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Economic Downturn (Unemployment)

I thank Devon county council for making its facilities available to us today. I also thank the Minister for facilitating this event and other hon. Members for attending? I am very proud that the first such Committee sitting is in the county of my birth, and I am equally proud to represent my home town, which is situated in this county, in Parliament. I am sure that many of us have been searching for a more effective way to hold the regional arms of Government to account, and I hope that this is just the start of a long process of devolving more democratic debate, and even power, to the regional and local level. The Liberal Democrats have always been strongly in favour of bringing democratic accountability and decision making to a more local level. There has traditionally been a gap at the regional level on holding to account Government Departments in the regions, alongside unelected quangos. This Committee is a small step in the right direction. However, this minor step forward follows the giant leap backwards of the Government’s insistence on having a majority of seats on the Regional Select Committees. The failure to take account of the political make-up of each region covered by those Committees betrays a partisan streak in the Government’s intentions. It is consistent with an authoritarian ideology that finds little favour in our more liberal, independent and plural part of the United Kingdom. It also makes it hard for certain areas to be represented. The scarcity of Labour MPs in the far south-west means that whole counties such as Cornwall might not have a voice in such a Committee. A further, if slightly tangential, difficulty is that the concept of the south-west region is purely a construct of not only this Government, but of Governments long since past. The social and economic make-up of Devon and Cornwall is wholly different from that of Bristol and Swindon, for example. Creating a regional strategy that encompasses the varied needs of such areas will necessarily involve a compromise. Such a compromise would be unnecessary, however, if the boundaries within which communities wished to be included were be determined by the communities themselves, not by lines drawn on a map in Whitehall. Our primary purpose in this forum should be to reflect the views of the people we represent individually as MPs. It is such a pity that the report that we are debating could not have reflected those views proportionately according to how the people had voted when asked whom they wished to speak for them. Nevertheless, the Committee’s inquiry into the response to the recession is welcome, and it is good to see that a wide range of the more immediate issues has been explored. The unemployment statistics for the region have not been positive, but it is arguable that the real cost of the recession to our part of the UK is not so easily reflected in simple jobseeker claims. The nature of the industries that dominate the region, especially tourism, increases the prevalence of self-employment and of seasonal, part-time and low-paid work. In Torbay and across Cornwall, there are higher levels of economic inactivity among the working-age population and a greater preponderance of elderly residents. Settlements such as Swindon have seen devastating drops in raw employment numbers and coastal and rural areas, which start from a far lower employment base, have seen the expansion of underemployment. The Government have been reluctant to recognise that, and it contributes greatly to the high levels of poverty and deprivation in so many of our communities. The recession has brought not just financial impacts, but worsening physical and mental health and social breakdown. Those are wide-ranging issues that are by no means unconnected to the urgency of stemming the tide of unemployment and increasing economic activity. Our part of the UK—the far south-west in particular—must respond to the long-term decline of the four main pillars of our economy. Far fewer people are employed in tourism, fishing, agriculture and defence than one, five, 10 or even 30 years ago. The invention of the jet engine and the development of the package holiday offer people a bucket-and-spade vacation with guaranteed sunshine, often for less money, from a regional airport that is closer to their home than the English coast. Fewer fishermen and boats are required for the same sized haul. New technology has increased the catch to the point where some species of fish are near extinction. Modern farming techniques and global competition have increased yields while forcing the small family farmer out of business. The end of the cold war and the reappraisal of Britain’s role in the world have led to a reduction in the amount of defence-related economic activity, even before Devonport loses its role housing Britain’s submarine fleet. Tourist resorts have been affected because today’s visitor is less likely to patronise locally owned business and will instead stay in branded accommodation or self-catering. They stock up at national supermarkets and if they venture out to eat or drink, it will be to a nationally branded pub or restaurant, with the result that less of their money stays in the local economy. Those are big challenges. Although the Government’s response had a slow start, there is now a great deal of activity and we hear of several new initiatives every week. However, we must see whether that activity produces positive outcomes.