Devolution and Growth across Britain

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I heartily congratulate you, Mr Deputy Speaker, on your re-election today. I am delighted to make this contribution thanks to my electors in Blackpool South, who returned me as their MP with an increased majority for the fifth successive time. It is a huge privilege to be a Member of Parliament for a town that is loved by millions of visitors every year, and that has played a huge part in the social, leisure and cultural life of this country for well over 100 years. It has stamped its mark on Britain as firmly as the lettering that goes through Blackpool rock.

Blackpool has many hard-working small businesses and enterprises, but, like many other seaside towns, it is a town that continues to face great challenges in housing, low part-time pay, significant pockets of deprivation, health, education and a highly transient population. Bread-and-butter questions are what matter to the people of Blackpool: how do we ensure that devolution delivers and fuels growth properly; and how does it strengthen our town’s social cohesion?

I warmly congratulate the Secretary of State on his new post. I do so not out of convention but because of the respect that I hold for him personally. He has already shown in discussions about Blackpool an empathy for our needs in terms of our local enterprise partnership and the local growth programmes. The challenge is to recognise that, for structures that work with the grain of local need, it is a question not just of expanding economic growth in the region but rebalancing it. We need strategies that do not exacerbate divisions within and between regions. Where the best laid plans or structures are based is important, as is the way in which change is delivered. The coalition Government did us no favours with the big-bang abolition of regional development agencies and the setting up of a regional development fund, which has had little local input. As shadow regional growth Minister, with my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) and his predecessor, the former Member for Southampton, Itchen, I saw that at first hand.

Some degree of humility is needed from the new Government over conduits for further change. Rhetoric about a so-called northern powerhouse can seem very thin in a town such as Blackpool where we have endured funding cuts of nearly 40% over the past four years. This Government must tell us how their devolution plans will deliver not just for big cities but for the smaller towns and the seaside and coastal towns. I am talking here about towns such as Blackpool, Bradford, Swindon and Stevenage. This is not just a north-south issue.

As someone who grew up in and around Manchester, I yield to no one in admiration for what has been done there through enlightened local government and business. But the Chancellor has been insisting that powers—even lesser powers—can be delivered only if a directly elected mayor is accepted. That is despite the fact that some of those areas have previously elected not to have such a role.

The Chancellor seems to be adopting the approach of Henry Ford, who, when asked about his cars said, “You can have any colour you want as long as it’s black.” Perhaps he is beginning to recognise that plurality is important, because I saw a picture in the Financial Times of him in Derby talking about a poster that said that the midlands was the business engine of Britain. It reminds me of the old story about the American politician who praised a city—let us say St Louis—and then said, “Why do I say this?” only to receive the reply, “Because you are in St Louis.”

We know that the RDAs delivered £4.50 of long-term benefits for every £1 spent. The LEPs were intended to work with the new structures, but LEP members are entitled —we all are—to know what their future will be if their remit is not dovetailed properly with local authorities or elected mayors.

As a Blackpool MP and a shadow transport Minister, I know that there are potentially many areas for greater collaboration. Transport is one such area. It is essential that there is legitimate democratic oversight of spending. Some time ago, I wrote in a Smith Institute pamphlet that the art of localism is getting the balance right between the maximum amount of democratic accountability and the maximum amount of entrepreneurship. People’s aspirations in the 21st century are more complex than they were in the past, so local needs must be addressed by local communities. Devolution will only produce good growth if the interests of communities are supported. Spending on and investment in sustainable housing is an issue that this Government need to address.

Those are the challenges on which the Chancellor needs to be held to account. If we are to have sustainable growth, this Government will not be forgiven if they simply devolve money to cities—

Child Abuse Inquiry

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, especially his remarks on the willingness of Islington council to participate in the work of the inquiry. His idea of a standing commission has not been raised before. Although it will take time for the panel of inquiry to complete its work, I do not want there to be an expectation that it will just carry on because the impact of its report might be lost and, crucially, that would affect our ability to act on its findings. I expect the panel to make interim reports, as I said earlier, so that any necessary actions can be undertaken as soon as possible, and so that survivors and others can see the ongoing work and continue to have confidence in that work.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary has rightly asked the Home Affairs Committee to conduct pre-appointment scrutiny. She also mentioned the involvement of survivors. Will she reflect on how the involvement of survivors in the selection process could be brought closer to the public part of the confirmation through the Select Committee to increase their confidence and our confidence that there will not be a third stumble along the way?

[Mrs May]

I will certainly reflect on the process that we will put in place for survivors to have an input. Ultimately, it will be my decision, but I am putting the parts of the process in place to ensure that people can have confidence that we have explored all the avenues that it is necessary to explore before proceeding.



Recall of MPs Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

Ordered,

That the Order of 21 October 2014 (Recall of MPs Bill (Programme)) be varied as follows:

(1) In paragraph (2) of the Order (number of days for proceedings in Committee), for “three days” substitute “two days”.

(2) In the Table in paragraph (4) of the Order (order of proceedings etc. in Committee), for the entries for the Second and Third days substitute:

Refugees and Migrants (Search and Rescue Operation)

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

To be clear, the EU is not withdrawing anything. Mare Nostrum is an Italian initiative. It is supported by the Italian navy, and ultimately decisions will be taken by the Italian Government. However, my hon. Friend makes a profound and important point about the responsibility of all Governments in the EU to look at international development in the way that we have: state-building and providing long-term solutions, as well as ensuring that clear messages are sent and clear policies are undertaken bilaterally, or through the external action service of the EU, to do the very things he has outlined.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Why can the Minister not see that it is not a case of either addressing the causes in north Africa or dealing with the consequences now, but a question of both? The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) mentioned the International Maritime Organisation. Why can the Minister not also see that this is not simply an issue for nation states? It is an issue that needs to be addressed across the EU, and the Government should be playing their part. On the so-called pull factor, that is an argument that could have been used to discourage people from setting up the Kindertransport before the second world war.

[James Brokenshire]

We play our part within the EU. We continue to lead discussions with individual member states and across the EU membership on long-term and short-term solutions to why people are getting on those boats and to the transit of people across nations to the north African coast. We take that responsibility very seriously, backed up not just by rhetoric but by investment through our international development focus and the money provided to support it. We stand proud of the UK Government’s record in providing that assistance.

Child Abuse

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The purpose of the child advocate trials that we are introducing is precisely to find out how we can best ensure that child victims of human trafficking are given the support and help that they need. As my hon. Friend has said—and he recognises this through the work that he has done, particularly when he was chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking and modern day slavery—some youngsters sadly find themselves being trafficked again when in local authority care.

This is appalling. I am afraid that over the years this country can take no comfort at all from its record on children in local authority care, and we have seen many appalling cases as a result of that. I hope that the child advocate trials will show us where best practice is and how we can best support these children.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s report, and may I suggest that one of the things the inquiry panel might look at is the adequacy, or otherwise, of multiagency activity in pursuing the point she has just made? She has talked twice now about the investigator having determined that files had not been removed deliberately or inappropriately, but she has also said the record of housekeeping on this matter has been varied. Can she tell the House how the investigator determined that these files were not removed deliberately or inappropriately, and if she cannot tell the House that, will the inquiry look specifically into that issue?

[Mrs May]

The review that will be taking place under the direction of Peter Wanless, the chief executive of the NSPCC, with the support I indicated earlier, will precisely be looking at the investigator’s review to see whether it was conducted properly and whether the information was properly dealt with, and will look at what the Home Office did in relation to the files and so forth. So it is a matter that will be looked at by the review of the review.

Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). I should like to associate myself with his concluding remarks about guide dogs, and to commend the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association for the spirited campaign it has led on the subject.

It is a great pleasure to speak on a subject of obvious concern to everybody in the country. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, who spoke earlier, I have been in the House since 1997, and I can genuinely say that antisocial behaviour has been at the centre of my casework, both in terms of concerns that people have raised, and of the relief and respite that has been brought about. This is a continuing process; no Government have a monopoly on virtue or effectiveness. However, I want to emphasise that the Labour Government made significant strides in combating antisocial behaviour, and in putting victims at the heart of the justice system; I recall the surprise at that in more conservative legal circles in the early days of that Administration. Mercifully, we have moved on since then.

The controls put in place for statutory partnerships under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 have been enormously important to us in Blackpool, where partnerships between the police, local authorities and others to tackle crime and disorder have worked extremely successfully. I want to make a point that is specific to my constituents and to the town: like many seaside and coastal towns, and many inland towns with a high degree of transience, in Blackpool issues associated with houses in multiple occupation and the problems faced by a minority of rogue landlords and rogue tenants have been very much to the fore. As the House of Commons research paper makes clear, antisocial behaviour injunctions have been valued by social landlords; they have been used successfully against tenants in attempts to tackle vandalism, violence, noise, harassment, and threatening and un-neighbourly behaviour.

As my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary made clear, none of this can be done without resources. That is why it was very important that more than 12,000 extra police, and more than 16,000 police community support officers, were introduced under the Labour Government, including in Lancashire, which has particularly benefited from the beefed-up powers that were provided.

What are the issues that any antisocial behaviour Bill should at least touch on and try to address for my constituents in Blackpool? First, there is the question of disorder, particularly in the centre of the town. As many people know, we have millions of visitors every year. Most of them are a delight, but a small proportion are not. The same is true of residents. Problems such as alcohol, petty crime, drugs and general threatening behaviour have always loomed large. Secondly, the issue of houses in multiple occupation is really important. I praise the work done over a long period by the public protection department of Blackpool council, ably headed by Tim Coglan, all who have worked with him, and the cabinet member with responsibility for housing, Councillor Gillian Campbell.

I should like to quote from a couple of letters that I received recently that underline some of our problems. A hotelier—it should be borne in mind that there are some 600 hotels and guesthouses in my constituency—said:

“I run a hotel with my partner situated…in South Shore. We unfortunately have a HMO adjoining us…and one opposite…Both properties have drug and alcohol problems and are situated with ourselves in the ‘Holiday Zone’.

We persistently suffer ‘users’ calling up at the flats for drugs, the police are constantly parking outside our hotel to visit our neighbours. The flat adjoining our hotel on the first floor have dogs, who are rarely taken out of the flat.”

The good news in this story is that Blackpool council, together with other organisations, is working on this. I quote the letter I received from the council:

“Officers of the Housing Enforcement Team have been tackling issues...one of the problem tenants has already been evicted and the managing agents…are in the process of re-housing the tenants with the dogs.”

Another letter from another part of the town mentions the importance of alley gates, which have been a particularly effective way of dealing with antisocial behaviour in Blackpool.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

On HMOs and antisocial behaviour, including in alleyways, are there not already powers available to councils? The issue is whether councils are using the powers they already have, rather than whether new powers are required under the Bill.

[Mr Marsden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and I do not disagree with him on the powers, which are already there. What is important is enforcement by councils, and the resources that are available to them. Sadly, Blackpool council’s ability to do the stuff it would like to on alley gates has been severely hindered over the past couple of years by substantial cuts in funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Police and community support officers are crucial, particularly now, when we have problems not just with houses in multiple occupation, but with houses that are bought at low prices when owner-occupiers move out, and landlords rent them out to problem families. I have many examples of that. I pay tribute to the activities undertaken in our town by the police and the community together. I am thinking of a group, ably chaired by Mr Dave Blacker, who are concerned about their PCSOs. Issues of funding and what might be available from Government have come to the fore.

Other really important issues are vandalism—Stanley park and other parts of the town have been badly affected by it recently—metal theft, the protection of war memorials and dumping. Those are all issues on which PCSOs can make an important contribution. That is why we need to look critically at what the Government are doing in the Bill. The crime prevention injunction—the proposed replacement for an antisocial behaviour order—is significantly weaker. A breach of the new injunction is not a criminal offence and will not result in a criminal record. Other proposed measures against antisocial behaviour also appear weak. The Government’s proposed community trigger has seemed weak in the areas in which it has been trialled, as my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary made clear earlier. As her colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) said, breach of ASBOs was a criminal offence; breach of injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance is not. Nor does the Bill guarantee a response from the police or the council. It guarantees a review. In my region, the north-west, police in Manchester recorded nearly 26,000 cases of antisocial behaviour in 2012-13, but the trigger was activated a mere four times.

When it comes to tackling antisocial behaviour, the elephant in the room is the way the Government have cut the police budget. Police community support officers, who are so often at the forefront in tackling day-to-day antisocial behaviour, have been hit particularly hard. That has led to Lancashire losing 9% of our front-line officers in the first two years of this Tory-led Government, and 500 police officers.

I shall touch briefly on knife crime, which has been a key issue in Blackpool. The Government have, to be fair, introduced a new crime of “threatening with article with blade” in public or on school premises, but the Prime Minister told MPs in recent months that the Justice Secretary was reviewing the powers available to the courts to deal with knife possession, and the Lord Chancellor has said he is revisiting the whole topic of knife crime. As my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary rightly said, this is a Christmas tree Bill. It is unfortunate that the outcome of those reviews has not informed the detail of the Bill.

The topic of firearms has been touched on. I entirely associate myself with the comments that have been made about the dangers presented by people with a history of domestic violence. We know that only too well in Blackpool from the Justice for Jane campaign, which concerned the case of a young woman who was tragically murdered by her partner, who had a history of domestic threatening and violence. Such ticking time bombs need monitoring, and the Government should be monitoring some of them far more carefully and providing the legislation that would make that possible.

Lastly, I return to the subject of dangerous dogs. I have not been convinced by what the Home Secretary said. Many other organisations—not just the RSPCA, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, Blue Cross and the Select Committee—feel that the proposals, rather like my 15-year-old Jack Russell-Chihuahua cross, are somewhat toothless. Dangerous dogs are a real problem and they need a special and specific remedy. I know that only too well from my former colleague in the House, Joan Humble, who almost lost the tip of her finger when canvassing in Blackpool in 2012. These Government measures, as has been said, are simply too weak. Instead of these piecemeal proposals, the introduction of dog control notices would be wide ranging and enforceable in the sorts of areas that have been discussed.

[Robert Flello]

I am enjoying my hon. Friend’s speech immensely. Does he agree that there is a need for a much wider look at issues such as dog breeding? A raft of related issues needs to be addressed properly. Does he agree that taking all the dog-related measures out of this Christmas tree Bill and consolidating them in a single piece of legislation would be a better way forward?

[Mr Marsden]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. In an ideal world he would be correct, but unfortunately we heard from the Home Secretary this evening her extreme reluctance to admit that anything other than the general and mixed powers presented in the Bill would do the business. I hope that in Committee and on Report, some of the issues can be addressed far more forcefully than they were by the Home Secretary this evening. In particular, the public spaces protection orders are too sweeping and vague in many respects to deal with what is proposed. The Battersea Dogs and Cats Home briefing makes these points far more eloquently than I can. It also makes the point that dogs that pose no danger to public safety should remain with an owner of good character while an application to the court for an exemption takes place.

About 5,000 postal workers every year are attacked by dogs. Seventeen people, including children, have been killed in dog attacks since 2005, including one in Blackpool in 2009. I welcome, as do Members in all parts of the House, the Government’s proposal to extend prosecution and to extend responsibility to private property, but given what has been said in the House this evening I wish the Government would take the opportunity to think more carefully and substantially about the broader range of dog control measures I have mentioned. They might also consider what many people see as a good—or should I say poor?—example of what happens when we legislate in haste: the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.

I mentioned my dog earlier. Sadly, her partner died earlier this year. She was a Staffie-Collie cross, and I am sure she would have agreed, as I do, with what the Communication Workers Union said: that we should be legislating for deed and not for breed. I hope the Government will take the opportunity to remedy that, if not in the Bill, then at some point.