Pennine Lancashire Local Enterprise Partnership
Debate between Baroness Fullbrook and Gordon BirtwistleWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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Lorraine Fullbrook
I have nearly finished.
The Business Secretary said last weekend that not one of the three proposals to create the partnerships had been successful, claiming that they would have ended up competing with each other for the Government’s regional growth fund. Meanwhile, schemes in Manchester, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Cheshire have got their acts together and are getting the go-ahead. Other unified LEPs are currently bidding for funds that could be usefully deployed in Lancashire. The North and Western Lancashire chamber of commerce has said that an LEP based on the county of Lancashire is the preferred model for chamber members and the wider business community. On 2 November, Babs Murphy, chief executive of the chamber of commerce, said:
“A pan-Lancashire Local Enterprise Partnership was the only realistic model for this area, a model that had the support of the business community.”
Lorraine Fullbrook
I am nearly finished. I hope that we can come together to protect Lancashire as a whole and as a brand. Tourism, manufacturing, agriculture and professional services should unite and, regardless of parochial interests, work together to strengthen and enhance the great economic potential of Lancashire. I echo the words of Frank McKenna, chairman of the business lobbying group, Downtown Preston, who has said that anything other than a pan-Lancashire bid would stifle development and growth.