Productivity and Economic Growth: East Midlands

Adam Thompson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) for securing the debate, and colleagues across the House for their contributions. For too long, the east midlands was left behind: abandoned by a post-1980s, neoliberal, globalisation-driven economic consensus and forgotten by a conservative, austere Treasury logic that struggled to bring itself to invest in London, let alone in medium-sized towns in the east midlands. I am glad that that paradigm is finally changing.

The first blast furnace at the former Stanton ironworks in my constituency was lit at the dawn of the industrial revolution, but in 2007 it went out for the final time. Hundreds of jobs were lost, and Ilkeston became a post-industrial town. However, New Stanton Park now grows every day, and Italian manufacturer Fassa Bortolo recently chose Ilkeston as the location for their first factory in Britain. Jobs are returning and investment is coming, which is welcome.

However, it is important to note that new developments spark anxiety. Derbyshire was recently ranked as having the worst roads in England: the local road network was not designed to handle so much pressure, and failures at junction 25 of the M1 bring traffic to a standstill for miles. The old ironworks was linked to the railway by a rail spur, and although that infrastructure still exists, it will take a lot more time and money to bring it back into use. Getting the freight from New Stanton Park on to the railway would be an enormous win for local people in my constituency, for our roads and for the environment.

Alongside work on that, I have been campaigning for a junction 25a on the M1, designed to service Stanton. I have met Ministers and Highways England, and even sat down and found complete common ground with my local council’s Conservative group leader, Councillor Wayne Major. Ultimately, it would take a minimum of several years and tens of millions of pounds for that project to happen, but it is really important to get it working for our local community. For that, we need the Government, and I am grateful for the changes to the Treasury Green Book to make infrastructure upgrades outside London more acceptable. I am also extremely excited about the £2 billion that the Chancellor committed to transport in the east midlands, and to see how Claire, our brilliant mayor, will spend that money.

I want to stress that in Erewash, we have not just a strong industrial history but a growing industrial present. People want jobs; they want investment; they want economic growth—but that needs to come with proper, long-term, serious infrastructure commitments. Growth leads to work for local people, not just around them. They need to know that it benefits them, not just the mega-rich chief executive officers. Part of that is making sure that we have proper investment in infrastructure to make people’s lives better and more productive.