Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Thanks in part to the efforts of my hon. Friend and the support he has given to investment in Carlisle, we have seen a 34% fall in the unemployment claimant count in Carlisle in the last year alone. We are also devolving more responsibility for setting the skills agenda to local businesses, so we can have skills that are specific to the Carlisle area. I am always happy to talk to my hon. Friend and to meet people he would bring to see me, to see what more we can do to make sure that Carlisle is part of the strong economic revival of the north of England.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The Chancellor opened the door for other metropolitan areas to go down the route of the northern powerhouse. Has he given any consideration to what he regards to be an optimum size for those units? In the west midlands, would that be a Greater Birmingham and black country metropolitan area or an entire west midlands metropolitan area?

[Mr Osborne]

I do not think any one area is the same as any other area. There is a specific model for Greater Manchester, and of course the Greater Manchester councils had worked well together as a combined authority. Clearly Birmingham city council is much larger than Manchester city council alone, so I would like to have a conversation with the hon. Lady, and with Albert Bore and other civic leaders in Birmingham, about whether we can move to a mayoral model, perhaps just in the city. That is a discussion to be had with local people, however.