Green Book Review

Connor Naismith Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I thank my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell), for securing the debate.

As we have heard, the Green Book is the document that sets the framework for deciding where public investment goes. That means it is a subject that is not often spoken about—it is under-spoken about—but it is crucial, and it should be crucial to all our constituents.

We live in a society with grotesque place-based inequality. London enjoys productivity at 170% of the UK average, and that productivity gap has widened over time. The access that my constituents have to public transport is incomparable even with that in central Manchester, never mind the other planet that, frankly, we experience here in this city. Health outcomes and life expectancy are inextricably linked to having a thriving local economy and a place that people can be proud of.

Addressing this grotesque place-based inequality will require place-based investment. The status quo simply represents a game rigged against my constituents. It is baffling that there is a train station in my constituency that is unrivalled in terms of its capacity to connect the north and the midlands through genuine, 360° connectivity, but that we have struggled to secure the investment—frankly, Crewe station is dilapidated—to match the needs of projected future passenger growth. That is simply unsustainable, and it is not acceptable to my constituents and the many people who use that train station every day.

The status quo also forces talented people in my constituency and across the country who may wish to build a life for themselves in their own community to move to where the jobs and opportunities are, which is often not the place they would naturally choose. The place they would naturally choose is often the place where they grew up.

It does not have to be this way, but we have to change the rules if we are to see real change. I welcome the commitment to a review of the Green Book. The 2020 review made a number of recommendations, including placing greater emphasis on the strategic objectives of the Government of the day; deploying a place-based analysis to ensure that the needs of specific regions and sub-regions are taken into account; considering transformational interventions, which have the potential to bring significant long-term benefits to regions; and, crucially, as other colleagues have touched on, reducing the focus on cost-benefit ratio as a measure—a narrow focus that simply compounds regional inequalities. I would welcome the Minister’s reflections on the implementation of the recommendations made under the previous Government; they certainly do not seem to have brought any benefit to my constituents or to have delivered that Government’s so-called levelling-up agenda.

We have to stop treating towns across our country as if the people living in them are somehow fundamentally different from the people who live in metropolitan cities—as if they are less deserving of strong local economies and communities with access to quality jobs, public transport and amenities on their doorstep. A further review is welcome, but it must deliver real change.