Social Affairs and Welfare Committee

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Mr Iorwerth Roberts in the Chair.

This Committee is concerned, essentially, with those parts of the Welfare State that are not under the oversight of the Health and Education Committee. We look into benefits, pensions, housing and all other related issues. Over the past two decades this Committee has also spent a great deal of its time looking into the issue of 'regeneration', and we have always, always, produced detailed and accurate reports into the state of the nation.

Could all members of the committee sign themselves in, via the usual procedures.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

First item on the agenda is the crisis at the DRC. As you know, the Docklands Redevelopment Corporation was set up a few years ago in order to redevelop the old docks in the Castle and Darside boroughs of St Marks. Developments in the shipping industry over the past half century rendered those docks totally obsolete, and they were replaced by the new docks in Northcoates borough and at South Barwood just outside the city. This was nearly twenty five years ago. The old docks became urban wastelands in the heart of our capital and were, or so I am told, not good PR for Antillia. Pressure for change came, as it does, and six years ago the Docklands Redevelopment Corporation was founded, with government support and special planning powers (including an element of immunity from the oversight of the CPT Committee and total immunity from any oversight from St Marks City Council). The DRC was based on the LDDC in London and the idea was to use private - and in practice foreign - capital in order to regenerate the old docks and the area around them, and to create in place of wasteland, a dynamic new district dominated by the financial services, media and leisure industries. Then, as we all know, the world economy crashed with certain inevitable consequences for the DRC's master plan. Very little has been done at the old docks since the end of 2008 and the only big project in the works that has been announced in public is the proposal to build a new stadium in the Castle Dock basin. A proposal that is by no means certain of success.

This committee does not look into planning issues, but it does look into regeneration. And the DRC is responsible for running one of the biggest regeneration projects in the country. The question for this committee is whether they are, to use an awful cliche, fit for purpose. Over the coming weeks this committee will investigate the issue and will produce some recommendations to the Minister to follow, if he so chooses.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think, then, that most of us would agree that it was an error to model the DRC so closely on the LDDC? I am thinking especially of the freezing out of local government.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Which is an especially important point given that the LDDC itself was a very controversial project in the United Kingdom and it is questionable whether it can truly be regarded as an example of successful regeneration.

I am tempted to bring this matter to a vote. Does anyone object to that?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The vote is on the following motion:

This committee finds that the Docklands Redevelopment Corporation (hereafter referred to as the 'DRC') is unfit for purpose and on the verge of a catastrophic collapse that would damage the reputation of both the City of St Marks and the entire nation of Antillia. It has concluded that it was a fundamental error to model the DRC on the London Docklands Redevelopment Corporation, given both the questionable nature of that body's redevelopment work and the obvious differences between the economic structures of St Marks and London. It has not found that it is wrong to use private finance and private experience in major regeneration projects, but it has found that great care must be taken when doing so. Moreover, it has also concluded that never again should local government be so comprehensively cut out from major regeneration projects. The Committee has also has uncovered evidence of gross mismanagement and of the abuse of public money. It recommends the immediate dismissal of the DRC's entire Board of Directors and of its senior management (including its Chief Executive, Mr John Galdeford), and calls for the DRC to be temporarily managed by St Marks City Council until the conclusion of a Royal Commission on the DRC, which it believes that the Secretary of State for Social Affairs and Welfare must implement immediately.

Members of the Committee shall, in the time honoured fashion, vote Aye or Nay.