26/02/2012 Sunday Politics North West

And in the North West: The proposals for the marina complex

that ran aground. As plans for Barrow's regeneration

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2032 seconds

hit choppy waters, we ask what's Hello, I'm Annabel Tiffin. In the

next 20 minutes: the proposals for the marina complex that ran aground.

As plans for Barrow's regeneration hit choppy waters, we asked what

next for the town. First, let me introduce our two

guests of the day. For this week, we have branched out from

Westminster to Brussels with two north-west MEPs. For the

Conservatives, Jacqueline Foster, and for UKIP, the deputy leader,

Paul Nuttall. We are used to having any bes in

here but we don't see you very often. How often are you in the

north-west was struck Mark --? me about three weeks of the month

we are in Brussels where we do committee work. Once a month, a

very controversial journey takes place do Strasbourg because we have

to sit there for about 12 times in mid-air. The public does not

understand why you do that. There are actually two European

Parliament and it comes at great expense to the public, not just to

transfer the MEPs, but also the officers and staff all the way from

Brussels to Strasbourg. It is about 500 miles. It is a waste of money,

and the Strasbourg parliament should be scrapped, quite badly.

That is something we will take longer than we have got to talk

about, so I am going to move on. Liverpool's hosting the Green

Party's spring conference this weekend and, on the face of it, the

party has much to celebrate. Over the past few years, the environment

has gone from being an ethical sideshow to centre stage politics.

Every party is now anxious to show its green credentials. But, where

does that leave the people who started it all? In a moment, I'll

be talking to the leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas, but

first, Peter Marshall has been to Merseyside where the environment

has become big business. It seems many firms have seen the

light when it comes to going green. In fact, this transport

refrigeration company in Knowsley has diversified to meet the demand

for green energy products. looked to reduce our overheads and

one way was to reduce our electricity and gas bill and

various other costs. As we looked into it, within the first couple of

months, we found it was quite a viable business proposition.

Alongside the core business they now supply and install renewable

and energy-saving equipment. The Government needs to promote a green

agenda. By 2020, 15 per cent of all the UK's Energy should come from

renewable sources. It has outlined plans for what it calls the world's

first Green Investment Bank, to help firms finance renewable energy

schemes. Liverpool hope to be its home, as do Manchester, Warrington

and Chester. The north-west is so appropriate. Excuse the cliche, but

this is the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. This will

bring in other prospective investors who have got plans for

the region and look for Bank Investment. It is about profile.

But the green economy faces challenges. The Government is

trying to cut the amount of money paid to householders for

electricity they feed back into the grid by using solar panels. The

industry fears cutting that feed in tariff could cause a devastating

drop in demand. The Government have done what they have done for their

own reasons, and no one can really understand that. You had a good

incentive there, so hopefully, if the Government sort themselves out,

get the business back as usual. Liverpool John Moores University,

they are working on the green technologies of the future, like

using microwaves to speed up incineration, and produce fewer

harmful emissions. These technologies that we are trying to

look at make things faster and they think -- make things more

productive. They are also economically viable. So, green can

pay its way? It can, yes. wherewithal for a greener future is

out there, but it has to make economic as well as environmental

sense. In our Mees -- Merseyside studio is

Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party. Going green can be big

business, but a lot of the mainstream parties are taking this

on now. Does that mean, do you think, that your work is done,

really? If any that were the case. We have got a coalition government

that likes to say it wants to be the greenest government ever, but

when you look at what it is doing, it is quite contrary. Your piece

just cited the example of the solar feed in Paris. That change that the

Government is about to make, not just the amount of money going into

the tariff is reducing, but it needs to be done in a predictable

way, not a sudden way, as the Government has done it. That move

will mean that we are losing about 20,000 jobs in the solar industry.

That is one of the fastest-growing industries in this country, and it

would be tragic if those jobs go. But the coalition Government wants

to introduce the Green Investment Bank, which is going to plough in

�15 billion into the green economy. Surely that shows they are taking

this seriously? Credit where it is due, I guess, it is a good idea.

But of course the mud that it will be able to borrow and lend and pass

on has gone down. -- the amount. The time frame has also lent them.

There are concerns about whether that Green Investment Bank is going

to be able to meet his potential. I hope that it is, but on a whole

range of issues so far, in spite of the rhetoric, we have seen very

little real action on the ground. cake, but green jobs are well and

good, but in this region where there really needs some way of

making up for the loss of public sector jobs, is it enough? We need

all kinds of different levers to create jobs in places like the

north-west and elsewhere. I think the green economy has to be a

crucial part of it, and not just because it is good for the

environment, but because the green economy is so labour-intensive.

There has been a lot of work done with unions and others to show how

we can create one million new jobs across the country. And not just

saying that because you would expect me to, but because it is a

really good way of putting money into create jobs that are

sustainable into the future, and in industries that are labour

intensive. This green economy is far more labour intensive and the

fossil fuel economy that it replaces. There are some real big

wins out there, and the Government's challenge now is to

show some real ambition around maximising the benefits that are

out there. Do stay with us. Paul Nuttall, do you think that the

green jobs can stimulate our economy? I am not sure actually.

What I will say is that if we carry on down the line of this Greek

environmental -- green environmentalism in terms of energy,

if we continue with this crackpot idea, quite frankly the lights will

go out in Britain very soon indeed. What ideas? Wind farms, for example.

They are more than a costly distraction, they don't work. They

only work 25% of the time and when you most need energy, during cold

snaps or heat waves, the wind does not blow so they don't work. Even

where it does blow to strong, you have to turn them off. All they are

doing is making rich landowners richer. Jacqueline, you are on the

environment committee in Brussels. Do you think that these are

crackpot ideas? I think some of them are. I am not a great fan of

wind farms. I think you have got to look in the round, really. What do

we actually need to keep the country going? What do we need in

certain industries? Where I would agree with Caroline, I think a lot

of the manufacturing industries over the years have started to come

up trumps in terms of the way that the manufacturing. If you Broughton

best from energy, I have always supported expanding our nuclear

capacity in this country. I am very pleased the Government has actually

decided that it will do this. the Conservatives now see

themselves as a Green Party? It is worldwide. It is part and parcel -

when you are a grown-up party and you have to take responsibility to

be the government of the day, of course you are going to take into

account all sorts of... Before I come back, let's bring Caroline

back in. I'm sure you want to respond. And surprisingly, I do.

Look at Germany, where they are putting in more solar panels in a

month than Britain does in a year. That is good for the economy - they

are doing very well economically at the moment. This idea that

environmental policies are a distraction from business as usual

for grown-up politics is cloud- cuckoo-land. Some of the things

that Ball said about wind power is not the case. If you look at

nuclear power stations, both of your guests sing in favour of these,

but they regularly go off-line and stay off-line. When that happens

because of some problem in the mechanism, you have got a huge

amount of energy that is taken off- line at once. At least with a range

of different renewables, you have got a range that you can draw on.

All right, Caroline, I'm sorry we are running out of time. Thank you

for joining us. Now, still on the subject of the economy. Formal than

two decades now, regeneration has been the name up of the game in

post-industrial Britain. Until last year, millions of pounds of

regeneration money came from the regional North West Development

Agency, and a lot of that money was match funded by Europe. But, when

the agency was abolished by the coalition government in 2010, those

funds dried up. Naomi Cornwell has been to Barrow-in-Furness in

Cumbria where plans for the marina have been left high and dry.

This was Barrow's big dream - a �200 million transformation of the

town's waterfront, with a marina, homes, hotels and a large

industrial park. But, many years after the plans were unveiled, work

has stopped. There is little to see for the �7 million so far spent.

is frustrating for people. When we started the project initially, I

believed that we would have it done in five or seven years' time. I had

visions of houses and penthouses and God knows what. The project was

mainly funded by the North West Development Agency. In 2010, the

Government announced it would abolish the agency and its grants

have since dried up. But it has not stopped Barrow Council buying up

land. If we don't do that as a council, then what we are saying to

the people is that Barrow would develop and expand, so we have to

keep that going. That is our plan for the future. It is a big

disappointment for Barrow, a town with high levels of deprivation.

The proportion of people claiming jobseeker's allowance is higher

here than the national average. So is the proportion of the population

on incapacity benefit. Many agree that Barrow needs a boost. We could

do with something like that. It is just on the edge. Yes, definitely.

Then you might get ships and that coming in, too, which would help.

What do you think Barrow needs? better shopping centre. That's it.

Regeneration in the town centre. The Dock Museum shows the town's

main industry through the ages. But shipbuilding has been in decline

over the last 20 years, prompting calls for new jobs in other sectors.

That is the challenge facing Cumbria's Local Enterprise

Partnership. LEPs were set up to replace the regional development

agencies. They can help projects but the Government money, but can't

fund things themselves. It is extremely tough, so I think we have

to admit that the days of speculative development on these

types of industry are for the time being gone. Development will need

to be led by investors, rather than speculative developers, and we are

talking to a number of investment developers. The town's prospects

aren't perhaps as bleak as it may seem here. Out at sea, a new

industry has emerged, as wind farms transform the Cumbrian coast line.

They have been championed by Furness Enterprise. It wants to

attract more private investors into Barrow to help regenerate the town.

But it, too, faces an uncertain future, and will close in August

unless more funding can be found. There are still opportunities. We

have a cluster of companies in this area involved in solid state

lighting, the new energy efficient lighting for the 21st century. With

the right kind of support from the Government, we can make a real

impact and create jobs. But we are not getting back from the UK

government. There are concerns that delays to regeneration projects

could have a big impact on young people in towns like Barrow.

any apprenticeship I can found his with BAe. The members of Furness

Youth Council pass on their ideas on improving the town to the local

authority. There is not much here, there is not much choice. I would

not get a job here. There is a little chance that I would get a

job here. I would rather work away. When people will take more interest

in Barrow, people will then be interested because it is their home

town and they will want to come back. I have no objection to

Manchester or Liverpool in their share, but you can't do

regeneration simply in cities because all that happens is the

town's Dye. I would like to see a JCB digger on here as soon as

possible. I will have to be a little bit patient. The dream has

not died, but the wait for Barrow's bright future might take longer

than anyone here expected. Professor Alan Harding joins us in

the studio. Taking that last point that was made, what is the future

of regeneration for our north-west pounds? The last speaker was right

to suggest that there has been a big concentration on cities. I

think that is for a good reason. If you look at the statistics, it will

demonstrate that it is the bigger urban areas that have had most

success. For a government that is concentrating on success, then the

implications for areas like Barrow, even though there are quite

concerning in some areas, I think follow from what we have been doing

in recent years. Barrow has benefited from some European

funding in the past. Obviously the big cities much more so. Is that

all going to change in the future? There is a review going on at the

moment of European funding for the next period, which follows 2014.

All the indications are that the UK as a whole will get much less of an

allocation and it has this time around. Simply because there are

areas of southern and eastern Europe which are statistically

worse off than the UK. So they might get back pot of money that we

might otherwise have got? Yes, at the European funding is likely to

shift away from that big physical project do things like business

development, entrepreneur realism, high technology and so on. Talking

about Europe, the economy is struggling, there is no about --

doubt about that, but there is over �1 billion of European funding that

is not being used. It was earmarked to help England's poorest regions

and cities lying unspent. Why is that? I have no idea. It is one

thing having a north-west development agency that is part of

rate mechanism and clearly everyone knew what they did, and... But that

has gone now. People can blame, of course they can. The money is going

to then be - the whole thing will be utilised through the local

enterprise partnerships. It is just that the structure is different. It

does not mean to say that there is less money or more money. If it

depends on who bids for what, but much funding still applied when it

was the north-west development agency. There is nothing new there.

The LEPs can't directly give money. The regional development agencies

did have their own money. That is the difference. They can't match

the European funding any more, so the European funding is not

forthcoming. The European funding is still... The funding promised is

still available. What is different is that the mechanisms in the

north-west and across the UK are different. Is that right, Paul, is

it just the structure that is different? Jackie is right. It is

more localised. I am a great believer in localism. If the is

organisations are run by a democratically elected councillors

and businesses, then I am all in favour. There is a bigger issue

here. You are talking about European funding. There is such a

big misnomer. It is our own money. So you are saying it is the money

that we have been given in the first prize? Absolutely. �50

million a day, it cost this country to be a member of this organisation.

We sent the money out there, they sent half of it back and we are

expected to say thank you. There is no such thing as European money, it

is our money. How can we get this money to our regions that really

need it? A moment it is lying there and nobody can access it. We need a

referendum and we spend our own money sensibly on a foreign people

in our own country. I think the more realistic prospect is that we

need to think more carefully about much funding for things. He is

right, the money is on the table and we need to find Mechelen --

different mechanisms for finding the match funding. In Barrow, my

understanding is that the assets of the ritual Development Agency had

been transferred to another organisation, the homes and

communities agency. There is some prospect that the agency will be

able to realise the value of some of those assets. That is just one

example. Local-authority is, you know, have got assets which they

can use to back European funding. It is not a lost cause. It's now

time for our round-up of this week's events with Gill Dummigan.

Lancashire MPs lobbied this week for BAe Systems's bid to build the

Indian Government's new fighter force. At the moment, France is the

preferred bidder. But MPs met David Cameron to urge him to keep up the

pressure. The House of Commons this week

debated calls for a new inquest into the death of a teenage victim

of the Hillsborough disaster. The mother of Kevin Williams has always

contested the verdict that he died accidentally. More than 100,000

people signed her online petition, triggering the debate.

A public inquiry has been called for after a damning report on adult

social services at Wirral Council. Last week, the Labour leader Steve

Foulkes was voted out by councillors. The new man in charge

says an inquiry is the only way to restore trust.

I know that the prime minister has shown an interest. Ministers in

London are showing an interest. We will speak to them to see if we can

get this sorted. Finally, mothers in the Isle of Man

have been out on the streets protesting. They are concerned at