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Coastal Towns

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) for truncating his comments. It is most frustrating after three hours of debate to have only 10 minutes to respond. I shall do my best to respond to the comments that have been made in the time available. I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey), for bringing this subject forward for debate, and I thank hon. Members for their good and interesting contributions. I noticed that in an intervention my hon. Friend described her own speech as brilliant. That was backed up by several other hon. Members who thought that it was excellent, passionate, comprehensive and cohesive. Clearly, it was a good presentation of the issues that were raised in the report. I have learned a great deal from the debate. From the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir John Butterfill), I learned that Bournemouth is an ideal dating agency, and that it is a centre for foreign students who are learning English. I learned that the best fish and chips are to be found in Cleethorpes, and we had a competition over who went to the oldest person’s birthday party. I can claim only to have attended a 101st birthday party. I have a great affection for seaside towns, having spent several years in Westcliff-on-Sea in the Southend, West constituency. It is important that coastal towns are included in any Government objective to ensure that towns are vibrant, thriving places in which people want to live. They must not be forgotten; they must be included in policy. The report raises a wide range of issues that cut across Government Departments. That shows the depth and breadth of the issues that face coastal towns. The debate goes back several years, and we can all think of Adjournment debates and conferences on the subject. Most recently, on 8 May, officials of my Department took part in a conference on coastal towns hosted by the Department of Trade and Industry. It examined whether there are problems common to coastal towns that need to be addressed, and the best policy approach for doing that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West indicated, the diversity of seaside towns—and, in other cases, the similarities—brings challenges. In the light of the conference, which was valuable, the Government have to consider how to examine the evidence further to inform policy making. I appreciate that in many cases hon. Members are making bids for additional funding for their areas. Indeed, I hope that they will vote for, not against, additional funding when that matter comes before the House. When we make such bids, we perhaps concentrate on some of the negatives and difficulties, but we should also keep at the forefront of our minds the fact that seaside towns have a strong appeal to the public and great potential for the future. Our seaside towns are changing, and there are strong grounds for optimism, but we cannot at any stage be complacent about the problems. I believe that that is recognised in the Government’s response to the report. I would like to make some general points and, if I have time, deal with specific points that hon. Members made. Cross-Government working was raised by several hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds), and my hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) and for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac). My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West spoke about having one Department responsible—she said that there was no one Department to deal with these matters. Unlike the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess), who I believe was at odds with the Committee on the issue, she did not want a national strategy, but she made the point that there should be a permanent cross-Government working group. The Government are convinced that that is the best way forward. It is crucial that there is a far greater degree of working together across Departments hoping to achieve that objective. The report and the debate on it have accelerated progress in that respect. The Government’s approach to coastal towns is to promote the benefits of a local and regional approach to ensure that plans are based on a detailed knowledge of the specific needs of the places. That emphasises the value of taking an integrated and strategic approach and of looking at the economic, social and environmental issues together, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South said. The report mentioned that local, central and regional government should be co-ordinated with business and the voluntary sector so that we are all pulling in the same direction.