a unitary authority. What would happen to the rest of Devon if we were to carve out Exeter? Exeter has a large population, and a unitary authority would attract a lot of funding. What would happen to the remaining rump? Devon has one of the largest geographical areas in the country. Parts of it are also in the lowest quartile of economic resilience. Across the county, 20% comprises rural villages and hamlets, and it has already been noted that Torbay and Plymouth—two other large centres of population—have already been carved out of it. The remainder of Devon is a large swathe of small villages.

Devon faces challenges not only of rurality but of an above-average number of older people, as a consequence of people liking to go there to retire. Why does that matter? It matters because of the way in which public funding formulae work. For the most part, rurality and the age of the population are not taken into account. The consequence for education in Devon can be seen in the league tables for the country; Devon is now 148th out of 151. That means that our children are getting £300 less per head spent on them, which adds up to a substantial amount for a sizeable secondary school. In health, we are also below average. It is true that statistics show a figure of only 1.1%, which seems like a very small number. That completely misrepresents the position, however, because of the number of ageing people in the county. If Exeter had become a unitary authority, my constituents and those in other parts of rural Devon would have been significantly worse off.

[Mr Bradshaw]

The hon. Lady seems to be making my point for me, which is that Exeter and Norwich have been the milch cows for rural Devon and Norfolk. That was denied by Devon county council all the way through the process, but she is making the point extremely well today.

[Anne Marie Morris]

I do not accept that. They have not been milch cows. I do not deny that Exeter is an important part of the Devon community, but I believe that we need wealth to be generated throughout Devon. We cannot look only at Exeter. I do not think that that detracts from my point that the rest of Devon would simply become worse off if Exeter became a unitary authority.

There are a number of things on which my constituents and, I suspect, other Devon constituents would prefer £40 million to be spent. A challenge is presented by our railway along the coast: we need funds to make it viable, and it is crucial to the viability of tourism in my constituency. I think that my constituents would like the bypass—the A380—to be finally completed, after 50 years of battling. They would also like the flood problem to be sorted out. In Teignmouth, I am currently battling to try to ensure that the flood prevention scheme proceeds. Notwithstanding what was said about flooding earlier, Opposition Members may recall that the Labour party proposed capital cuts of 50%, but the cuts that we have proposed are considerably smaller, and I am therefore hopeful that my friends in Teignmouth will get their scheme. Our water bills are 25% higher than water bills anywhere else in the country, and some of this money could be usefully spent on rectifying an injustice that has existed for many years.

I do not think that unitary status will be in the interests of Devon or of the country as a whole, but as the money simply is not there, the question becomes inappropriate in any event. I therefore support the Bill.