---

Building Britain's Future

I share some of the doubts expressed by the Conservative Front Bench spokesman about the value of this Committee in that it has no power to take votes and about it being a talking shop rather than an effective Committee. None the less, we are here representing Parliament in Nottingham, and I welcome the Minister’s reminder in his opening remarks that Parliament last sat here in the 14th century. This is therefore a landmark sitting in the 21st century. One member of the Committee has already referred to the fact that Nottingham played another part in the development of Parliament when the King, having a few months earlier barged his way into Parliament with soldiers to try to arrest five MPs before then closing Parliament down, raised his standard in Nottingham to begin the seven-year civil war in order to try to impose a monarchical dictatorship on Britain’s then young, fledgling democracy. He failed of course; Parliament won that battle, and we are here today as a result. An event that has not been touched upon, but other, more local MPs may wish to mention it later, is that Nottingham also played a part in the development of parliamentary democracy in 1832 when the Conservative Government, led by the Duke of Wellington, were desperately opposed to increasing the franchise from 2 to 5 per cent. of rich, landowning men. Nottingham castle was burned down by a rioting mob as part of the protests against what the Government were doing. Such protests led to the Reform Act 1832, which began the more rapid development of British democracy. Nottingham has therefore had quite a role in the development of British parliamentary democracy, although not always in the happiest of circumstances. If we are here to talk about how the region will make the most of the upturn, one of the first questions to ask is whether we are yet witnessing that upturn. Some economists have been getting excited, both yesterday and today, with some early signs that perhaps we are witnessing an upturn. However, in a radio debate earlier today, two economists could not agree on that, which is not surprising, given the lamentable failure to guide the financial sector last year, which led to the massive crash of the world’s economic system. The key point quoted by both economists was that what we have seen is the first example of a halt in the fall rather than an increase in output. Therefore, if we are in an upturn, it is very early days. All the objective economic commentators from across the world and Europe agree that the UK is in a bad position and will be the last of the major western European economies to come out of the recession properly at some point next year—hopefully. The economists are also uncertain about what sort of recession we are in. Is it a V-shaped recession, where we drop into it rapidly—as we did early this year—but come out of it rapidly? Is it a U-shaped recession, where we come out slowly? Is it a double-dip recession, where we may have a temporary false dawn, which we may be witnessing now, and then drop back into recession again in the next few months? They just do not know, economics being an incredibly inexact and rather overconfident science, as we have seen recently. Certainly, the evidence from an area such as Chesterfield shows that we are still struggling with the recession and the credit crunch. There are major sites that were undergoing development in Chesterfield, with a mixture of council and private sector involvement, and others that were about to start development. Donkin’s site, which lines Derby road, one of the major routes into Chesterfield, was being rapidly developed by the private sector and it is about three-quarters done. However, that ground to a halt last autumn, and the last parts of it have to wait until the credit flow eases up and the final private sector development can be completed. The Waterside development is already with a conglomeration of, I think, four different private sector companies, which have worked with the council to deal with a parcel of former industrial land alongside the railway and the canal, and put together a visionary package to redevelop that area. They were all ready to roll—they have had good help from EMDA in putting in the bases of a canal marina, which will create the core of the Waterside development—but again, that has ground to a halt because of the absolute blockage on the availability of credit for the private sector. The credit would have allowed them to get on with building the houses, shops and offices and the prestige development that the Waterside development will be. However, the site will now be developed more slowly than was anticipated a year ago. Robinsons was one of the former major employers in Chesterfield, apart from engineering and the coal mines. It now largely no longer exists, but it holds a lot of former industrial land along Chatsworth road, another of the main entries into Chesterfield from the Peak district. Again, it was looking for much of that to be used for more prestigious housing on that side of town, but it has all ground to a halt because of the total collapse in private sector house building and the credit freeze in the recession. Junction 29A, which is partly in Chesterfield, leads into the Markham Vale site. A great deal of work has been put into that junction by the local councils providing the land and by the Government and the taxpayer, but a year later, nothing has happened on the site. It is a fantastic industrial site in a perfect position for commerce to develop, but nothing has happened for a year due to the recession and the credit crunch. When will we see the signs of upturn? Certainly, we are not seeing them yet in Chesterfield. There are four separate developments there that have everything going for them, but have ground to a halt because of the present economic circumstances. We have already heard this question asked: what are the banks doing about that? The banks are now mostly publicly owned—nationalised, effectively. The longest suicide note in history, the Labour manifesto for the 1983 general election, suggested nationalising the commanding heights of the economy, such as the banks. That seemed outrageous at the time, but we have now virtually done it because the banks bankrupted themselves through their appalling financial management last year. The economies of the world and of Britain would have been in a far more dire position had the taxpayer not bailed them out in the way we did, but what are we getting in return? We have already heard various questions asked about whether the banks are playing their part, considering that they now exist by and large only because of the taxpayer adding something like 10 per cent. to the national debt to bail out their folly last autumn.