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The Rt. Hon. Patricia HewittLGA Economic Regeneration Conference |
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Dave, colleagues, friends thank you very much indeed for that warm reception. It's an enormous pleasure for me to be here today and of course I was determined to come and very pleased to be invited because as you've rightly said economic regeneration and regeneration of some of our most disadvantaged communities is a personal as well as a political passion for me and representing as I do some of the most deprived communities certainly in the East Midlands and in some cases in the country as a whole it's central to my work as a constituency member of parliament as well as, as a Minister. But it's also a huge pleasure to be back in Cardiff a shining example itself of regeneration as we've just heard from the Deputy Mayor and of course to have the opportunity later on today to see some of my colleagues in the Welsh Assembly and the Welsh Executive. This subject of economic regeneration and of creating real economic vitality is of huge importance. It is really central to the Government's ability to deliver on our vision of prosperity and opportunity for everyone in our country, every nation and every region in our country, every community whether it's rural or urban, in other words our ability to deliver for women and men whatever their background whatever community they come from. I think we've made some real strides over the last five years. We face at the moment exceptionally difficult global economic conditions. We're all aware of that in our own lives and work. We're not perhaps aware that 22 countries of the world including most of the world's major economies are either in recession or just coming out of recession and in that situation of course the United Kingdom can't isolate itself, can't be immune from those difficulties and for any of us who are particularly involved in manufacturing industry for any of us in communities that are particularly dependent on manufacturing industry we can see only too clearly the affect of the global downturn on manufacturing firms and manufacturing workers. And yet if anybody had said ten years ago even five years ago that America could be in recession, Japan could be in recession, Germany in recession and Britain not nobody would have believed us and the truth is that thanks to some very tough economic decisions that Gordon Brown made just over five years ago we have indeed escaped recession and we will again this year be the best performing economy of all the European countries. And the rightness of those decisions that we made five years ago very tough decisions on public spending as well as on the monetary policy framework have given us the lowest inflation, the lowest interest rates, above all the lowest unemployment for over 30 years and of course provided the platform for unprecedented levels of investment in our public services. And we can see the importance of that economic transformation right here in Wales with 18,000 more people in employment than there were just a year ago and what that means is that the unemployment gap which always affected Wales, always meant that Wales had far worse unemployment than the rest of the United Kingdom has narrowed indeed almost disappeared completely. You look at what's happened to pay as well partly of course because of the national minimum wage but here in Wales again for instance we've seen real wages go up by seven per cent between just 1999 and 2001 so more people in work, more people particularly the low paid better paid. But huge challenges ahead as well. Of course we have a divide between the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. You look at Gross Domestic Product, you look at actual output per head twice as high very nearly in London compared with the poorest part of our country. You look at productivity highest again in London anything up to 25% lower in other parts of the country. You look at business creation twice as high in the South East as in the North East of England. So a divide between nations and regions that holds back families and communities but holds us back as a country but also of course a divide within each of our nations and regions and within the South East despite their overall levels of prosperity. You look at Brighton & Hove just to take one example with productivity some 20% below the national average. You look at again parts of the South East that barely scrape up to 70% in employment and yet parts of Wales who have made it to 80% and above. And of course in every nation in every region in London despite those overall wealth figures neighbourhoods, communities of massive disadvantage some as I say within my own constituency in Leicester. So that is the challenge to enable everyone in every community and every nation and region to contribute to wealth creation and share in the fruits of that wealth creation. But what about the context and the context of course is that ugly word globalisation. In other words a world that's extra, that's changing extraordinarily fast, where finance and production is increasingly mobile, where there are new markets opening up not least in Central and Eastern Europe and the ten countries that will soon be members of the European Union but in those new markets as well as new opportunities intense competition not least to our established manufacturing sectors. Huge opportunities in this new world that is being created but also massive sources of insecurity that of course affect our most vulnerable people and communities worst. Now we no longer hear very much about the argument that was all the currency five ten years ago that because of globalisation national governments can't make a difference. That argument I think people have realised was simply wrong and the truth of the matter in a sense the paradoxical truth of the matter is that the more these global interconnections and interdependencies deepen and become more important in our lives so the local becomes more important. So the power of place becomes all the greater and in a way it is precisely because mobile companies and mobile investors and mobile people can choose where they live or locate that these days nations and regions and cities and communities do have the power and certainly the challenge to make themselves magnets for those mobile people and mobile investors. And the truth of the matter is that in this complex globallised economy you cannot create vibrant sustainable economies right across our country by making decisions in London. The real experts in the future and in the strengths and in the challenges of any particular place the real experts are the people who live in that place. And we know that if each of our nations and regions in each city and each community is going to thrive then it needs strong local leadership and part of that strong leadership is the strong partnership that those leaders create between the public sector, the private sector, the not for profit sector and the local community and its residents. And that is why devolution of power this cascading of power down is not a separate constitutional agenda it is central to economic and social and environmental regeneration. So devolution to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, power sharing in Northern Ireland and soon we hope to be reinstated. Within England the creation of the Regional Development Agencies and we're giving those agencies far more money. The budget will go up to two billion pounds by 2005/6 and within the single pot freedom to invest those resources where they are most needed to deliver the regional economic strategy and then alongside the Regional Development Agencies the creation initially of those not directly elected assemblies and then as people in each region express their views the possibility of directly elected regional assemblies. And then of course it means within each nation and region a strong role for local authorities a catalyst amongst other things for local strategic partnerships, key players in the new urban regeneration companies. But it also means real leadership and capacity building and a real say for the residents of the most deprived communities. Now we know I think from our own experience here in the United Kingdom and from a great deal of experience in the developed and the developing world we know what the key elements of success really are and I just want to touch on a few of those before opening this up for discussion and questions. First of all the whole issue of innovation. We've got a mounting body of evidence now around the world which tells us that the real perhaps the most important key to economic success and wealth creation in future is the ability of different places to build and then to harness their science base. Now we have in Britain an outstanding science base. We have one per cent of the world's population, we fund five per cent of the world's science, we produce nine per cent of the world's scientific papers and discoveries but we've not always been nearly so good about turning invented in Britain into made in Britain and that's the challenge that faces us all. So I was delighted to hear the announcement that Andrew Davis made yesterday about the innovation strategy for Wales and the new investment that's been made. Just as we've seen in the North West of England the success of the North West Regional Development Agency creating a science partnership for the North West bringing together the outstanding science departments of the universities but bringing them together not just with each other but with local industry as well. Seen it with Advantage West Midlands with their strategy of developing technology corridors and I had the good fortune recently in Malvern of opening the second phase of the science park and the incubator there. Linking start-ups and established businesses to outstanding science. Again we've made some real strides and in the last three years we've not only invested substantially and we will go on doing so in the science base but thanks to the work we're doing on science enterprise we have more than trebled the rate at which new companies are being spun off from our universities companies like Renova which has emerged out of the science departments of Manchester University now moving into clinical trials for new treatments that enable wounds and scars, wounds and burns for instance to heal with no scarring. An extraordinary leap forward Britain once again absolutely at the forefront and huge potential for that company and many, many others to turn brilliant science into wonderful world beating products and that's what the Welsh Assembly is doing, the Welsh Ministers are doing, it's happening in Scotland, it's happening in Northern Ireland and in each of the English regions. And then we look at a different kind of innovation the innovation of Britain's creative industry some of the best and most exciting in the world and I was yesterday in East London in Hoxton which not so long ago was one of the most dangerous as well as disadvantaged communities in East London and now it's the centre of one of the most vibrant artistic and creative communities. It's become a Mecca for people wanting to start up small businesses. I was visiting a great fairly new social enterprise called Circus Space that has taken over and transformed a disused old power station become part of the cultural magnet that Hoxton has become. We've seen similar power of the cultural and creative industries to transform the prospects of a city in Glasgow and we'll se it again with Cardiff and those other cities who have been shortlisted for the European city of culture in 2008. And of course that innovation, those creative industries connect with another key theme of economic regeneration which is improving the quality of life, taking advantage of the particular strengths of different local places. Tourism of course depends upon our using the wonderful historic riches that we have in our country, the beautiful landscape and so on using that to its full but it's also about ensuring that our best educated people, our most mobile people stay in the places where they grew up or where they were educated a real touch stone of whether or not an area or a region is succeeding in economic regeneration and equally that quality of life a key factor in attracting or not inward investment. And another great example of how this can work another social enterprise as it happens the Eden Project in Cornwall which I am sure many of you will know an extraordinary marriage of idealism, environmental principles and great business acumen something that the private sector could never have done. It didn't look like a commercial proposition. Something that I don't think the public sector would have done but social enterprise that marriage of the two has done it. And what they've done in the Eden Project is first of all to transform an old disused play pit a scar on the Cornish landscape, a hangover from an industry in decline into this extraordinary place the largest greenhouse in the world, they've created directly over a thousand new jobs, indirectly many more, they have transformed the prospects for tourism in Cornwall and parts of Devon huge impact on the bed and breakfasts, the hotels, the restaurants, the shops. Extraordinary I discovered they've transformed the fortunes of the local port and the local port is now booked up for the next three years by the leisure cruise liners because if you're organising a garden tour you now have to come to Cornwall and see the Eden Project and the gardens of Helligan. And their next challenge is to transform and create a tiny horticultural industry in Cornwall and Devon which can't begin to meet the demand of the customers who come to visit the Eden Project into a world class job creating wealth creating industry. So one project driven really by environmental imagination and idealism transforming the economy of one of the poorest parts of the United Kingdom. And then of course for all of this you need infrastructure because you've got to be able to bring people and goods in and out and these days that doesn't just mean physical infrastructure of the airports, the roads and the railways it also means the telecommunications infrastructure and I have no doubt at all that broadband technologies are crucial to the revitalisation particularly of our rural communities as they enable people in those communities to diversify as they enable people who want to live in the country to work from the country right across the national and indeed the global economies. So it was good to hear Andrew Davis as well announce that investment of over a hundred million pounds in creating a broadband infrastructure for the whole of Wales. And then finally let me just touch on what we need to be doing in our most disadvantaged neighbourhoods often quite small in number. My own most deprived ward is home to about 5,000 people and I think all of us here know that if the regeneration of those communities is really to last then it has to be economic led not public services led or benefits led or even housing led important though all of those are and the goal has to be and the means in offence has to be building peoples' confidence, building their skills, their employability in those communities and of course part of the way of doing that is precisely by building their capacity to make real decisions and have a real say about the whole regeneration programme of that community. It's about supporting business start-ups and growth of the existing small businesses. It's about making connections physical but more importantly personal connections between people in those communities and the employers, often very fast growing employers who may only be half a mile or a mile away but who might as well be another world for so many people living in those communities who all too often find that once somebody sees their address they don't get an interview. So overcoming those barriers of prejudice as well as physical distance absolutely crucial. And of course as we transform public services and as we do invest in physical regeneration we can use that as an opportunity to build employability and build stronger sustainable economies, training local people to refurbish local housing as so many of you are doing, employing local parents in the classroom and then making sure there is a ladder of training and qualifications so that people often the mums who start as a classroom assistant can go as far and as fast as their own talents generally well unrecognised in the past will take them. The opportunities to create local businesses. Often local community owned social enterprises to manage local housing on a small scale to run the local park to deliver local childcare services, huge opportunities there that some regeneration partnerships are exploiting to the full, others only just embarking on. But that kind of regeneration in our most deprived communities creates a huge challenge for all of us in Government locally and nationally. Many of you here are leading the way and we in Government have learnt a lot from your experience and example. But there are also still communities who if we're honest see their local council as frankly part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Now that's a challenge to professionals. I hear over and over again not just from my own constituents but from regeneration projects all around the country I hear from the local residents the women and men who are really working to transform their own neighbourhoods how intimated, how put off they are when they try to engage in a local partnership with the statutory agencies and they find themselves listening to a language that doesn't mean a thing. And just taking the professional language and the jargon and translating it into plain English and dealing with people as people that's a challenge and some of our professionals are better at it than others but it's also a huge challenge to our political culture and again I know many regeneration projects where the local councillors have been supportive, they have helped to create that local capacity, they are part of that partnership. I know other communities where the local councillors did their best for instance to throttle a residents and tenants association because they didn't want a challenge to their own source of power. So a challenge to our political culture and certainly for my own party for the Labour Party that means all of our political party branches not just the best being just as energetically engaged in local community building and local community campaigns as they are in debating and passing resolutions on foreign policy. It means constituency parties and local government committees reaching out into communities recognising that in those communities there are hundreds, there are thousands of women even more than men engaged in if you like the small p politics of community building and transforming neighbourhoods but all too often those local activists don't then become local councillors or members of Parliament. They don't see the big P politics the party politics as actually helping them or having anything to do with them. So we need the parties turning outwards recruiting from these dynamic community leaders, these new sources of energy. Some as I say some of you here are already doing that but by no means enough and the uncomfortable truth is that when we look across the board at our local councils we still have far too few women. In many parts of the country far too few people from our black and Asian British communities and yet they are the people who are the local community leaders helping to create the economic regeneration that all of us are committed to. So I'm delighted to have this opportunity today not just to share my own thoughts about how we need more effectively to work together on economic regeneration but also to have a chance to hear not only questions I hope but your own comments on how we need to do this better. And above all I look forward to the opportunity to work in what I hope will be an increasingly strong and effective partnership between all of us as we make our vision of prosperity and opportunity for everybody a reality for all. Thank you. |
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Other speeches by The Rt. Hon. Patricia Hewitt
(the following are available from the archive) |
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