It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak in this debate as part of a Government who understand their fiscal responsibility and have produced a Budget that delivers on its promises to the British people and lays the foundation of prosperity for tomorrow. I am grateful for the firm economic foundations as the economy and the Budget are currently overshadowed by coronavirus.
I pay tribute to the support workers, nurses, doctors, volunteers and residents in my constituency. I am immensely proud of them all. The community has come into its own during this incomparable crisis with a sense of true British “Keep calm and carry on” spirit, helping those most vulnerable and in need. I would expect nothing else from my brilliant constituents.
Last night, when I thought about speaking in this debate, I thought at first that my heart would not be in it because of the pressing crisis, but instead that crisis has highlighted to me the importance of the Budget, which is about levelling up and getting Britain building, and whose foundations will see us through this crisis. Levelling up has been compared by some in the media to the verbal equivalent of Polyfilla or mere political jargon, but levelling up has been taking place for the
past three years in the urban west midlands, with not an ounce of Polyfilla in sight. For this debate, I will specifically focus on the urban west midlands.
After decades of losing out and falling behind after successive Labour councils across the region failed to work effectively together, the urban west midlands is starting to catch up. It is without doubt that that is because in 2017 the West Midlands elected its first Mayor, who of course was Andy Street, a Mayor who recognised the need to level up because the people in the west midlands had fallen behind London, Manchester and other cities. His approach has secured £2.3 billion of extra funding from central Government; brought jobs and investment to the west midlands; secured investment from overseas companies; and brought together the team to secure investment from the Government to ensure that the Commonwealth games will be hosted in Birmingham. His approach has seen the urban west midlands on the cusp of economic renaissance.
I wish to take a few minutes to correct politely a few comments made by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) last week. He asked for some evidence of Andy Street’s influence, and I am happy to oblige: £350 million for building homes on brownfield sites; £210 million for expanding the metro; £150 million for apprenticeships and skills; £30 million for new bus routes; £10 million to tackle rough sleeping; and £250 million for improving our high streets.
There is more. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned unemployment, which has fallen in the west midlands by nearly 50% since 2010. In the years during which Andy Street has been Mayor, some 97,000 new jobs have been created and there are nearly 7,000 new businesses. Nearly 50,000 people have started apprenticeships, too.
The right hon. Member mentioned housing. More than 31,000 homes have been built across the west midlands since Andy became mayor. That is a 42% rise, and, as I said last week, he smashed his own target of 25,000. Rough sleeping is down by a third because of his Housing First scheme.
This Budget gave us £160 million for the metro and for buses and a share of £4.2 billion for more rail and metro improvements. Construction has begun on the £449 million metro to Dudley and Brierley Hill. Please, Andy, if you are listening, do not forget to add a few extra tracks of the metro stretches to Stourbridge. This Government are also levelling up on the railways, developing the west midlands rail hub
The west midlands has been levelling up for the past three years, and, thanks to this Government, it will continue to do so in the future. That is the same levelling up that this Government are bringing to the whole country to provide opportunity and to share prosperity across the UK. The Government’s commitment to levelling up and getting Britain building will see impressive feats of engineering not just in the west midlands, but across the country. My one request to this Government is to do it sustainably and sympathetically to our natural environment. Whatever we are investing in for the future, we must respect the environment that they will share.
I welcome the announcement last week to reform our planning system and to bring forward a White Paper by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Housing,
Communities and Local Government. I hope that this planning reform will make the most of disused and neglected land. I welcome the Government’s announcement that they will launch a register of brownfield sites, which is backed by £400 million across the mayoral combined authorities to bring mostly unused land back to use. I hope the White Paper will have the confidence to follow the brownfield first example, which was set in the urban west midlands.
In conclusion, I welcome this Budget and the opportunity to level up and get Britain building. The only way to drive economic growth, as the urban west midlands has shown, is to boost productivity. Thankfully, it is this Government who will see us through this medical crisis—a Government who have a sense of fiscal responsibility and who recognise that levelling up will ensure the future prosperity of every town and city in this great and United Kingdom. It is a Budget that delivers on its promises to the British people to get things done, while also understanding that additional support in light of covid-19 will now have to be considered.
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