North of England: Economic Support

Debate between Clive Efford and Mike Amesbury

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), also a metro Mayor, for securing such a vital debate.

The levelling up of regions of the UK is a stated focus of the current Government, as has been said across this Chamber today. Coronavirus has become the first—and, I would imagine, the largest— hurdle to this agenda for us all. At this first hurdle, the Government have fallen. They have given away the fact that, at their core, they do not value people and jobs equally.

In the spring, when the Government decided to lock down—lockdown 1—under pressure from the Opposition Benches, businesses and unions, they quickly drew up plans to provide 80% of wages through the furlough scheme for people who could no longer work. However, in October, when my constituents, and many others across the north, were plunged into tier 3, along with the Liverpool city region, it was decided that workers needed only 67% of their wages. The Chancellor told us that more money could not be found, but three weeks later—hey presto!—the Treasury suddenly uncovered more cash when we went into national lockdown. Now we are back to 80%, after a sustained campaign by many people—not only parliamentarians, but businesses and trade unions. What hope can we have of levelling up when, in the middle of an international crisis, the Government send the clear signal that northerners, northern livelihoods and northern businesses mean less?

As my Labour colleagues highlighted this week, we can harness the opportunities for green growth if the Government act urgently to deliver the economic recovery that the nation requires. That must include the plan that my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central eloquently put forward for levelling up growth, skills and investment in the north through the UK prosperity fund. We must also look at the Green Book reforms that have been much peddled and promised in the media. In my constituency, we also need more investment in hydrogen, which hon. Members from across the House have mentioned, and investment in Sci-Tech Daresbury, with which the former Minister, the right hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), is very familiar—he was helpful with it in the past. We need more investment with a laser-like focus to drive up prosperity and economic recovery.

We have had enough of second-rate public transport and hand-me-down rolling stock, the talk of levelling up while levelling down to rubble a multimillion-pound college in the Northwich part of my constituency, and the spin of “build, build, build” while the Government’s housing algorithm means 28% fewer houses in the north and more than 160% more houses in London. Any investment in regional economies must be matched by investment in local decision making. We need to harness it is as much as we harness the economic power that the north is capable of. The levelling up agenda must include a radical transfer of fiscal and political power. We lack not just funding and investment in the north, but the ability to shape our fortunes and make change ourselves. We cannot continue to tolerate inequality of power, which drives inequalities of prosperity across the country and the north, so I ask the Minister to consider—

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

Order.