North-West (Strategic Plan)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 21 Rhagfyr 1973.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Michael Meacher Michael Meacher , Oldham West 12:00, 21 Rhagfyr 1973

In drawing attention to the Oldham Study and the new Strategic Plan for the North-West I wish to make clear that I do not propose to engage merely in an exercise of special pleading. I recognise that other regions besides the North-West, and other towns within the North-West besides Oldham, have as much right, and sometimes more right, to extra resources. What I am asserting is that the present system for allocating expenditure aids to the region is patently unsatisfactory, and that within a restricted system for giving aid, whatever form it might take, much more attention should be paid to the rather specialised problems of the North-West arising from its once crucial rôle as the cradle of the Industrial Revolution.

Both the reports which were commissioned by the Government, whilst they recommend certain procedural and organisational improvements, which I know have been noted locally, also make certain radical proposals for changing the balance and the pattern of expenditure on a major scale in order to achieve a regional revival. It is to probe the Government's attitude and intentions towards these proposals that I have sought this debate.

The basic justification for seeking a revamp of regional policy is that, after having been operated for a decade or more, it has achieved relatively little in mitigating the huge and indefensible inequalities between the regions that cost such a slur on the face of our society. There are several reasons. One is that attention has been focused almost exclusively on one criterion, albeit an important criterion—unemployment. Another is that the size of the expenditure devoted to regional aid has never been pitched at a level at which it might seriously be expected to redress this degree of imbalance. It has always been a matter merely of patching up the blackest defects.

The third reason is that Governments—one has to say both Governments—have clung tenaciously to the fallacy that merely topping up the main system of what is a virtually non-redistributive local authority rate support was sufficient to redress gross inequalities, and patently it is not.

What is refreshing about the strategic plan for the North-West is that all of this offers a breakthrough to new and better techniques, and I hope that the Government will respond imaginatively and constructively. The strategic plan argues that the criteria for overall regional allocation of resources should be not only employment opportunities but the need to improve the quality of life, particularly housing, the eradication of pollution, and the quality of the health, medical and social services, education and recreational and cultural facilities.

I am convinced this is the right approach. But if it is accepted, as I hope it will be, it has enormous implications, because the North-West turns out to be the worst off of all the regions in terms of air pollution, derelict land, the general mortality rate and the infant mortality rate. It is also revealed to have the poorest availability of doctors, the worst pupil-teacher ratio, the least open country recreation and the greatest river pollution. The North-West is also near the bottom of the league in terms of black areas not subject to smoke control orders. It has the smallest number of pupils remaining at school beyond the age of 16 and the smallest number of pupils in full-time further education. It is the lowest in urban open space provision and it lacks various recreational features.

That is a remarkable list of needs. The entire set of indices together demonstrate that there is no other region in Britain, with the possible exception in some respects of the Northern Region, that overall is in such bad shape. The point of the debate is that nowhere is that reflected in the degree of aid.

For that reason it is all the more important, with that degree of environmental, social, medical and recreational problems, that the North-West is nevertheless shown for the first time by the report to be comprehensively a long way from receiving due recognition of these factors in public expenditure terms. In 1964 it had the lowest per capita receipt of capital expenditure in the country and the third lowest per capita receipt of current expenditure. By 1970, admittedly, that had risen and in terms of per capita public investment in new construction it had risen to the average position, according to an Answer I received from the Department of the Environment on 26th January last year. But that is still a far cry from relating public expenditure closely to need. That is what the objective should be.

The strategic plan states: It has to be recognised that some of the resources which might be directed to remedying the ills of the North-West are being transferred to other regions where the indications are that the quality of life is already better. Despite the velvet glove language, it would be difficult to find a more direct and straightforward indictment of regional policy than that.

The main reason why the North-West has so signally failed to obtain help in proportion to need is that the rate support grant suffers from a number of defects as a means of distributing subsidies to local authorities. It is only mildly redistributive and tends to trap local authorities in their own poverty. The latter is because any potential extra rate revenue which might accrue from new industrial development is offset, pound for pound, by reductions in the rate support grant; and it is only when an authority is above the national average in terms of the resources element that it begins to obtain a net financial gain from attracting additional rate revenue to its area.

Because it is the poorest authorities, many of which are in the North-West, which often have the severest problems, to use the average as the cut-off point for the resources payment merely ensures that there will never be more than partial progress towards establishing common standards of provision and services throughout the country. I hope that the Minister agrees that this is an unfair and discriminatory system which is bound to penalise local authorities which, like many in the North-West, are burdened by an accumulation of serious and expensive problems.

I ask the Minister, first, to what extent he accepts the proposals in the strategic plan for achieving greater equity. In particular, does he agree that we should be aiming at formulae which would equalise rate payments per house for each authority and for equalising the non-domestic rate poundage given standard expenditure? What is his response to the Oldham study recommendations set out on page 50 of the report: The Department of the Environment should consider making adjustments to the rate support grant formula to take greater account of urban obsolescence and the need to compensate for a low level of private investment. The report goes on to suggest that the needs element in the rate support grant might also include the percentage of unfit houses and the lack of sanitary facilities and that the resources element might take into account low incomes and low rates of commercial floor space construction per head of the population.

Does the Minister agree with those formulae, or does he prefer alternative formulations directed towards the same end; or what guarantee can he give that in future expenditure will be proportional to needs as they are more comprehensively defined in the report? That is the key question. The essential point is that it is not enough merely to top up a virtually non-redistributive local authority grant with specific projects, as Governments of both parties have done, such as community development projects, educational priority areas and the urban aid programme. Welcome though these are in our area—and I should be the first to admit that the Oldham area has gained from them—they are on a relatively miniscule financial scale and are not even aimed at securing the across-the-board uplift in the regional quality of life which must be the objective.

The third and most essential part of the strategic plan concerns the estimate of expenditure which might be required over the next decade to transform the environment in all its manifold aspects. On the question of environmental pollution, in respect of which the North-West is assessed as being worse off than any other region, the plan estimates that to secure significant improvement in this decade will cost £300 million to £450 million, over three-quarters of which should go towards improving the quality of the region's rivers.

On current trends—and this is taken from the report which pre-dates the last public expenditure cuts—likely expenditure will be only £185 million. That is scarcely more than half of what is needed. Perhaps the most important single question that emerges from this debate is what proposals the Government have towards doubling the present target expenditure in the North-West in the light of this report which they commissioned.

The importance of this question lies in the dramatic effect which it has on the time-span of improvement that the North-West can look forward to. In respect of reclaiming derelict land, for example, it is a particularly vital factor. As the North-West plan says: If reclamation were maintained at a rate of 800 acres a year as it stands at the moment— existing dereliction would not be cleared until 1994. Surely, that is not acceptable, quite apart from the fact that it takes no account of accumulated obsolescence in the meantime.

With regard to urban environment and all its interconnected social aspects—and one of the most distressing and difficult things is the way they interconnect—the strategic plan makes several important recommendations, and I urge the Minister to make clear the Government's reaction on each of these main points which I will detail.

First, there has been quite a sharp rise, which is very creditable, in the level of uptake of improvement grants. At this level it is estimated that it should be possible to secure within a decade—that is, the time-span of the report—the upgrading of all the 432,000 improvable private houses that were located by the Circular 50/72 survey. But, if such a rate of improvement is accepted as the long-term objective of regional policy, it will require, as the plan rightly puts it, the extension beyond June 1974 of the present temporary 75 per cent improvement grant. Although I am well aware that the Government have already turned this down, will they not now reconsider their decision rather than sacrifice a desirable objective that is probably considered now to be within our grasp?

Secondly, the strategic plan recommends, as a means of breaking the self-perpetuating cycle of educational deprivation, that the educational priority areas should be extended not only within the inner city areas but also to new housing on the peripheral estates where there are social problems. I am sure that is right, but do the Government accept that view?

Thirdly, the plan notes that the Northwest is badly provided for in terms of urban open space and recommends minimum aims for both urban parks and playing fields of three acres per 1,000 population. Oldham and Tameside, the new metropolitan districts, both have considerably less than half this at present. What is needed here are specific grants, with, I hope, flexibility for local authorities to deploy Exchequer aid within these areas as they see fit. Will the Government extend the countryside grants on the scale that is necessary to renew the environment in the way that is proposed in the report?

Fourthly, the plan suggests that in the past decade the availability of cheap industrial buildings, especially where they are no longer required by the textile industry, has slightly helped new enterprises to get a foothold in the region, especially in those areas that were formerly used by the textile industry. But the plan also takes the view that this advantage is generally outweighed by the environmental disfigurement which these buildings present and recommends that they should be progressively cleared.

I therefore ask the Minister whether the Government will sanction the use of compulsory powers in respect of old and derelict buildings, even in those cases where there is no intention to engage in housing redevelopment. This change, although a relatively small one, could greatly improve the face of the Northwest.

Fifthly, in terms of employment opportunities the plan recommends that a labour subsidy, possibly an improved form of regional employment premium, is required to maintain a better balance between capital and labour incentives. This matter has been debated many times in the House, but in view of the clear evidence that capital investment is so often job contracting rather than job expanding, I hope that the Government might still be prevailed upon to think again on this issue.

Sixthly, the plan points out that while the North-West has a fair share of office employment, it is still weak with regard to higher-grade work, especially the headquarter or regional office component of manufacturing and service industries. It suggests that there are important multiplier effects to be reaped from the introduction of "higher order" type of office employment into areas with economic difficulties. What proposals have the Government to secure a better spread of this type of employment with such valuable side effects?

Lastly, the plan draws attention to the importance of the regional rail link. I quote from page 217 of the report: Achievement of the recommended land-use pattern is particularly dependent on improved access across the conurbations, especially in Greater Manchester. Here we think it most important that uninterrupted cross-conurbation connections should be provided on the north-south axis so that the present imbalance in economic and social fields should be minimised…. Hence we support the Piccadilly-Victoria network in general and the Piccadilly-Victoria link in particular. It is particularly relevant that the Minister for Transport Industries in a Written Answer yesterday stated on the Piccadilly-Victoria project: I told the Chairman of the Selnec PTA last August that the project could in no circumstances start before 1975–76", although it must be said that the Government have now relented on the principle of the project by making it subject to the new transport grant under the proposed local government legislation. There must, especially in present circumstances, be an overall ceiling on expenditure, but I still hope that, in view of the high strategic importance attached to this conurbation underground rail link, the Government might still deem it a waste of time to change these priorities in the meantime.

I believe that the strategic plan is a document of explosive significance. It is the first time that an official Government report has undertaken systematic interregional comparisons on a comprehensive set of indices. It lays a foundation, in a far more detailed manner than ever before, for a more rational channelling of resources into areas of greatest deprivation.

On the balanced assembly of all this evidence, the North-West is revealed for the first time as the worst-off region in the country, yet it is subject to a net loss of resources under current grant-aid policies. The plan in paragraph 292 comments on the need for … a massive injection of additional resources and consequently recommendations on revision of rate support grant, for reorganisation of specific grants, and for an additional regional fund for work outside other programmes ". I hope the Government will respond to this report in an equally constructive and positive spirit since it is a report commissioned by the Government.