Regional Growth Fund

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Angela Smith]

My hon. Friend is right. It is not only slow; there is inertia at the heart of the Government’s approach to investment in our economy. That is all down to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who said this morning, when asked by the BBC, that this is a difficult journey for the UK economy, but that we are determined to complete it, so that we have jobs and growth—only warm words, once again. He will not admit that he has got it wrong, or that he needs a plan B, and that is at the heart of the problem we are facing.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

The hon. Lady said that small and medium-sized enterprises will not benefit. Does she not agree that the supply chain benefits are enormous? Let me cite the successful bid of Pochin’s of Middlewich in my constituency for £4.1 million, announced yesterday. That will result in the creation of 3,600 new jobs, ultimately, and safeguard a further 200 in the region. Many of those jobs will be in SMEs.

[Angela Smith]

I am sure that hon. Members have come here today to congratulate the companies that were promised money in yesterday’s announcement. Any investment is welcome, but I remind the hon. Lady that the Government cancelled a significant investment in the nuclear industry supply chain 18 months ago. That is what the Forgemasters loan was about, and that is why the Government are seriously damaging the economy. We are talking about a major supply chain that would have ensured that the UK and its manufacturing base were at the forefront of the building of the next generation of nuclear power stations.

How businesses access the fund is a problem, as the Minister admitted in an article in The Times:

“There have also been problems where, given the financial uncertainty from June onwards, it has proven very slow to unlock that private capital.”

So where are we with the Government’s regional growth strategy? It is quite obvious that the Government’s thinking is muddled to say the least. They have dismantled the Labour Government’s regeneration framework and replaced it with a rickety framework, fed with inadequate resources spread very thinly. Worse still, this comes at a time when help is most required by many of the regions because of the Government’s desire to cut too far and too fast.

So what should we be doing to jump-start growth? Labour’s plan to repeat the bank bonus tax, and to use the funds to build 25,000 desperately needed homes and secure jobs for 100,000 young people, would help, as would bringing forward long-term infrastructure projects. We got a start on this yesterday, but we need more. For the medium term, I agree with the Leader of the Opposition when he says that we need to change the very nature of our economy. We need to go back to making things, to give manufacturing a much bigger role in our economy, and we need an economy that looks at the long-term, and not just to short-term profits.

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[Esther McVey]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. As I said, I did not deal with Yorkshire Forward; I worked with the Northwest Development Agency and I congratulate the staff, who were excellent. I am saying that, despite spending £3.7 billion, what was meant to be done—rebalancing the economy—never happened. We are therefore asking how we can best deliver the money, how we can focus it and how we can ensure that it achieves its purpose.

[Fiona Bruce]

I, too, worked with the regional development agency in the north-west. What is particularly striking about the regional growth fund is that applications are succeeding from areas that, under the previous Government, were largely ignored when it came to business support. For years, business people in my constituency of Congleton have commented on the fact that although neighbouring areas—Staffordshire, for example—could obtain support, Cheshire was almost a desert. Now, we are seeing a difference. The Government are saying that there are areas across the country that need business support; and wherever they are, they are receiving it.