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Regeneration

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. It has been said, in particular about helping with skills and improving people's availability for employment, that what happened was that people in Newham who got that help then moved to other areas. There are clearly challenges to making regeneration successful. One of the criticisms we made in the Select Committee report was about learning lessons from the past. We should look at where money has been spent—the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) was keen on that in the Committee—and at what was got right and wrong. We took evidence from Lord Heseltine and went to Hulme to look at the city challenge area which, in everyone's view, was a success. It was, however, a 20-year project and, to begin with, did not go well. Lessons were learnt from initial failures, but it was a 20-year programme with the public and private sectors working together; it was about not only buildings but skills, employment opportunities and the general environment of the area. It was also a lot about demolition of some really bad properties, and their replacement with new, attractive properties in the private as well as the public sector, as we saw on our visit. The issue of the long term is so important. The hon. Gentleman is right that we can have long-term projects that still go wrong, but if we do not do things for the long term we will not get some areas right at all. There was a lady in the community centre in Rochdale who said to us—she had not been briefed and she put it in her own way—““It is a bit like going on a weight-loss course. It is easy to get a few pounds and even a few stones off at first, but it gets harder and harder. You have got to keep working at it. If you don't keep going at it for the long term, you clap the weight back on and all the hard work of the previous time has been lost.”” That is a real worry now in some housing market renewal areas—that the investment has gone in but stopped halfway, so some of the benefits will be lost. That lady's comments always stuck in my mind. She was so enthusiastic about her area because it had been about improvements to the school and to employment opportunities. I remember she said, ““I used to be ashamed to bring visitors. In fact, I used to pretend that I didn't live here. Now when they come to visit, I walk down the street with pride because of what has been done.”” That is an awfully good testament to what happened. We ought to learn lessons from the failures. I am trying not to be party political, and the single regeneration budget had some successes but, very often, it was spread too thinly around the place, to give everyone a little bit but without achieving any long-term benefits. Let us learn from the problems of the past as well as from the successes achieved—that is a bit of common ground with the Minister at least. The regional growth fund was proposed as a possible solution, but Lord Heseltine has told the Committee, absolutely bluntly, ““This is not about improvements for housing. There is no money here for those sorts of initiatives.”” He told us that, in words of one syllable. He basically said, ““It doesn't matter what the Minister says, I am in charge of this””, and I am sure that the Minister does not want to argue with Lord Heseltine on such points.