Greg Clark
Main Page: Greg Clark (Conservative - Tunbridge Wells)Department Debates - View all Greg Clark's debates with the Cabinet Office
(9 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Greg Clark)
A happy new year to you Mr Speaker and to colleagues.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have led the negotiations for a city deal and a local growth deal with Birmingham. The city deal has already delivered almost 3,000 apprenticeships in the city and established the Institute of Translational Medicine, which opens in the summer. The growth deal invests a third of a billion pounds in road, rail and metro improvements, including links from the black country to the new HS2 station, as well as investing in skills and industrial facilities.
Jack Dromey
England cannot succeed through London and the south-east alone. A new devolution settlement is essential. The Minister will know that Birmingham and the west midlands are ambitious to make progress, but does he understand the sense of disappointment that progress thus far has not been what was hoped for and, crucially, that, at the very moment we are talking about greater control over our finances, the Government are cutting in excess of half a billion pounds—the biggest cuts in local government history—from Birmingham city council?
Greg Clark
The leader of Birmingham city council warmly welcomed the growth deal and said that it was a great step forward for Birmingham. The city deals have been welcomed by leaders across the political spectrum and across the country as far more ambitious than anything that has been done for decades. Of course every council across the country needs to make savings. I understand from what the Opposition were saying yesterday that they would go further than that. The hon. Gentleman should be clear that Birmingham is on the rise. The economic prospects and the performance of Birmingham have turned around. In the previous Parliament, the number of net private sector jobs contracted; it is now increasing in Birmingham. That is good news.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the political and constitutional reforms that would most benefit the people of Birmingham, as well as the people in North Wiltshire and elsewhere in England, would be the early introduction of English votes on English matters?
Greg Clark
I do agree with my hon. Friend. It is right that we correct an anomaly. That should happen as well as the devolution of power within England, which this Government have been pioneering.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
The Political and Constitutional Committee has just issued a report on voter registration. Some 56% of young people in Birmingham are not on the electoral register, and only 44% actually vote. What more can the Deputy Prime Minister do to get those young people on the register in Birmingham and voting?
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman knows this area; we have debated it before. It is incumbent on all of us to encourage people to vote. Now that we have individual electoral registration, it is easier than ever before for young people to register; they just need to go to the website. Over the next few months, we need to encourage all citizens, especially young people, to exercise that right.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
We are talking about devolving power to local people, but money is power. When my constituents find out that the central Government block grant for Birmingham is £640 per person when a combined grant for Leicestershire is £240 per person, the reform they will call for is fairer funding for rural areas.
Greg Clark
Right across the country, we take the view that local people can be the best judges of how they spend the money. It should not be decided in Whitehall. Whether the money is spent in rural areas or in cities, we are pioneering a programme of getting money out of Whitehall and into the hands of local people.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
The best way to make constitutional change is for it to be led by the people and not by politicians. There is now wide support for a people-led constitutional convention. I know that the Deputy Prime Minister agrees with that. When will the Conservatives join the growing consent for such a convention?
Greg Clark
The difference between this Government and the previous one is that we have got on with devolution whereas they just talked about it. The Labour leader of Greater Manchester said that this Government have achieved more in their four years in office than the previous Government did in 13 years, so this should not be kicked into the long grass; we should continue with the programme on which we have embarked.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
3. What discussions he has had with Lancashire local enterprise partnership on the second phase of local growth deals.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Greg Clark)
The Lancashire growth deal agreed in July transferred £230 million from central Government to investments in Lancashire. I have met the chairman of the Lancashire local enterprise partnership to underline the importance of encouraging growth in every part of Lancashire in the next round of growth deals, which are being negotiated at the moment.
Andrew Stephenson
The second phase of local growth deals proposed by Lancashire local enterprise partnership includes a scheme to regenerate the largest redundant mill complex in the county, Brierfield Mill. That scheme is in my constituency and I have raised and discussed it in detail with the Minister. Although I appreciate that he will be receiving many invitations from colleagues across the House to visit their constituencies, may I encourage him to visit Brierfield Mill at the earliest opportunity to see the exciting plans we have?
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend is right that he has raised this with me before and I am keen to see the scheme that he paints in such glowing terms, so if he is free to see me a week on Friday I will come up to his constituency and view the mill. I am confident that it will be as attractive as the picture he paints of it.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
4. What assessment he has made of the effect on economic growth on the regional growth fund.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Greg Clark)
The regional growth fund has already helped create or safeguard more than 100,000 jobs across the country and more still in the supply chain and it is contributing to the 1.75 million more people in work since 2010. I will shortly announce the outcome of round 6 of the regional growth fund, with £200 million available for investment in further job creation.
Neil Carmichael
Does my right hon. Friend agree that to underpin that work, things such as GREEN at Berkeley—the Gloucestershire renewable energy, engineering and nuclear project—in which the Government have invested to improve training in engineering, energy and renewable energy, are exactly the way to ensure that we have jobs that are lasting, sustainable and productive?
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we want high-quality jobs to be sustained in the future, we need to invest in skills. That is why the Gloucestershire growth deal will see substantial investment in training in such skills at the former Berkeley power station. I know that he has been a big champion of that.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I wish you a happy new year, Mr Speaker, and the Deputy Prime Minister a happyish new year—[Interruption.] A little humour, Mr Speaker. May I push the Minister on regional growth funds? The fact is that none of us will turn down help from the regional growth funds and my own constituency has some, but, at the same time, we have a totally demoralised democratic local government in this country that is desperately short of funds and desperately unable to meet the needs of local people. Is it not about time we had democratic, well-resourced local government in this country?
Greg Clark
The news from the shadow Chancellor will not be welcome in the hon. Gentleman’s patch, as the shadow Chancellor has said that there will be more cuts for local government. He might want him to explain that. The leaders of the councils in Leeds warmly welcomed the growth deal concluded in July, which establishes a £1 billion transport fund for west Yorkshire that will benefit the hon. Gentleman’s constituents as well as others across west Yorkshire. That was warmly welcomed by leaders across the region, so I think that he should talk to them.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Surely the best way to achieve regional growth and to help areas such as the north of England is for good neighbours in Scotland to have full fiscal autonomy to counterbalance what the Minister’s colleague from Twickenham, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, called the great suction machine pulling life from the economy of other parts of these islands. Why is it Government policy to maintain a system that protects London at the expense of other areas?
Greg Clark
That is complete nonsense. The record of job creation over the course of this Parliament shows that the vast majority of jobs have been created outside London. One thing we negotiated was a city deal with the city of Glasgow that was well received in that great city.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
5. What progress he has made on implementing local growth deals.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Greg Clark)
Funding for the local growth deals begins in April this year, but strong progress is being made in implementing the deals even in advance of this. In Gloucestershire the growth hub, which gives advice and support to small businesses, opened at the university of Gloucestershire in October and is already being well used by local businesses.
Richard Graham
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that the university of Gloucestershire’s growth hub in the city of Gloucester is making real progress already. May I invite my right hon. Friend to visit it and, while he is there, to take the opportunity to see our exciting plans for the regeneration of Blackfriars in the city centre, which are a key feature of our LEP’s next bid?
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) was right to predict a spate of invitations. Of course I will come and visit the new growth hub in Gloucester in the company of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham).
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
14. I thank the Minister for the Medway growth deal, which is providing over £30 million to the local area. At the heart of the growth is the development of skilled people. Will he join me in welcoming South East LEP’s new skills capital fund, which is using £22 million for the further education sector to help provide the skills our businesses need to grow?
Greg Clark
I will indeed. The Medway towns have benefited substantially from the growth deal, which is investing in the skills that are required if the jobs of the future are to be well paid and offer the satisfying careers that people want locally.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
I welcomed the Deputy Prime Minister to Wiltshire last month for the formal signing of the Wiltshire and Swindon local growth deal. Funding in that deal for the redevelopment of Chippenham railway station could also be of great benefit to Corsham if it enabled the reopening of a platform for local train services. Does the Minister recognise that the benefit would be much wider than to Chippenham alone?
Greg Clark
The benefits of growth deals go beyond their particular location and help improve the economic prospects of the whole area. The hon. Gentleman is fortunate in Wiltshire in having the rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), as an important advocate for such schemes. The important point is that they are bottom-up and they are proposed by local people.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
6. What steps he is taking to devolve power to cities and metropolitan areas.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Greg Clark)
Cities and their surrounding counties and districts prosper together, which is why I am delighted that the Plymouth city deal, signed last year, also includes businesses and councils in Devon and Cornwall. By opening up South Yard in Devonport to create a commercial marine engineering centre, high-quality jobs will be created not only in Plymouth, but across the south-west.
Oliver Colvile
I thank my right hon. Friend for coming down to Plymouth to sign our city deal this time last year. Plans for a maritime industrial campus are at a good stage, and we would very much welcome his coming down to have a look at them. To give an extra boost to that city deal proposal, I urge him also to speak with the Treasury about ensuring that we have an enterprise zone in that part of the dockyard.
Greg Clark
I am keen to see South Yard be a success—I am certain that it will be. Many of the advantages of an enterprise zone are already available to councils, through simplified planning rules and discounts on business rates, but I will of course study my hon. Friend’s proposal in detail.
David Wright (Telford) (Lab)
It is quite obvious how to devolve more powers to large metropolitan areas, but how do we deal with towns, such as Telford, that sit outside large metropolitan areas? Would it not be better to throw the issues about broader devolution right across England into a constitutional convention?
Greg Clark
It would not, because that would delay the progress we have made. With regard to the hon. Gentleman’s part of the world, if we go to local people and ask them to work together with their neighbours, right across the country we are seeing that they are able and willing to do precisely that. All the deals that have been struck have been proposed locally and are having a big impact on local economies, including in Telford.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Given that the voters of Bury, when asked in a referendum, made it quite clear that they were against the idea of having an elected mayor, and given that across Greater Manchester’s 10 local authorities there are already 645 elected councillors, if 645 elected councillors cannot solve the problems of Greater Manchester, what makes my right hon. Friend think that 646 elected officials will make any difference?
Greg Clark
The proposal was agreed unanimously by all the councils in Greater Manchester. It is important to be clear that the mayor is taking powers that were previously exercised from Whitehall, so this is not about taking powers away from any of those authorities; it is about transferring to a successful city—that is what Greater Manchester indubitably is—the ability to advance its prospects even further.
Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)
7. What assessment he has made of the completeness of the electoral roll.