Regional Growth Fund

Debate between Angela Smith and Esther McVey

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey]

No, I will not. Therefore, we now have to ask how we will spend money better, how we will live within our means and how we will rebalance the economy. I talk as someone who had her own business for the last 14 years. I have set businesses up and sold them. I also set up the biggest business network for women in the north-west, involving more than 9,000 business ladies. I therefore like to see myself not only as a business woman, but as a pragmatist who knows that we can spend only what we have. That is what the coalition Government were facing.

I hope that I have set the debate in context. The regional growth fund was set up to create a fairer and more balanced economy, in which we are not so dependent on a narrow range of economic sectors and in which new business and economic opportunities are evenly shared across the regions and across industries. That is what we set out to achieve.

[Angela Smith]

The regional development agency Yorkshire Forward played an instrumental role in developing the UK’s first technology and innovation centre. We did not call it that. It is the advanced manufacturing research centre in Sheffield. That is now being lauded as the perfect example of where this country needs to go on investment in new technologies and design. Will the hon. Lady at least acknowledge that the RDAs had a very good and effective role in pulling together strategic investments and strategic design and innovation?

[Esther McVey]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. As I said, I did not deal with Yorkshire Forward; I worked with the Northwest Development Agency and I congratulate the staff, who were excellent. I am saying that, despite spending £3.7 billion, what was meant to be done—rebalancing the economy—never happened. We are therefore asking how we can best deliver the money, how we can focus it and how we can ensure that it achieves its purpose.