Helen Jones
Main Page: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)Department Debates - View all Helen Jones's debates with the HM Treasury
(9 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) is a huge champion of Plymouth and the south-west. We will have time to address the south-west in questions.
The Heysham link road is a major achievement for my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris). People have campaigned for it for 70 years. I happened to visit about a week before the general election with the Prime Minister. Because of my hon. Friend’s fight for infrastructure and jobs in his seat, he is back in the House doing his job.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
22. Despite the Chancellor’s talk of a northern powerhouse, will he admit that output per hour in the north-west is still lower than the average for England, and lower than it was in 2007? Is it not true that his plan to improve the economy of the north-west has drastically failed that region?
Mr Osborne
The north-west has seen a huge increase in employment—it has had the fastest rate of employment growth in the entire United Kingdom. I would have thought the hon. Lady would welcome that.
The northern powerhouse initiative was instigated by me and the Labour and Conservative council leaders of Greater Manchester. It has been done on a cross-party basis. I would like to think that, at the beginning of this Parliament, we can work across the party divide, including in this Chamber, to bring about that major rebalancing of the British economy, which has eluded Governments for many generations.