Middlesbrough Development Corporation

I will call Andy McDonald to move the motion and I will then call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up; that is the convention for 30-minute debates, as he will no doubt be aware.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Middlesbrough Development Corporation.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Paisley.

On Friday 24 February, Middlesbrough Council held an extraordinary general meeting, convened by the monitoring officer, to determine whether the council supported the proposal to create a Middlesbrough development corporation. The proposal was put to the vote, and 13 councillors voted to approve and 17 voted against. Many councillors from the ruling Tory-independent coalition did not attend, although they were all given proper notice of the meeting. Obviously, not all councillors can be expected to turn up for every single meeting and there will be good reasons for some absences, but, quite frankly, the appallingly low turnout for such an important vote was pathetic.

The council decided not to approve the MDC, but three days after the council had made that decision, 25 councillors, led by the elected Mayor, Andy Preston, wrote to the Government saying that the council decision should be ignored and the Minister should instead accept their letter of acquiescence as being the true position of the council. I do not need to stress just how ridiculous it is that the Government, in their determination to overreach local democracy, are prepared to ignore the formal council decision.

Indeed, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has subsequently written a letter in which he outrageously describes the vote of the local authority as being born of “misinformation and mischief making”. That is incredibly partisan language from the Secretary of State, but perhaps we should not be surprised.

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that this sets a precedent for Tory Mayors or Tory Governments to ride roughshod over local democracy and local decision making in our local authorities? There could be more land grabs elsewhere in the Tees Valley, such as in Darlington and in Stockton.

My hon. Friend and neighbour makes a very valid point. That is one of the facets of the debate that I have sought today; I want to stress that that is a danger.

We all want to see good development in our towns, but how that development is done is important. Over the years, Middlesbrough Council has acquired and assembled assets using public money, and it holds those assets on behalf of all of us in Middlesbrough. The proposal is that if the council transfers these assets to the MDC, the MDC will, in turn, use money from central Government for development. Councillors were not elected to give our town away, but we now know that money is available. The bargain proposed is that if—and only if—the council gives up those assets and planning powers to the MDC, £18 million will be released for development.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way, and I am conscious that he has given me his consent to speak momentarily. Does he recognise that the planning powers and funding have been made available precisely because the Government have confidence that the development corporation will be a vehicle for regeneration and renewal of a sort that Middlesbrough Council has, I am afraid, sadly not proved capable of offering for too many years?

The right hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. I do not share his confidence, and I will set out the reasons why the structure that has been set out is incredibly dangerous. I share his observations about how Middlesbrough Council has been run of late. I will come back to that, but perhaps it is shared territory for us.

Critically, however, the council will have no say on how any development goes ahead or how decisions are made. That is more akin to a protection racket than to good government. Those decisions about development will be made not by the council, but by an unelected board appointed by Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley Mayor. He will decide who goes on the board, not the people of Middlesbrough or its elected council.

Much is said about devolution, whereby power and resources should be pushed down and be in the gift of the most local possible form of democratic representation. Here, the opposite is being proposed. This is not devolution; it is gangster politics, taking power and control away from the people, while the elected independent Mayor of Middlesbrough and his Tory deputy will be on the board. It seems—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Let me finish the point. It seems that they will be there in a personal capacity, whether they remain in office or not; it is not clear. The Mayor of Middlesbrough, Andy Preston, did not attend the vote by which this decision was made. He was advised by the council’s monitoring officer that he could not attend because of his own personal pecuniary interests.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way now that he has made his point?

I am only halfway through, but—

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but I want to correct what he has just stated. He has described this as gangster politics. In actual fact, those places on the board will belong to whoever is democratically elected as Mayor and deputy Mayor. If a Labour Mayor and deputy Mayor are democratically elected come May, they will take those places on the board.

Let us deal with all the rest of them; I am just about to do that very thing.

I was talking about a conflict of interest that the Mayor of Middlesbrough now has. The geographical boundary of the MDC takes in an area called Middlehaven and vast swathes of the town centre, and it includes an area of the town where Mr Preston owns or has owned property. According to the latest Tees Valley Combined Authority register of members’ interests, Mr Preston owns vast swathes of land and properties on both banks of the River Tees—well over 50 properties in total. Clearly, the decisions that the MDC board makes could have a direct bearing on any increase in value of any such interests, and they could potentially directly and financially benefit him.

In local government and in all public institutions, the greatest of care has to be taken regarding such potentially conflicting pecuniary interests. That is why Mr Preston was advised not to attend a vote at the crucial meeting. There is an obvious conflict of interest, and the question arises: if he cannot vote on the creation of such a corporation, how can he possibly lead on a letter to countermand that very vote and then serve on the board? It is utterly farcical; it is almost as though we have gone back to living in medieval times, with wealthy feudal landlords controlling political power over their lowly subjects without any proper democratic processes of accountability.

My hon. Friend clearly shares my concerns about how development corporations are being managed on Teesside, with joint ventures being created and then used as vehicles to transfer hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of public assets to private companies, and all behind doors and in secret. Does he fear, as I do, that the new Middlesbrough and Hartlepool development corporations could see more of the same—deals made in private to transfer public assets to private companies?

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I am afraid that that is not how it works; I respond to interventions.

I wanted to intervene on the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) because he mentioned my constituency.

Order. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough has the floor, and he will speak and not be interrupted. If he wishes to give way, he will indicate that he will give way.