Rebalancing Regional Economies
Debate between Andy MacNae and Afzal Khan(3 days, 15 hours ago)
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Andy MacNae
I agree 100% with my hon. Friend. It is the pride that we have in our towns that really matters. Good things should happen in our towns, not just in some distant city that only a tiny proportion of people in a town might be lucky enough to be able to travel to. That includes pride in our neighbourhoods; neighbourhoods are important to their residents.
Having said that, I do not deny for a moment that cities are our economic engines and that we desperately need to address the productivity gap between our regional centres and London—but, as we have said, this process cannot just be about the cities and the big towns. It matters little to the people of Bacup how well Manchester is doing. Instead, we need to see the good things happening in Manchester mirrored in places such as Bacup. That is the true test of whether we are delivering for all.
Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Greater Manchester has the fastest growing economy in the UK, with the most diverse range of sector strengths in the country, but despite that, Greater Manchester’s productivity is still 35% below London’s. Does he agree that we cannot rebalance our regional economies without major investments, such as the Northern Arc, which could double the size of the region’s economy in 30 years?
Andy MacNae
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That is largely the point: we must rebalance our economies by bridging the productivity gap between our cities, including our northern cities, and the rest of the country. At the same time, though, we must make sure that that growth in cities such as Manchester, which in many ways is doing great, is felt in Lancashire and other places at the same time.