Public Accounts

The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) raised a legitimate point. One of the things acknowledged by the PAC—thank goodness—was that the Thames Gateway is covered by no fewer than three Government regions. There is the Greater London region and the eastern region, which we are in, although what goes on in Norwich has no relevance to my people—I am sure we love Norwich and Cambridgeshire, but we are not oriented towards that area. The hon. Gentleman referred to our colleague from Kent and of course his constituency is in the south-east region. That illustrates just how many confusing agencies there are. Moreover, the motorway system bears no relation to the scheme; the motorways of the Greater London region go from my region and from Kent into London. I implore the Government not to take the view they put in their response—that everything in the garden is rosy. It is not. Sooner or later the Prime Minister will wake up to the fact that the developments he attaches such great importance to—creating new homes and quality communities with essential public services commensurate with residential growth and an increasing skills base—will not be achieved unless there is a root and branch review of the policy for the Thames Gateway, and particularly but not exclusively for Thurrock urban development corporation. The Government should use as their starting point the PAC report, which I commend to the House.