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Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I intervene briefly because I shall concentrate my remarks during proceedings on the Report stage of the Bill. I want to say a few words about how we need to consider what has happened historically when considering the future of the development agencies. I believe that the closure of the RDAs, particularly in the north of England—and when I talk about the north of England, I mean the north-west, Yorkshire and Humberside and the north-east—is ill-advised and misconceived, and will ultimately be damaging to the regions. We really need to learn the lessons of history. My mind goes back to the early 1980s, around 30 years ago, when I was a young MP. The debates in the Commons at that time were totally dominated by the decline in the regional economy in the north of England—particularly in shipbuilding, steel, heavy engineering, mining and textiles. Week after week, Question Time after Question Time, Labour MPs—sometimes with Conservatives joining in as well—got up to object to what was happening in the region and to ask how the problems of the region were to be resolved. I was a member of the northern group of Labour MPs. We were constantly being lobbied by industry, employer groups, the trade unions and the local authorities. The CBI in the northern region was prominent in lobbying Labour Members of Parliament to ensure a change in the Government’s regional strategy at that time. I remember a man called James Cran, whom some of us might recall. He subsequently became the Member of Parliament for Beverley in Yorkshire but was then the leading figure in the northern CBI. I remember him appearing on Border Television and north-east television repeatedly, week after week, demanding a reversal of the strategy and some alteration in regional policy. The cry was universal: ““We need a regional strategy””. The constant refrain was, ““The centre cannot deliver””, because the centre was not delivering. Laissez-faire regional strategy, despite European money, meant that the concentration of footloose investment and capital accumulation more widely was in the south. That was our problem. Time and again, the differential in house prices and unemployment rates between the north and the south was cited as evidence of a north-south divide in economic development. As the late John Smith put it 26 years ago, in a debate on regional policy and the need for a regional strategy with agencies delivering, which I remember well from 17 January 1985: "““What is frightening is that the Government appear to be impervious to the damage that they are causing. As the economic storm clouds gather over Britain and become more serious every day, the Government plunge blindly on 544 destroying as they go. When they are finally called to account, the missed opportunities and wanton destruction of regional development policy will, I hope, be high on the indictment””.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/1/85; cols. 543-44.]" I say that history will repeat itself. What John said then will be relevant in these coming years unless there is a change in strategy by the Government. Then I remember the Labour Party conferences in the north of England being dominated by the debate on the need for a regional strategy. Often at the forefront of those debates was the then north-east Member of Parliament Ian Wrigglesworth—now Sir Ian—who I understand the Government have brought in to help with their new regional strategy. Maybe that is no longer true and my noble friends can correct me if I am wrong, but I read somewhere that he has now been brought in. I remember it all as though it were yesterday. It was the debate that dominated all of my 21 years in the House of Commons. I remember the huge debate that was launched in the north in the early 1980s following the publication of a paper entitled—I know my noble friends will remember this—Let’s Pull Together for a Better North. If I recall correctly, it was a paper jointly sponsored by the late Joe Mills of the Transport and General Workers’ Union and the late Lord Burlison, who was in this House. I go on about this because history will repeat itself if we go down this route. Even at this late stage, the Government should revise their strategy. The paper was closely followed by a substantial piece of work—a paper published by my noble friend Lord Prescott on an alternative regional economic strategy. He is not here but he was certainly in his place earlier. He will not mind my saying that it was a very significant paper for Labour MPs; it dominated debates in the parliamentary party over several months. It formed the embryo of the regional strategy that Labour subsequently adopted when we came into government. There were innumerable debates in Parliament on the need for a rethink on regional strategy at the time. During that period there were only two Conservative Ministers who really understood what was happening. One was a chap called Jim Lester. He was a Member of Parliament in a Nottinghamshire constituency—Beeston, if I remember rightly. He had come from the shoe industry and he was an employment and skills Minister. On the Labour Benches, we always felt that he was the one who understood the problems that we had. Surprisingly there was another one, and it was Michael Heseltine. He took the decision to establish the enterprise agencies. Some of them went to the north of England, south Wales and the north-east. He also took the vital decision to put money into Toxteth in Liverpool, the effect of which was to pump prime and bring in additional money from the private sector for environment improvements in Liverpool. The reason I mention those two is that both men, in their own way, were introducing measures to leverage in substantial private investment, a role which ultimately fell upon the broader remit of the RDAs. They were carrying out the functions which subsequently were to be carried out by the RDAs set up by the Labour Government in 1997. I am reminded of the work of the Regional Policy Commission, a non-political initiative established by, again, my noble friend Lord Prescott, and chaired by Bruce Millan, then European Commissioner for Regional Policy. The commission’s recommendations helped steer us towards the regional structures that we subsequently created. Indeed, by the mid-1990s and the eve of the 1997 landslide Labour victory, there was widespread support from the CBI, the TUC, the chambers of commerce and all the political parties across the regions. All opinion across the regions in the north was for an ambitious regional strategy under regional development agencies, bringing in both domestic and European money to fund investment in skills, training and regeneration of physical decay, small business services, assistance to industry, innovation and inward investment initiatives more widely. That is what we delivered against this background of feverish debate in the 1980s and well into the 1990s. It is now all to be destroyed. People throughout the north of England are worried about these developments. I know that we have some friends in there. It may well be that Vince Cable is more sympathetic to our position than he makes public. If he is, and if he is listening to this debate, let him realise that we can no longer rely on Mr Pickles. We want him to intervene and indeed, in many ways, perhaps undermine this strategy before it does damage in the region. If Mr Cable sympathises with our position, let him use the structures within BIS, in a way perhaps that the Government are not intending at this stage, to bring about at least some residual regional structure that can deliver. I say that this is all now at risk, and we appeal even at this late stage for the Government to reverse their position.