Ben Bradshaw
Main Page: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Vince Cable
It is revealing, in a way, that half an hour into questions that is the first question we have had about the key development, which is creating incentives for local authorities to grow. Those did not exist before. We have the new homes bonus. We are talking about the repatriation of business rates and a series of incentives that local authorities will in future have to grow and develop, which currently do not exist.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Is not the CBI right to describe the whole process as a shambles? That is certainly what it has been in the south-west, which has fallen back into the worst parochialism and petty rivalry that bedevilled the system before RDAs. Why does not the Secretary of State think again before it is too late and he does untold damage to the economy of the south-west?
Vince Cable
My Department has been talking to the CBI, which is pleased with the outcome, as it made clear. On petty parochialism, that is a strange way for the right hon. Gentleman to describe his own local community. We have tried to ensure that the process is driven from the bottom up and is not centrally imposed. Good local authorities, working with local businesses, are producing very creative, positive ways forward. What is wrong with that?