Prime Minister
Ladies and Gentlemen. Today the Government is launching “Action for Cities” .
The aim is to help our cities prosper by encouraging enterprise and civic pride and what is needed are good practical measures and this is what action for cities is about. These measures are not imposed by Governments of local councils; they are directed to respond to people's aspirations and individual effort.
This is the eighth year of successive economic growth and we are now the fastest growing economy in Europe and this national success gives us better opportunities than for many years to help the inner cities prosper as they should. I think that too often the impression that people have of our inner cities is one of dereliction and decay, of a kind of unrelieved gloom and I know from my own visits that this picture is utterly false. Really there are examples galore of success and there is an immense well of energy and talent in our inner cities.
So enterprise, initiative, new businesses and new investment are already there for all to see.
What people want is the opportunity to benefit from our successive years of growth. The Government is giving them that [end p1] opportunity through better education and training, through supporting enterprise and encouraging choice and through removing obstacles to development.
We are now launching a drive to step up the momentum and make inner city decay a thing of the past. The “Action for Cities” booklet brings out what can be done to regenerate our cities. Giving people the confidence that change is possible is a very important part of the process.
This cover shows Salford Quays—which I visited ten days ago—before and after. The development now continues.
Only a few years ago, all that was here were the remnants of an inland port business at the end of the Manchester Ship Canal which was no longer competitive. 150 acres of dockland in the heart of Greater Manchester conurbation lay idle—depressing to look at and the symbol of the need for change.
At Salford Quays I saw new homes for sale being built, I saw the new hotel wholly by the private sector alongside new offices and a multi-screen cinema wholly by the private sector, waterside restaurants and marina are to come. £25 million of taxpayers money is attracting total private investment of £150 million.
It can be done and it is being done. That is a particularly good example because either side of that development is an enterprise zone in Salford and an enterprise zone in Trafford. It is a very good example of everything we are trying to do.
Now the measures that we are announcing today, add to the many radical and exciting initiatives already under way.
The Urban Development Corporations are transforming the [end p2] business climate of our cities. Private companies are helping people start up in business. They are linking up with the schools. The Government is spending a great deal of money to improve people's skills. These are practical and specific contributions to the regeneration of our cities.
To sum up, therefore, the point of today's launch is to show our determination to intensify the attack on inner city problems by practical measures and to change the face of our urban environment over the next ten years or so. First to intensify the attack.
Secondly, the number of Ministers we have here shows our determination to advance on a broad practical front. Dealing with the problems of inner cities involves almost every department. The task has been to get everyone's efforts coordinated and this attendance here today shows you that we are determined to do that.
And thirdly, our success in winning the increased involvement of the private sector. That is the key to real success because it engages the commitment of people who have a real stake in the inner cities so we have with us today the Chairman of Business in the Community, Sir Hector Laing, Investors in Industry, Sir John Cuckney, and British Urban Development, Sir Clifford Chetwood. They will be giving a press conference and are available to answer your questions after this immediate press conference and—of course—providing a day to day focus and coordinating, is Kenneth Clarke who is backed up by a freephone arrangement because we find so many people come to us and say “We want to do something; where do we start?”
Well, you start with him and he will direct you to all of the [end p3] grants and things that are available.
Now, as you are aware, we have a dozen or so measures to announce so I shall now ask my colleagues each to say briefly what his latest contribution is to “Action for Cities” .
Now first, Secretary of State for the Environment, Nick Ridley.
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
Nicholas RidleyMy department is involved with the inner cities in nearly all aspects of its work and we work closely with the other departments concerned, both at headquarters and in the regions.
Firstly, there is our range of “Ground” programmes. I am announcing today a new one called “City Grant” which combines and streamlines three existing types of grant in the inner cities: UDG, URG and Private Sector Derelict Land Grant. This year these three grants have put about £30 million into the inner cities already and attracted private sector investment of over £120 million.
Then there is the urban programme itself totalling £295 million this year which is increasingly concentrated on local, economic and environmental projects.
Secondly, I am announcing today a new initiative to increase the pressure on public authorities to publish details of the unused land that they own and to offer it for sale so that it can be put to good use. Our policies and programmes for environmental improvement, historic buildings, land reclamation and sport all have an inner city dimension often involving the voluntary sector. For example, we are the main source of funding for “Ground” work and “UK [end p4] 2000” although they are also attracting very substantial support from private sector sponsors.
Thirdly there are the urban development corporations which are our most direct and positive contribution to solving some of the worst problems of urban decline and dereliction. We already have six urban development corporations in operation in England with three more in the process of being set up and today I am announcing proposals for a new UDC in the Lower Don Valley in Sheffield and for a major extension for the Merseyside Urban Development Corporation. So we shall soon have ten UDC's on the go with a total programme budget of £203 million in the coming year rising to £223 million in 1990–91, plus the huge private sector investment that they generate.
And fourthly, our new housing policies are concerned very largely with the inner cities; improving the housing stock and increasing the range of choice for those already who live in the inner cities and those who would like to live there. Again, the involvement of the private sector is essential and our proposed housing action trusts will provide a new mechanism for achieving this.
All of these programmes in the Department of the Environment are concerned with regeneration: reclamation, development and investment in the inner cities.
That is my department's distinctive contribution to the Government's urban policy.
Prime Minister
Thank you very much. Now Paul Channon, Minister of [end p5] Transport: new roads.
Paul ChannonMinister of Transport
Well, Prime Minister, good transport is obviously essential for the development of our inner cities as transport links them with the nation's commercial arteries, stimulating new industries and helping create new jobs, and new ideas in public transport are breathing new life into run down areas: the Docklands light railway, for example, has helped draw private sector investment into London's East End. Manchester is planning to follow this example. Bus operators freed from fifty years of regulation have also brought new mini-bus services to housing estates and inner areas which previously had been almost ‘bus-free zones’.
We are helping local authorities in improving inner city road links vital for enterprise and business growth. We are committed to paying them some £300 million which is half the cost of 120 schemes. To give one example, the £32 million Bradford City ring-road. In fact, two fifths of my trunk road programme—coming to some £800 million—directly assists the development of the inner cities, particularly in the West Midlands, Manchester, Newcastle and London. More schemes will follow but today I am adding two major projects to my programme.
First a £50 million grant to build a road through the Black Country, linking the Black Country Development Corporation area to the M5 and M6.
Secondly, a £50 million improvement to the A13 between Limehouse and Dagenham which will assist with the development of the Docklands. That is £100 million as a vote of confidence in the Docklands and the Black Country and a further example of our commitment to the regeneration of our cities. [end p6]
Prime Minister
Thank you very much. May I say I am particularly pleased with the spine road through the Black Country. When I went up there just a few months ago, the Chairman of the Urban Development Corporation said to me “Mrs Thatcher, we have got to have a spine road” . So I thought we were the party to come to for spine, so they are getting their road.
Right, Douglas Hurd, Home Secretary.
Douglas HurdHome Secretary
Clearly intensified action against crime must be part of action for cities because it is in the inner cities that people suffer most from crime and anxiety about crime. The fact of crime, the fear of crime can stunt the lives of those who live there and not least by discouraging the creation of jobs so a special effort is needed.
The police already have a high priority given to the problems of inner city crime and theirs will continue to be the primary role. But crime is not simply a matter for the police. They need and they should be able to expect the support of all reasonable, responsible members of society and that cannot be just passive. We want to see an active partnership between the police and local agencies and concerned individuals leading to a concerted, well targetted programme of effective action in response to crime problems which have been locally identified and that is what the “Safer Cities” initiative we are launching today will provide and encourage.
The initiative will build on the successes we have already achieved by similar, smaller scale approaches to local crime [end p7] prevention which have worked well. We propose to set up “Safer Cities” projects in twenty local areas over the next three years. We hope eight in the first year. And in each area, work will be guided by a local steering committee bringing together representatives from the police, from the probation service, local authority services, the business community—very important—and voluntary groups. And to help the steering committee we, the Home Office, will fund a project coordinator—a locally recruited person—who will be a key figure in working out effective local action and a small administrative …
In these “Safer City” project areas, local people will identify their local particular crime problems, decide how they can most effectively be tackled, put those decisions into practice and measure the results. Now obviously the action will vary from area to area but I would expect in each there is likely to be a combination of physical security measures, improved design, better management of property and services and a range of constructive activities which will engage the energy, the interest of those who could be most tempted to engage in crime.
We shall be steering this nationally through the Home Office Crime Prevention Unit which already exists and they will be able to provide advice where necessary and some modest financial help to get promising local initiatives off the ground. We shall now approach local agencies, including local authorities in the potential safer cities areas and I believe that if we can get—and I am sure we will get—the goodwill and commitment of local people working together against crime, this safer city initiative will join the [end p8] others in helping to build confidence and provide new and much needed opportunities in the cities.
Prime Minister
Thank you very much.
Education, Kenneth Baker.
Kenneth BakerSecretary of State for Education and Science
Prime Minister, education is basic to improving the quality of life of many of our young people in the inner cities and youngsters need a decent education if they are to have a better future. Our education reforms map out our main proposals and particularly the national curriculum on basic subjects. That will set new standards of education for all our children whatever their background and wherever they live. So parents in inner cities can be confident that their children will get a basic mainstream education.
Many children in the inner cities do not have access to the kind of schools that measure up to their parents' reasonable expectations so the Government has in hand a set of radical policies to extend parental influence and choice.
First there is open enrolment. Open enrolment means that popular schools will take in as many children as space allows. It is absurd to have empty desks at popular schools. Opting out will give parents and governors the right to take over the running of their children's school—that is the grant maintained schools.
City technology colleges are another type of new school and [end p9] colleges designed to give children in the cities high quality education with a technological bias, and private industry will help fund and to run these colleges. We do want the commitment and involvement of businesses in these colleges. The first one opens in September, Kingshurst in Birmingham. The second, next year, is right in the heart of Nottingham; on page 9 of the booklet you will see a picture of the New City Technology college which is being built this year right in the heart of Nottingham.
Prospective sponsors have already promised more than £16 million to support the CTC programme. Plans are in hand for CTC's in Middlesborough, South London, and Thamesmead and this is a very encouraging start to a programme which was announced some sixteen months ago. Our plans to give pupils and teachers direct experience of industry, because many teachers do not have any experience of industry and commerce, are really very important and also the children as well. And this will open up schools to the economic realities that their pupils have to face.
I am delighted that my department will be cooperating with the Department of Employment, Norman Fowler and the MSC in backing the twelve new compacts in inner city areas. Norman Fowler will be telling you about this initiative to get employers, schools and colleges working together. There are great mutual benefits to be had from this closer working relationship. Getting that relationship right—the relationship between industry and commerce and the education system on the other—is absolutely vital to raise standards and to ensure that children leave school with the qualifications they need for adult life. Better prospects grow out [end p10] of education; that is what we intend to give the children who live in Britain's inner cities.
Prime Minister
Thank you very much. Norman Fowler.
Norman FowlerSecretary of State for Employment
Well, Prime Minister, jobs are crucial to the development and prosperity of inner city areas and to the people who live there. The Government already spends over £1.1 billion a year in inner city areas providing unemployed people with skills, helping them find jobs and encouraging small businesses to start up and grow. We shall now build on our existing programmes and we are taking a number of important new initiatives.
The first of these is the development of new compacts between employers and schools in inner city areas. Our intention is that employers will guarantee a job with training to young people leaving schools in these areas and who meet required standards of achievement. My department and the Manpower Services Commission will use our resources to encourage the development of twelve compacts between employers and schools. It will be for groups of employers to agree such compacts with schools and for them to bid for support. Up to £50,000 will be available at the development stage of each compact followed by up to £100,000 a year for four years for those which are approved.
The second series of initiatives seeks to ensure that all people in inner cities are aware of the job opportunities available and of the range of help offered by employment and by training [end p11] programmes. More specialist staff will help both employed and unemployed people explore opportunities for the new jobs arising.
New local information points will give access to information on training and jobs in local centres like libraries and community centres and the new training for employment programme will provide new help for long-term unemployed people who require basic skills such as literacy, numeracy, English as a second language.
And third, we are stepping up our support to small businesses in inner city areas. In task force areas, the guarantee to banks under the loan guarantee scheme for loans to small businesses will be increased from 70%; to 85%; and more generally we are increasing the help available by opening six extra offices, run by the Small Firms Service and specialist councillors to work with ethnic minority businesses are also to be appointed.
All these initiatives will build on our current substantial effort in the inner cities. They will encourage more investment and create more opportunities. Most of all, they will help us to secure more jobs for people living in inner city areas.
Prime Minister
Thank you. If Kenneth Clarke will wind up please. [end p12]
Mr. Kenneth Clarke
Prime Minister, there are two key themes in the document, which I think have been underlined by all the ministerial announcements this morning.
The first is the importance of cooperation between the private and the public sector.
The Government is, above all, anxious to encourage and assist more private companies to take a leading role in inner city revival. Our cities need business leadership and private sector investment.
The second theme is the importance of coordinating the Government's activities, what the Prime Minister just called “advancing on a broad front” . That will ensure that we get the maximum impact for what we put in, by fitting our various policies together into one combined Government effort, as we are demonstrating this morning.
A major new DTI contribution to cooperation between Government and the private sector will be made by a drive we are starting to provide more managed work-space for new business start-ups in inner city areas.
English Industrial Estates is going to be in the lead for the Government. They will be devoting up to £11 million in the first year for the necessary physical conversion of suitable buildings, many of which will be standing derelict at the moment. [end p13]
Private companies will contribute by offering financial and managerial backing to the workshop once the new businesses start to move in. Our corporate partners will, in effect, adopt a workshop when they take up our invitation, and experience with managed workshops elsewhere has shown this is a very practical and effective way of encouraging enterprise, new business investment and start-up in inner city areas, and the important thing is the new companies will be given hand-holding support to help them through the first difficult years of growth.
The wide range of today's announcements from all Departments emphasises the scale and scope of the Government's contribution, and we do need to pull that whole effort together and concentrate it on the areas of greatest need.
Two new City Action Teams, which we are announcing today—one based in Nottingham and the other in Leeds—will help us to achieve that aim. Building on the success of the existing six City Action Teams that we have, they will pull together the programmes and resources of DTI, Department of Environment and the Department of Employment. These three Departments between them spend about a billion poundsworth of taxpayers' money in their urban partnership areas.
In addition, the CATs will have special top-up funds to make it possible for local projects that might normally fall outside the national guide-lines for Government programmes to go ahead. [end p14]
There are two further announcements which will help to carry forward all the programmes that my colleagues have announced today and help yet more companies to become closely involved in all our efforts:
Next month, we will be taking a series of presentations into at least six provincial cities. They will be “Action For Cities Breakfast Meetings” and what they will actually comprise are teams of Ministers explaining to businessmen how they can play their part in inner city revival in their city. We will explain to the local business leaders how they can work with the Government in doing so. We will be presenting them with a menu of ways in which they can become involved.
We believe that we can persuade yet more businessmen that it is a sensible commercial activity for a successful company to play a leading role in regenerating cities which are their trading base.
We are also, as the Prime Minister said, setting up a Freephone. I am glad to say it is not my ‘phone; it does not come in directly to me and it is not just a ‘phone; it has a team of people manning it as well in a central Action For Cities Unit. This will enable our people, drawn from various Departments in Whitehall, to offer advice about the full range of possibilities that are open to companies who want to join in, and to ensure contact with the right Department on the ground in the right city to take the matter further when a business is interested in making a contribution.
You may ask: why all this emphasis on businessmen? It is because we believe that the key to getting life back into our [end p15] inner cities, just as it has been the key to promoting national prosperity over the last few years, is encouraging enterprise and the enterprise economy. Businessmen in the past, when you look at the history of our cities, provided the leadership that made their cities great. The City Fathers, people like heroes such as mine such as Joe Chamberlain, combined political leadership with business leadership and made their cities what they became a century or so ago. That can be done again in modern circumstances.
Our businessmen today have the resources, the expertise and I believe the commitment to help the Government make lasting and worthwhile changes in our inner cities.
I hope as many of you as possible will stay on and attend the press conference being given by the businessmen with us here today, because they will demonstrate how they and their colleagues are going to add to the contribution they are already making to our programme of urban regeneration.
Prime Minister
Thank you very much. You should have details of those announcements on a dozen documents like this in the back folder “Action For Cities” .
Doubtless, you will want to ask a lot of questions.
Colleagues between them spend about £3 billion a year on Action for Cities expenditure. If you would very kindly put the questions in to me, I will try to distribute them appropriately. [end p16]
Question
Prime Minister, you have spoken about the importance of partnership with industry and commerce and, in fact, most of the Ministers here have mentioned that, but there has been no reference to local government, and your package, it seems to me, is cutting out local government more. Why is this?
Secondly, now you are doubling the size of the Merseyside UDC, can we expect to see you in Liverpool?
Prime Minister
Nick Ridley is going up to Liverpool today.
Mr. Nicholas Ridley
I do not think we are cutting out the role of local authorities. I think the task of regeneration of some of our worst areas is greater, both in finance and in skills, than local authorities can undertake, and we have found that they have welcomed the Urban Development Corporations—in some cases more vociferously than others—but none of them have so far been opposed when the Orders have come before Parliament because I think they realise the scale of the resources and the single-minded effort that goes into regeneration of a derelict area is something which only Government can do. [end p17]
We found the two keys are the single-minded determination to get rid of obstacles so that investors can invest—that is the first point.
The second point is the proper use of private investment, because public capital can never do what has to be done to rebuild these areas.
Those two things are the key to success and I think you will find that our UDCs are showing enormous promise. The ones I visited recently are all going tremendously well and there is a great feeling of cooperation on the ground between local authorities, UDCs and all the people concerned. So I think on the whole these are welcome; the new UDCs, the increase in Merseyside and the Lower Don Valley will be a great success I believe.
As to whether you are going, I must leave it to you!
Prime Minister
Well, you go today!
You know, we get on very much better in inner cities if we have a cooperative local council. Then, when we do that, the private sector comes in, they are welcome, the businesses, the jobs, are created. So far, Liverpool has not been one of the most outstanding for wanting the private sector in. I have been there. Undoubtedly I shall go again one day, but I have others to visit first. I was not far away when we were at Manchester. [end p18]
Michael Brunson
Prime Minister, will you accept that a lot of what you have said today is based either on the extension of existing policies or takes in the sort of thing that we might expect from Government Departments during the course of a normal year, like new roads and so on?
And would you therefore accept that what you are really doing here is a repackaging exercise and that perhaps it reflects the fact that that announcement that you made on election night on the steps in Central Office has not worked, has not led so far to the sort of results that you wanted?
Prime Minister
First, of course, this is an extension of existing policies. We are consistent. We believe in getting private enterprise in to help solve the problems. It is private enterprise which creates the jobs. We believe in the extension of opportunity, and our manifesto was actually directed to helping most people in the inner cities, where we had not yet got educational opportunity, where those who in fact live in rented council houses were not having any choice and where the rating system actually acted to the disadvantage of companies wanting to set up in inner cities, because there are some local councils who really fleeced their industrial rate-payers and therefore they did not get the new or existing businesses. That whole manifesto was directed to helping most the inner cities. [end p19]
Yes, of course it is an extension of existing policies and, of course, some of the work we have been doing in inner cities has been showing. We had the idea of enterprise zones; we had the idea of Urban Development Corporations. Go and look at areas which have stayed derelict for years. The Urban Development Corporation is bringing new hope, quicker planning, and the enterprise zones special taxation relief, so of course we are building on success.
What we are getting here is looking at each area and deliberately coordinating, and sometimes getting extra money to coordinate on some specific areas and looking at them. For example, the Black Country one: it will not flourish until it gets proper transport there. Going there, talking to them, discovered what they really want.
Other things are discovering what they really want and we are inundated with demands to have Urban Development Corporations set up because the release of planning controls really enables us to get things quicker.
Yes, we are consistent! Yes, they are the latest thing on existing policies, together with some new money, and a new dynamism and a new coordination and a new intensification on these problems of inner cities.
You all wanted very anxiously to take me, alone, on a derelict site in Middlesbrough—yes, you took me, alone, on a derelict site ready for development in Middlesbrough. I hope you will be there when it has got construction going up and new jobs being created. [end p20]
But do not underestimate this! Of course, I know you will have a try! But this is really very good.
Mr. Bevins
How do you get efficiency and effectiveness in such a policy without an account of how and what money is spent?
Last December, when Mr. Clarke was appointed to his coordination job, he spoke of a figure of £2,000 million. Today, lo and behold, we are told it is £3,000 million.
Could you please give us a detailed breakdown to substantiate that £3,000 million figure?
Prime Minister
Yes.
Estate action involving tenants in management, their homes, in improving them, booming, capital expenditure, etc.—£140 million.
Funding for housing associations, housing corporations, local authorities etc.—£450 million.
Training and programmes to encourage enterprise, including support for small firms—£1100 million.
Support for inner city businesses, including regional selective assistance, investment in innovation grants for small firms in English Estates—£200 million. [end p21]
Derelict land reclamation—£25 million.
Urban programme, urban development and urban regeneration grant—£314 million.
Urban Development Corporations—£203 million. Task forces, city action teams—£21 million.
Roads, DT programme and TDSG-supported local authority roads—£250 million.
It adds up to £3,003 million.
Well done for asking! Thank you very much! It was not a planted question! It was like Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was the sort of question that I thought we would get. Bernard InghamBernard will give you everything afterwards!
Miss Eleanor Goodman
Prime Minister, is that new money or is that money that was already allocated to those areas for the most part?
Prime Minister
Most of it is money that was allocated that is being reconcentrated, and some of it is new money. Not a great deal of new money, but some of it is new money, as you heard, for Urban Development Corporations. Road—I think we concentrated the roads where they were needed most.
But it really is a concentration, plus some new money and of course the City Technology Colleges new money. [end p22]
Miss Goodman
Can you be specific about how much money?
Prime Minister
I cannot tell you precisely how much is new money, except what you have heard from each Minister as it goes along, but with all due respect, tax-payers' money of £3003 million pounds is equal, you know, to about twopence halfpenny on income tax. It is quite a lot!
Question
How much extra money will be added to the spending total already announced in the Public Expenditure White Paper as a result of today's announcement?
And is Mr. Clarke disappointed at not being able to persuade his colleagues to accept contract compliance to ensure that people are employed locally on some of these schemes?
Prime Minister
These sums were included in the Public Expenditure White Paper. They were in the pipeline and we were concentrating upon them for this announcement. [end p23]
Mr. Kenneth Clarke
Although this is within the total, some of it is new money in the sense it is being concentrated in the inner cities within those programmes—about £250 million, I think, is going to inner cities rather than into national programmes generally when you put together the combination of the new UDCs, the schools compacts and so on that my colleagues have announced.
I never did try to get anybody to go in for contract compliance on the American pattern. In terms of actually generating new jobs, new employment, new training locally, I think you will find that is a very consistent theme through what we have all said and we are much better now than we were when we started with the UDCs six years ago in making sure local people get new job opportunities, new training, as new business is developed and that, if I may say so, is particularly a theme of what Norman Fowler was explaining a few moments ago.
Question
Prime Minister, could you explain how the new City Grants will work compared to the URG and the UDC?
And secondly, how much will be available under this grant in 1988–89?
Mr. Nicholas Ridley
There is a press release on the new City Grant.
It will be for the private sector only. Where the private sector is going to undertake development, at present it can get [end p24] UDG or URG and private sector derelict land grant. 75%; of those grants come from Central Government, 25%; from Local Authorities.
In future, the City Grant will replace all of them. It will be 100%; from Central Government and it will go direct to the developer, so it saves the local authorities a bit of money and it makes for one less stage in claiming the grant—goes straight to my Department.
We think that we will probably have about £40 million spent in this way next year, which should lever in about another £120 million of private investment.
Mr. Cole
Prime Minister, since this is, as you said, tax-payers' money, would it not be better to set out the new money clearly in some form of Government document or White Paper, rather than just giving it out at somewhat breakneck speed here?
Prime Minister
You can have the paper!
Mr. Coles
Well yes, that hardly meets the point! Why is it not set out in that way? [end p25]
Prime Minister
You can have the paper! We can have the new money allocated as you wish, but may I point out that part of our task is to get all of the Departments using most of their existing money in a concentrated, coordinated way where the need is greatest.
As you know from questions which I get in the House, one of the most difficult things is to get many different Departments with many different programmes coordinating their efforts on the inner cities.
Yes, it is concentrating some money and there is some new money. We could not do, for example, the Urban Development Corporations, without new money, and I think you will find that each of them is about £50 million over seven years.
Mr. Nicholas Ridley
They are more. They are between about £100–150 million, the big ones, over seven years. The smaller ones are much less—about £20 million.
Prime Minister
But concentrating the money, getting the coordination, is as important as new money.
What I am concerned with is that we get away from judging a programme by how much money goes in and we judge it by the results that come out, because if you only judge by the money that comes in [end p26] you are in fact giving a recipe for extravagance and bad management. We are concerned with adequate money, good management and the results which are coming out and the results are good.
Question
You talk of the need for spine from your party and your ability to get private investors to come in and build roads, but the spine route in the Black Country was offered by the private sector four years ago and turned down by the Treasury.
Is it clear when Mr. Lawson is going to allow the private sector to build roads over and above those provided in the public sector road programme?
Prime Minister
We have made tremendous strides. Had I been sitting here four years ago and said to you that under Tory Government in four years' time the whole of the Channel Tunnel would be financed by the private sector and a new Dartford Bridge financed by the private sector you would not have believed me. That is happening.
Yes, we did look earlier at financing the roads. For example there is a bridge in Scotland which has a toll over it and all that is happening is people are making great demands for the toll to be extinguished.
Also, we found that in some cases with private roads, at that stage there were requirements for various Government guarantees. Now that is not wholly private sector. [end p27]
We are only too willing to look at more private sector development without Government guarantees of any kind.
The Channel Tunnel has no Government guarantees. The Dartford Bridge has no Government guarantees.
But I can only point out that a market can only take a certain amount. It is doing Channel Tunnel, it is doing Dartford Bridge, and Paul Channon will be absolutely delighted if people come in and we can get the planning permission—and that takes a time, unfortunately; that is one of the real difficulties in this country; we did not have to get planning permission for the Channel Tunnel—and we can use extra private money in that way.
Question
In the undoubted success that London Docklands Development Corporation has had in drawing new development into its area, it does seem to have failed on two fronts: firstly, the relationship with the local community and secondly, in terms of coherent design standards.
Recently, we have heard a lot of public comment about the re-making of our cities reaching higher design standards than in past episodes of redevelopment.
Does the Government have any plans to meet these two shortcomings in the future in UDC areas? [end p28]
Prime Minister
First, I would not necessarily accept your description of “shortcomings” in any way.
Look at what that area of Lambeth was? Derelict, under local authorities for twenty years and for twenty years they did precious little about it because they could not get their act together, so we had to get cracking and we did, and you see a total transformation now.
You want a common design standard. Why?
There were old warehouses. Someone would have complained bitterly had those just been bulldozed in a common design standard. No! They were redesigned. The housing is much better and I think the housing is much more attractive. I think there is some very interesting, exciting architecture there.
Yes, it has been difficult to persuade people in Hackney, for example, right adjacent to that Urban Development Corporation, to go in and get some of the jobs. It is something that concerns us: why is that some people from some areas will go in and get the jobs that are undoubtedly there in some of the new construction and in some of the new work, but not in the areas where we need them most?
But in fact, that area is a fantastic success by not having too many obstacles put in their path and too much regulation. [end p29]
Mr. Nicholas Ridley
I think that London Docklands has got some of the most exciting and interesting architecture that is being built today.
There is a lesson in this. The detailed, aesthetic control which so many planning committees exercise over every tiny detail of a planning application does not really exist there. People have been allowed to build what they like and it is striking, it is exciting. Some things I am sure you hate and some things I am sure you love, but it is not at all that drab suggestion that you put to it.
It seems to me that we have actually got something here where people have been released to experiment and do their best to find new idioms of modern design. I think we should welcome that, not condemn it.
Question
Can you explain how land registers will be changed to work more effectively?
Mr. Nicholas Ridley
Certainly! The Audit Commission have recently published a report saying—and I entirely agree with them—that it is extra-ordinary that local authorities do not have registers of all the property they own and the value of each piece of property. [end p30]
We will follow that up, but in the first case, at least we will get them to compile registers of unused or under-used land, because we cannot possibly do that centrally. We have been trying to do it. It is not very possible for us to get the details of every empty plot in every local authority area.
With that information, the private sector area will be able to go straight to the register. If there is a bit of land it wants to develop, it can come to my Department and we will issue a directive to make that land go on to the market, provided of course that it is genuinely not being properly used. We will have to have that check made.
That is how the process will be greatly speeded up and it will be a proper register which we cannot compile centrally with any accuracy.
Question
We have seen an attempt to bring the work of different Departments together two years ago with the task forces.
In that two years, the North Peckham Task Force, not one single job has been created.
What gives the Prime Minister any confidence that this repackaging and bringing together of initiatives already taking place will have any more success? [end p31]
Prime Minister
I think that that will probably be done, when we have got the present housing legislation through on housing trusts, we shall have to look at some of the estates which it would perhaps be best to concentrate the Housing Action Trust money and effort upon.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke
Can I just come in on the extraordinary assertion about the North Peckham Task Force, which is wholly inaccurate.
I think you have been talking to Harriet Harman who writes me letters every now and again criticising the Task Force, though she has not yet got round to visiting it!
I can actually give you a copy of my latest reply to her after this is over, explaining the very very large number of training, employment and other projects in North Peckham which have in fact created quite a lot of jobs in that area.
It was an area of total dereliction; awful tower blocks, not very well managed in the past, full of unemployed people, and the Task Force in Peckham has devised a large number of projects and has been a particularly successful one.
Prime Minister
I think you should also know about estate action which is already underway and doubtless many colleagues here will have seen the work and articles of Alice Coleman, Professor at Kings College, who we are getting to advise us extensively on estate action, housing action. [end p32]
She is also very interested in designing council estates to see that you get considerable reduction in crime, because I am afraid most of these estates were designed without any thought of asking the police for their advice, of how to do the architecture to avoid areas where crime is rampant.
She is extremely successful and she has done, I think, about twenty-two estates and you are interested in her work and the Home Office is.
Question
You know how recently the Japanese praised the commitment of the British worker. Is it perhaps that through this constant encouragement of your policies of action and change and reform that you are suddenly allowing the British citizen to change that image abroad that it is rather lethargic and reserved and maybe shy?
Is it that the British are really not like that and for once are having the opportunity to demonstrate the contrary to us the foreigners?
Prime Minister
We here are not lethargic, reserved or shy! Neither are they in Nissan! Neither are they in some of the many inward investment schemes. [end p33]
Japan has come to invest in this country. She comes to invest because we are quite the best country in Europe to invest in and obviously, we have access to Europe, and when she comes she tackles management in a way which gets the very best out of people, but you can only get the very best out of people if it is there to it out of, and they do, and it really has been this fantastic combination of everything that is good and best that British people can give, together with the Japanese approach to it which I think has changed the attitude and means that we are getting a large amount of inward investment here—and long may it continue!
Question (Same Lady)
So the foreigners' idea of the British is really inaccurate and should be revised?
Prime Minister
I think actually foreigners are revising their idea of the British. They certainly are when I go abroad—I see it—and quite rightly, because it was enterprise, talent and ability that built the British people, that built a very powerful nation. It was always there. It was just stifled and strangled under a previous government. We did not invent it. We just rediscovered it and uncovered it—and it is still there and now it shows! [end p34]
Question
You have got six Cabinet Ministers here, all making statements, but I am told there is to be no statement in the Commons. There are to be some written answers, but not a statement in the normal way you would expect when something major is being announced and I wondered why not?
Prime Minister
Because this is a continuing programme. This is the next stage in a real terrific spurt in it, but it is not a new policy.
The Urban Development Corporations are an advance on existing policies. The City Technology Colleges are an advance on existing policies. The education is an advance on existing policies. The roads are again directing the money where it should be best spent and in some cases adding more money.
I do not think there is a single new policy here. It is using the money better and concentrating, intensifying one or two, but concentrating it in a much more coordinated way.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke
There is a combination of policies, but no single press release would have justified an oral statement, so we did not volunteer one.
Prime Minister
You have got a dozen press releases. Would you have liked some more? [end p35]
Mr. Kenneth Clarke
And a dozen oral statements!
Question
Prime Minister, you have mentioned a concentration of money and resources. Does this mean that there will inevitably be some losers?
For example, are you reducing the number of programme authorities or anything of that sort?
Prime Minister
No. It means that we are taking money and using it to best effect in a coordinated way.
As you know, I was chairing a committee, and really, we are concentrating on certain areas where the need is greatest, but as you can see from the document we have put forward, no area is being forgotten and it would be quite wrong if it were, but if you concentrate on some areas, naturally they get a bigger proportion of the money, but I remember one of my opponents saying that the language of his party was the language of priorities. It also happens to be the language of politics. [end p36]
It is five-past twelve. Can I take two more questions and then some colleagues are going. Mr. Ridley is going to Liverpool, Mr. Channon is going to Wolverhampton. Mr. Fowler is going to Birmingham. They wish to get off to take this message to some of these areas and the Private Secretary will be available for your press conference and I know that I and one or two of us are available for television interviews.
So two more questions and then we will wrap up the conference!
Question
You have stressed the key role of Development Corporations. Why, then, are we only get an announcement of, in fact, one new one today?
Does this mean there is no more money for any more? Are we expecting any more announcements of either mini- or full-scale Development Corporations in the next two or three years?
Mr. Nicholas Ridley
This announcement will give us ten Urban Development Corporations in England—there will be one in Wales too—and that is a very big programme indeed.
Some get more money than others, because the problems they face are worse than others, but as we have said, the total cost is going to be between £200–230 million a year of this policy. [end p37]
I think that is about the right number. I think my budget is about completely committed with that amount of money and I believe that we will both cure some of the worst areas and prevent some other areas getting into a similar state of decline with this policy.
If, as time goes by, we see a possibility of extending some of them or doing new ones to advantage, we can take these decisions later, but this, I think, is the end of the present phase until we see how we get on.
Prime Minister
This is one extension and one extra one today?
Mr. Nicholas Ridley
That is right. It makes ten altogether when they are all up and running.
Question
I think one of the main problems the inner city people are facing is health, but health has just been ignored today. Nobody has spoken about health. Why? [end p38]
Prime Minister
Because health does not come under this particular programme. It comes under regional health authorities and, as you are already aware, the existing programme is that you reallocated the extra monies towards health towards the regions who need it most. That is why you will find excellent new hospitals frequently in the North Country or in other areas that have not had a hospital and you will find, I am afraid, in constituencies like mine, that we have not had quite so much building because the money has already been going to the regions and there is no need to change that capital programme as it is at the moment, although what is called the “RORP programme” reallocation of monies, is being reviewed to see how best to do it in the future.
Question
Prime Minister, you have decided to bring together several grants into one grant. Do you not feel that some of the businessmen that you want to see involved in the inner cities would have preferred tax breaks instead?
Prime Minister
No. I think that as a result of what Nigel Lawson has done, he has brought down the rate of corporation tax on profits to one of the lowest in the world. He deliberately and rightly wished to do that by reducing the number of allowances, because the more tax [end p39] allowances you have, the more people in fact slant their efforts, their ideas and their programmes to take advantages of the tax allowances rather than to do things which perhaps are better judged on commercial grounds.
What he has done now has in fact enabled people to take their own decisions and when they make good profits they have a very low rate of corporation tax, down to 32 percent or lower, for small businesses.
In the enterprise zones as such, you still do get capital allowance relief on a scale which you do not get elsewhere. That is particular to the enterprise zones and of course it does have the effect of making some of them even more attractive for people who wish to have that kind of tax allowance.
Thank you very much. The private sector press conference will take place now or be available for your questions. Ministers will go off to do their work in the inner cities.