The Economy

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

Businesses in my constituency are overwhelmingly grateful for the excellent support put in place by the Chancellor and this Government. We must recover as soon as possible, because under the pre-pandemic conditions we were moving forward, not least in Stoke-on-Trent, which was on the up after decades of slow decline. Local manufacturers are only too eager to create the high-skilled, high-paid jobs our communities need. I am particularly pleased by measures announced today by the Chancellor to support young people into employment, apprenticeships and training. I know that this Government are committed to levelling up, and Stoke-on-Trent is an area that absolutely embodies that agenda. More to improve bus services, help for our high streets and a town deal would be particularly welcome.

I am delighted that my proposals to reopen Meir station have got backing in government, but rather than take each funding project in turn, I have a general point to make. I offer this helpful insight as I am passionate about levelling up and about getting the maximum economic return by releasing the greatest unrealised potential. Too often there has been something like a 25% local contribution rule, which makes it pointless to bid, because we could never afford it, so funding schemes that were supposed to help places such as Stoke-on-Trent will instead go to places that can afford to pay. These areas have the means to make schemes shovel-ready, whereas many of the local areas we seek to level up have had to prioritise resources elsewhere long ago. I ask the Government to look carefully at how we can help make schemes shovel-ready in places such as Stoke-on-Trent.

North Staffordshire is one of the largest conurbations, at the heart of the country, plugged into a world of interconnectivity. Thanks to the support of Government and the city council, as I speak LilaConnect is laying a new full-fibre network in Stoke-on-Trent, providing direct fibre to homes and businesses that is more advanced than that anywhere else, promising up to 1,000 megabits per second. If we get it right, no city is keener to build, build, build than Stoke-on-Trent. Prior to covid, property prices were rising healthily and developers have told me that demand was high. However, low property values have often caused viability constraints locally. We have plenty of brownfield land ripe for development, but the cost of remediating the sites is often prohibitive. It has been necessary for Government to step in to stimulate those more challenging sites and work with the local city council.

Advanced manufacturing, digital and logistics are all strengths in Stoke-on-Trent and they will be key sectors in our new economic future, removing the hurdles and unlocking the potential that has been constrained for far too long. The more skilled, better-paid jobs we create locally, the more houses we can sustain and the greater the national contribution we can make. We just need a helping hand from national Government to give us a really good start.