Debate on the Address

As someone who lost half his pension requirement through Equitable Life, I have every sympathy with the points made on the Floor of this House about pensions. This issue has been mentioned in the Queen’s Speech and there will be debates on it. A local government pension lobby will attend the House next Wednesday, and I look forward to seeing the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) there, in addition to his listening to my reply today. The Gracious Speech also referred to the fact that strong, secure and stable communities are at the heart of the Government’s programme. Although it made no specific reference to a White Paper on communities, we expect one on city regions to be presented before Christmas. Such regions will add to the concept of stable communities. City regions and regional development agencies are not mutually exclusive, as the Economic Secretary will tell us. The concept of a Tees valley city region has great attractions for Teesside. In this respect, I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird), who has taken up her Front-Bench position for this debate. This week, she launched a £750,000 state-of-the-art channel pilot vessel called the Greatham, in the presence of the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman). Teesport has a £300 million deep-sea container terminal plan—a plan that is currently absent from the Government’s controversial draft national port strategy. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar mentioned that last year when seconding the motion, so she will remember that. We will continue this project with patience and perseverance, with the help of the Transport Minister and others. We also have plans for a Tees valley metro stretching from Darlington to Saltburn, with the potential for a future phase reaching Hartlepool and Nunthorpe, in Middlesbrough. It has the approval of five Tees valley local authorities, and it would cost £140 million and could be operating within 10 years. These are major projects for the public sector, but we have a strong private sector that is seeking to regenerate Teesside, building on our strong petrochemical industry. We are building a biofuel industry on the production of renewable energy products. We have Biofuels at Seal Sands and B1-Fuels in Middlesbrough, with two more plants in the pipeline. We have a wood-burning power station that is due to come online in 2007 and Petroplus Refining, and we shall have Ensus, which is a further plant producing biofuel. Although production of biofuel feedstock crops, such as rape seed for biodiesel, offers UK agriculture an excellent market opportunity, domestic production cannot meet the future demand that will be necessary under the European Commission’s 5 per cent. renewable transport fuels obligation, especially if the Government move to a higher target of 10 per cent. of biofuels. The Government should consider how the import of feedstock from new sustainable crops from the developing world, such as jatropha, can play a role in meeting our energy needs, benefiting both ourselves and some of the poorest countries on earth. Urban regeneration goes hand in hand with industrial regeneration, linking up with the call in the Gracious Speech for stable communities. We need urban regeneration on Teesside to meet the housing demand that flows from industrial regeneration. We need new homes in the hearts of our towns to ease the pressure on North Yorkshire. We need to provide homes for those who will sustain our strong petrochemical industry, which has 12,000 workers, and the new industries of chemical manufacturing, research and development into renewable energy, advanced engineering and logistics. We need a clear plan for home ownership in the north, especially on Teesside. Urban regeneration will be the base of the stable communities to which the Gracious Speech referred. To be sure, urban regeneration will take time—some 10 years, with appropriate levels of investment. That investment may be Government led, but the private sector will leverage in funds to the tune of some £450 million. For that to happen, our single housing investment pot should rise to £30 million a year, to give us the 10-year building space. So far, £32 million has been made available over two years. That is obviously £16 million a year, but there is doubt in Government circles over the second year commitment. We are seeking to achieve a golden dawn of industrial regeneration and urban regeneration on Teesside. A great deal will be made of the Prime Minister’s last address on the Gracious Speech, which will be compared with his first. One thing that I remember is that in 1997 the first act of the then Secretary of State for Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson), was to authorise the private finance building of the James Cook university hospital, which is now one of the finest hospitals in the country. I met a constituent at the Middlesbrough cenotaph on Sunday who had returned to the constituency because her ailing husband needed the best treatment that he could receive, which she knew would be at the James Cook university hospital. Many have written to me to say that the hospital is patient centred, family centred and community centred. Of all the legacies that our Prime Minister will leave us from his tenure in office, he can be proud of what he has done for our patients, those who attend the health service and those who have benefited from it. That will be one of his finest legacies.