East Midlands Economy

Lee Rowley Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David.

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. It is great to be both back in the Chamber and able to speak about the east midlands, which is a region that we do not speak of enough in this place. I look forward to the Minister getting a clear message from all of us here about how important a focus on the east midlands will be in the coming months and years.

Although those of us here today will probably not agree on absolutely everything—I am sorry to say to the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) that in a moment I may just pick up on one or two points she made—in general, the combined and aggregate view of the people in this room, and indeed in the east midlands, is that we of course want to see our area doing better, and we also want Government support for it in the right places and having the right, effective outcomes. Overall, that will help us all across the east midlands, from the very north, where I am, to the very south, where some of my colleagues in this debate are.

We have much to celebrate. It is important to understand the achievements that we have made, or are in the process of making, to recognise the importance of where we need to go forward. I was pleased to see the freeport, which I am sure colleagues will talk about in a moment. It will be transformational for the region, especially for particular parts of it, but even those of us who are a little further away from it are glad that it has come.

There are also the things that my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) talked about—the longer-term and more strategic issues that we need to tackle in the east midlands. They are also positive. I look forward to working with him and other colleagues on those in the years ahead.

Everyone in the next hour will make the case for individual areas, I am sure, and I want to make the case for my area. We have already achieved good progress on broadband, which is hugely important for rural areas in particular, in constituencies such as mine on the edge of the Peak, in places such as Barlow and Spinkhill.

We have successfully convinced the Government to spend a lot of money in Staveley and in Clay Cross through the town deals. We are one of only a handful of places to get two town deals in close proximity, and we are very grateful for that. It is now the responsibility of the local councils, which we are working well with, to ensure that the money is delivered effectively into projects that change our area for the long term.

Only a few months ago, we had the very good news that we were going to get a new free school in our area on the old Avenue regeneration site. That is another example of where, after a decade of aspirations but being unable to deliver them, we are now plugging the gaps in funding and finding ways to deliver the things we need for local communities.

We have great opportunities, some of which I share with the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins). I look forward to, and will continue to support, opportunities such as the long-awaited Staveley bypass, which is now moving to the next level, which is positive; the work on the A61, which is being led by Derbyshire County Council, to try to secure long-term improvements there; the possibility of reopening rail along the Barrow Hill line; regeneration for towns such as Dronfield, Killamarsh and Eckington in my patch; and the actual physicality of what the integrated rail plan—when we see it—does for my constituency. Everyone, whatever their view of High Speed 2 or other aspects of train policy, wants to see an outcome to the integrated rail plan and what it means for individual constituencies.

In the couple of seconds I have left, I want to say one thing. Infrastructure is vital to our area, just as it is to every other area around the country. However, infrastructure is not everything. That does not mean that the primary message from this debate to the Government and the Minister should not be that we want more infrastructure—we want the ability to build a more successful east midlands over the long term—but there are many other elements of Government policy where the state can help that we also need to consider.

We need to ensure that we are levelling up across education. One of the things that I completely agree with the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) about is the need to level up on skills. We also need to level up on aspiration, opportunities and ensuring that people in our areas know that they can achieve things in a way that, when I came out of school in Chesterfield 20 years ago, we did not used to be sure of. If we do that, combined with the infrastructure improvements that I am sure will be talked about for the next hour and have already been articulated, we will have a great case to make for our region in the coming decades.