EU Structural Funds: Least Developed Regions

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing this important debate. I am pleased to see Members here from all parties and from every corner of the United Kingdom, especially from communities in our least developed regions, such as those in South Yorkshire, where I am proud to serve as Mayor and MP. Such communities are among the hardest hit by austerity, by stalled economic growth, and by the failure of successive Governments to address widening regional inequalities.

The stark truth is that, from 2020 onwards, funding allocated to regions by the EU will come to an end, and 2021 marks the end of the Government’s local growth fund programme. Taken together, those funds have been the glue holding together many of our communities. What replaces those funds must replace them on the basis of what would have been received had the referendum result been different. The creation of a shared prosperity fund provides a vital opportunity to do things differently. To heal the divisions in our country and to turn the dial in those least developed regions, we must think and do differently.

The UK has one of the most centralised political systems in the world, with the inevitable consequence that some of the decisions taken by Westminster and Whitehall, however well-intentioned, do not reflect the needs or opportunities of local areas. Those living in the UK’s least developed regions are feeling the impact of the equality gap, which grows ever wider. I am hugely positive about our collective ability in the north of England to make real progress, provided that we have the right powers underpinned by the right resources. My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) mentioned the Power Up The North campaign, and increasingly there seems to be a growing recognition that the answers to the many challenges that we face do not lie in Westminster or Whitehall.

In the final minute that I have available to me, I will rattle through the four principles that I have set out for the shared prosperity fund.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dan Jarvis]

I will not; I have very little time.

First, the annual budget for the shared prosperity fund should be no less in real terms than both the EU and local growth funding streams that it replaces. Secondly, there should be no competitive bidding element. Thirdly, the fund must be fully devolved to the areas that have in place robust, democratically accountable governance models. Finally, the funding must be stretched over multiple years, beyond the vagaries of spending reviews and parliamentary cycles.

If we want to create a country that works for everybody, let us take the opportunity to be bold, and let us make sure that the shared prosperity fund does what it says on the tin and enables all of our communities to share and prosper in our country’s economic growth.