Teesworks: Accountability and Scrutiny

I call the shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

I beg to move,

That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, that he will be graciously pleased to give directions that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities provide all papers, advice and correspondence involving Ministers, senior officials and special advisers, including submissions and electronic communications, relating to the decision by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Prime Minister to commission a review into the Tees Valley Combined Authority’s oversight of the South Tees Development Corporation and the Teesworks joint venture, including papers relating to the decision that this review should not be led by the National Audit Office.

Let me start by saying that I am really disappointed that it has come to this. Devolution was meant to empower people in every part of Britain to “take charge of their own destiny”. This Government were elected on exactly that promise and exactly those words, and here we are standing in the House of Commons trying to persuade the Government to come clean about why they have chosen to block an independent inquiry that would help us get to the bottom of the use of public assets and funds on Teesside in the wake of some of the most serious allegations I have ever seen in my time in Parliament.

For nine years, since the Government accepted Greater Manchester’s case for greater devolution, I and many others on all sides of this House have been pressing the Government to respect the right of people in every part of Britain to know how their assets and money are being used and to close the gap that currently exists by inviting people back into the conversation, and by building a system of local and national scrutiny and accountability that is fit for purpose, backed by a Government who are willing to open the books.

I think the key point in this debate was aired in what the hon. Lady said a moment ago, when she said that some of the most serious allegations she has ever heard aired in this House have been made. Will she stand with those allegations? At the moment, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) has alleged “industrial-scale corruption”. The hon. Lady has been very careful in all her public utterances, as indeed has he outside this Chamber, to avoid repeating that claim. Does she agree with him, or does she not?

The problem, as the right hon. Member well knows, is that Members of this House and, more importantly, people on Teesside simply do not know the answer to that question. Serious allegations have been raised not just by Members on the Opposition Benches, but by respected national journalists who have conducted meticulous investigations, and the point of holding an independent inquiry is that these serious allegations and the questions that have been raised need to be answered.

At every juncture and at every level of Government, when it comes to fair and reasonable questions about the South Tees development corporation, accountability, scrutiny and democratic control have broken down. It is only because of my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) and some tenacious, meticulous journalists, such as Jennifer Williams of the Financial Times, that we even know the bare facts of what has unfolded. People on Teesside should not have to rely on a national newspaper to discover what has been done with their assets, their community and their civic inheritance.

If the hon. Member wants to say otherwise, she is very welcome to do so now.

Just for clarification, is the hon. Lady confirming that she will not repeat outside this Chamber the allegations made by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald)?

Honestly. It is about time that hon. Members stopped chirping and started paying attention.

The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has accepted that an investigation is needed to give investors confidence. I saw him walking through the Chamber a moment ago, Madam Deputy Speaker—he could not get away quick enough. This is why we want to see an investigation launched without delay: to restore investor confidence and the confidence of the public in both the project and the devolution model itself.

The Secretary of State’s decision to block the National Audit Office from investigating these allegations is nothing short of bizarre. It is an investigation that is backed by the Tees Valley Mayor, by the official Opposition and by three Select Committee Chairs. The National Audit Office has the experience, capacity and independence to carry out an investigation—it has said itself it was able to do so and that the Secretary of State has the power to order that investigation—so it beggars belief that the Secretary of State has blocked that inquiry and now set up a review where the terms of reference and the members have been hand-picked by him. Then to come to the House on Monday and be unwilling—or perhaps unable—to answer basic questions about why he chose to do that is completely unacceptable. Saying that consultations were had and that the Government do not wish to set a precedent will not do. For decades, people on Teesside have made a major contribution to the UK through the steel industry. The Teesworks belongs to them and they have the right to know what is being done with it in their name.

The shadow Secretary of State is making an excellent speech to open the debate. Does she agree with me, as a member of the all-party parliamentary group on devolution, that we all want our regions to prosper and grow, but that things have to be done properly and be seen to be done properly?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and has been a huge champion of this for communities across the country. Most importantly, our regions will not prosper and will not grow unless we can have confidence that decisions are being taken in the right way and in the public interest, and the people of that region need to know that they will benefit from those decisions. That is the point of devolution.

Would the hon. Lady not agree that Teesside did not prosper or grow for decades after the demise of heavy industry and that it was only when Ben Houchen came along and started delivering for the people that people started realising that the Conservatives on Teesside were delivering, when Labour had failed for generations?

I will take absolutely no lessons from a representative of a political party that stood aside and watched as the Tees works collapsed in 2015.

Labour is therefore asking the Government to provide all papers, advice and correspondence, including Ministers, senior officials and special advisers, relating to the decision by the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister to commission a review into the Tees Valley Combined Authority’s oversight of the South Tees Development Corporation and the Teesworks joint venture, including papers relating to the decision that the review should not be led by the National Audit Office.

The hon. Member is probably aware that, in addition to the scandal that she is outlining in her excellent speech, Woking Council has today issued a section 114 notice, following its having run up £1.9 billion of debts under a Conservative-led administration, when it has core spending power of just £14 million. Does she agree that a National Audit Office investigation is important for the people of Woking as well, because there is clearly inadequate scrutiny of decision making on public money?

There is a wider point here, which is that devolution matters but it matters for a reason. It matters because decisions taken closer to people, driven by the people of the place they call home and for the benefit of those people, have the ability to transform lives. We need and deserve proper robust scrutiny arrangements and accountability in every part of the country, not just some, in order to ensure that.

I am sick and tired of hearing Conservative Members making accusations at our doorstep about unfounded allegations and naysaying about regeneration in the north-east. They are wrong and I suspect that they know it. The Labour Front-Bench team has not made allegations against Teesworks and the development corporation, and we will not do so before any investigation reports back. What we have asked for is honesty, transparency and clarity about what appears on the face of it to be an incredibly murky situation. It is the clear breakdown of local accountability that is sufficiently alarming that an investigation by the National Audit Office is required. We want to see this resolved. Conservative Members should want to see this resolved for the benefit of people on Teesside. The South Tees Mayor believes that is the case, as do three Select Committee Chairs, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State—if he did not, no investigation at all would be forthcoming. Let me be clear that the Humble Address today is about ensuring that a proper, full and independent investigation can take place in terms sufficient to provide the public with confidence in the process and the outcome of the investigation. In hand picking a panel and terms of reference, the Secretary of State has done a disservice to the principle of independent scrutiny and to his commitment to devolution, which until today I believed to be sincere. He has made it harder for confidence and transparency to return.

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way and for being so generous with her time. Some of the claims she makes are quite serious and in this House we always want to act in the spirit of transparency and openness, but with these very serious claims, I would ask: where is the evidence—what is the basis of this in the first place? Perhaps she could outline some of the evidence she is using as the basis for making these claims in the first place.

The hon. Gentleman might want to take that up with his colleague, the Mayor in question, who has referred himself and asked for a National Audit Office investigation. I do not know why Members on the Government Benches think his judgment is so poor that he should not have done that, but we believe he is absolutely right to have done that and we stand firmly behind him in asking for a proper investigation.

Incredibly, even by the standards of this shambolic Government, the terms of reference and the names of the panel members for this inquiry were sent to me seven minutes before this debate began. That genuinely is no way to conduct government. I assume that is where the Secretary of State is right now: sitting behind his desk knocking out terms of reference on the back of a fag packet. Clearly, I have not had much time, Madam Deputy Speaker, to read them, but on first sight what he has sent me looks like a system-focused review, rather than an investigation into what has happened. Ministers have still failed to give us an explanation as to why the National Audit Office cannot conduct its own investigation, a body that has capacity, resources and expertise, and is widely respected across the political spectrum. Instead, we are having a bizarre argument about the remit of a respected organisation that is patently able to conduct the investigation required. Can the Minister not see why the public would rightly raise an eyebrow?

It is completely unacceptable for the Government to hide from proper scrutiny. I remember a time when the Secretary of State could not wait to get to his place in this House. Nowadays, we barely see him. Where is he today? There is no clear justification for not ordering a comprehensive independent investigation from the National Audit Office. It cannot be right that hundreds of millions of pounds of public money have been handed over to a company that is now 90% in private ownership, and it appears that the Department has handed over that money and then simply walked away. This is a matter that has profound implications for people on Teesside, who rightly expect this site, through which they contributed so much to our country over so many years, to continue to benefit them and their community for years to come.

It is important to be clear that he is himself a former Labour councillor. The point in this debate is that we are offering an independent inquiry. As we have heard, an inquiry is under way and the reasons the NAO is not the appropriate body were set out very clearly by the Secretary of State in his letter.