Green Investment Bank (Leeds)

David Ward Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Greg Mulholland]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, my other neighbour, for his support in this campaign. That is a strikingly innovative project. While we have the Minister here, we should suggest that he visit projects of that nature; the only thing is that he and his team will probably need about a week to see many of the wonderful things that are going on in the Leeds city region.

A little further afield, in East Yorkshire, we have offshore wind on the Humber—a project that has been developed with significant expertise from the Leeds city region across the financial, legal, manufacturing and engineering sectors. The region’s traditional sectors, such as manufacturing, will develop the low-carbon technologies of tomorrow, as in the case of David Brown, a company mentioned by the hon. Member for Colne Valley.

That leads to the second reason why Leeds city region should get the green investment bank: the incredible talent that we have. As the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne has already said—he rather stole my thunder, but it needs to be repeated again and again, so I am happy that he has done so—Leeds is the leading UK centre for financial services outside London, with 120,000 people working in the sector and over 30 national and international banks based in the city. I do not know whether the Minister is aware of this, but Leeds city region has the biggest financial sector outside London—bigger than any of the competitors currently bidding for the location of the green investment bank.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

As a Bradford MP, it pains me somewhat to say too much in favour of Leeds, but I hope that the Minister is catching the drift of this debate. We are aware of the rebalancing strategy from the south to the north regarding finance and manufacturing, but it is crucial to rebalance within regions too. The fact that so many MPs are here from so many parts of the region is testament to our belief that such a move would be good for the whole of the region, not just good for Leeds.

[Greg Mulholland]

I thank my hon. Friend. This debate does show the strength of support for the bid from all round the Leeds city region and, indeed, the Yorkshire and Humber region.

Let me say this one more time, because I have heard doubts cast on it: Leeds is the second biggest financial centre in the country—not Bristol and not Edinburgh. I will give some figures. Financial advisers in the Leeds city region were responsible for almost 200 deals in 2010, worth £10 billion to the economy. If that is not music to Ministers’ ears, I do not know what is.