The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. State Policies and Industrial Change: Reindustrialization Programmes in British steel closure areas This thesis is submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Department of Geography Peter Boulding Department of Geography February 1989 University of Durham Durham DH1 3LE r I) j. 31 OCT 1990 ii ABSTRACT Peter Boulding State policies and industrial change: Reindustrialization programmes in British steel closure areas Ph.D Thesis submitted February 1989. Efforts to establish replacement industrial employment in British steel closure areas have, at best, met with only partial success. Instead of industrial monoculture a new more vulnerable dependence has been created. Small firms, typified by poor wages, conditions and security of employment now predominate. The total employment provided by these firms is insufficient to absorb the demand generated following steel closure and increasing participation of women and school leavers in the labour market. This thesis attempts to examine how state policies have developed over time in three different steel closure areas: Hartlepool, Corby and Ebbw Vale. It attempts to rationalise the palliative aspects of recent state interventions and suggests that central government has been deliberately deconcentrating responsibility for job generation whilst retaining control of the financial means to achieve it. iii PREFACE The principal aim of this thesis is to investigat€ reindustrialization programmes in British steel closure areas. The programmes selected for comparative study were in Hartlepool, Corby and Blaenau Gwent. This raised the conceptual difficulty of how to interpret the various strands of state intervention that make up these programmes. The approach adopted followed the work of Of fe by considering state behaviour, not in terms of a neutral arbiter, but as bound by specific sets of interests. It might have been possible to adopt a liberalistic interpretation of state intervention and draw somewhat different conclusions. Given that the overt intention of reindustrialization programmes is that of employment generation, it is impossible to identify an official data source that adequately monitors the situation. As mentioned on several occasions in the text, the 1984 (Annual) Census of Employment (known as ACE) was not available over three years after it was taken (and even then with substantial inaccuracies- personal communication, NOMIS staff) Even if the 1984 ACE data had been made available sooner it would still have been out of date and would have provided only the baldest summary of conditions (breakdown of employment by gender and whether full- or part- time), with no qualitative element. Despite the validity of unemployment data becoming a minor iv political issue in the 1987 General Election, the fact remains that it is impossible to produce a reliable time series for a recent ten year period, for consistent small areas. The inadequacy of published sources prompted the decision to generate primary material consisting principally of questionnaires and interviews. This allowed for more up-to-date analysis of local variations in: the agencies undertaking reindustrialization, the characteristics of the associated employment (including levels of pay, types of work and working conditions), and the degree to which firms had actually altered their employment or locational practices as a result of the incentives. Thus the approach finally adopted was a combination of the intensive and extensive; see chapter 7 (2) for further references. Problems of accessibility from Durham are evident from the interview (see appendix 2) but not questionnaire coverage that Elaenau Gwent received. It is hoped that this does not detract from the inclusion of Blaenau Gwent for comparative purposes. All responsibility for the word processing, grammar and spelling rests with the author. V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have been of great assistance over the three years it has taken to produce this work, this includes all those mentioned in the list of interviewees in appendix 2 as well as the 280 company representatives who took the time to complete the questionnaire. In each area certain individuals proved exceptionally helpful; in Hartlepool Mike Kay, in Corby Tom McIntosh and Phil Sawford, in Blaenau Gwent Preston Powell and Martin Francis. The word processing of this work would have taken much longer if it were not for the kind offices of David Rhind, Vince Andrews and Caroline McKee who combined to give me access to the JANET at Birkbeck. In Durham, I have had support and encouragement. (often bordering on the over zealous!) from Ray Hudson and David Sadler. I must particularly thank David Cowton, Arthur Corner and the Drawing Office Staff for the fine maps they produced. There are a host of other Durham friends who have made my time here very enjoyable but are, in that cliched expression, "too numerous to mention". Finally, my grateful thanks go to the long suffering, patient and much loved Carolyn to whom this work is dedicated. vi LIST OF TABLES Chapter 3. Hartlepool 3.1 West Hartlepool the First Five Years ...........61 3.2 Hartlepools 1861 Tonnage .......................63 3.3 Companies attracted to Hartlepool 1964-1975... .69 3.4 Employment change 1975-1981 .................70-71 3.5 1974 Employment BSC South Works ................73 3.6 Trends in Employment and Unemployment ..........75 3.7 The Enterprise Zone Effect .....................84 3.8 Economic Initiatives ...........................92 3.9 Survey Employment Hartlepool ...................94 3.10 Other Survey Data (Ta11e) ...............96-100 Chapter 4. Corby 4.1 Stewarts & Lloyds Profits 1930' ...............117 4.2 Tubeworks & Industrial Estates Employment.123-124 4.3 Employment Change 1975-1981 ...............131-132 4.4 Trends in Employment and Unemployment .........134 4.5 Survey Employment Corby .......................145 4.6 Other Survey Data (Table C) ...............147-151 Chapter 5. Ebbw Vale- Blaenau Gwent 5.1 Trends in Employment and Unemployment .........185 5.2 Employment Change 1975-1981 ...............193-194 5.3 Survey Employment Blaenau Gwent ...............200 5.4 Other Survey Data (Table A) ...............202-206 vii Chapter 6. Comparisons 6.1 % Firms est. before and after closure .........241 6.2 Employment change over year ...................246 6.3 Regional Aid Totals ...........................249 6.4 Total Employment Change 1975-1981 .............256 6.5 Unemployment change 1972-1982 .................258 viii LIST OF MAPS Fig. 1 British steel closure areas ................. 25 Fig. 2 Rartlepool ..................................57 Fig. 3 Corby ......................................112 Fig. 4 Elaenau Gwent ..............................169 ix CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION:SETTING THE SCENE ..............1 1.1 Analytical Position ................1 1.2 Area Selection ...................3 1.3 What is reindustrialization ? ...........6 1.4 What are reindustrialization programmes? .....8 1.4.1 Conventional economic regeneration ......g 1.4.2 Training and retraining ...........10 1.4.3 Third sector or Community involvement . 11 1.5 How are the programmes implemented ' ........12 1.6 How has capital responded? ............17 1.7 Why reindustrialize ? ................19 1.8 Conclusion .....................27 2 STATE THEORY .......................29 2.1 Introduction ....................29 2.2 Theories as to the Character of the State .....31 2.3 Liberalism .....................32 2.4 Liberal democracy .................34 2.5 Marxism ......................35 2.6 Political Sociology ................37 2.7 Claus Offe: the principal contributor .......38 2.7.1 exclusion ..................39 2.7.2 Maintenance .................40 2.7.3 Dependency ..................40 2.7.4 Legitimation .................41 x 2.7.5 State intervention: allocation and production 42 2.7.6 Form. v. Content: the rules for policy formation ....................44 2.8 The Civil Society and Hegemony: Urry and Gramsci . 46 2.9 The Local State or Local Government ? .......48 2.10 A Supra-national State: The European Community . 51 2.11 Conclusions ....................53 3 RARTLEPOOL- LIVERPOOL OF THE EAST? ............56 3.1 Historical Context .................58 3.2 The First Phase of Reindustrialization .......66 3.2.1 The Steel Closure ..............71 3.3 The Experience of Reindustrialization .......74 3.3.1 Trends in Employment and Unemployment . 74 3.3.2 The Agencies .................76 3.3.3 The Impacts of Reindustrialization ......93 3.4 Summary and Conclusions .............107 4 CORBY ..........................110 4.1 Historical Background ..............113 4.2 Corby- the New Town 1950-1980 ..........120 4.3 The Steel Closure ................127 4.4 The Experience of Reindustrialization ......133 4.4.1 Trends in Employment and Unemployment . 133 4.4.2 The Agencies ................135 4.4.3 The Impacts of Reindustrializatiori upon Industry and Employment ............144 4.5 Summary and Conclusions ..............63 xi 5 EBBW VALE 168 5.1 The Pre-1930s Context ..............170 5.2 pre-war regional initiatives ...........173 5.3 The post-war consensus: Regional Policy until the 1970s.......................176 5.4 The second steel closure in 50 years; a gradual affair ......................180 5.5 The experience of reindustrialization