North of England: Economic Support

James Grundy Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[James Grundy (Leigh) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. Let me first address the key and core issue of the debate: the economy in the north of England. With or without covid, we are discussing a curate’s egg of sorts. It is good and bad in parts, given “the north of England” describes an area that is both vast and varied, encompassing seats as different as Richmond in Yorkshire—the seat of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which is largely rural and wealthy—and my own seat of Leigh.

Although Leigh shares the designation of county constituency with the Chancellor’s seat, it is largely urban and poor. Indeed, measuring it by the yardstick of the super output area, it falls in the top 20% of most deprived constituencies in the country. We struggle with the legacy issues of the mining industry, in economic and health terms. Infrastructure in my constituency has suffered from under-investment for decades, and the town centres of its communities are in dire need of regeneration, although I am happy to report that recently the town of Tyldesley received a £1.5 million grant to begin the process of regeneration, so there is hope.

The other difference, of course, is that the Chancellor’s seat lies in historic Yorkshire, whereas Leigh lies in historic Lancashire, so we have one advantage at least. [Laughter.] All jokes aside, it is fair to say that in discussing the economy of the north of England we are discussing two economies—that of the wealthy part of the north of England, and that of the poor part. The contrast is often stark and visible. It is to the poor part of the north of England that we must devote our efforts, and in that I follow in the footsteps of my predecessor Richard Assheton Cross. He was the Member of Parliament for Leigh, and Home Secretary in the Government of Benjamin Disraeli, who first articulated the need to address these issues more than 170 years ago when he spoke of the country being divided into two nations.

Today I want to focus on infrastructure and the impact it has had on the economy of my constituency. Businesses are dissuaded from setting up in the town by a permanent snarl of heavy traffic. The associated economic and health costs resulting from poor air quality are significant. Air quality in some parts of the constituency is worse than that in central London. Since the mid-1960s, local residents and businesses have been campaigning for the completion of the Atherleigh Way bypass, to ease congestion, and for the reopening of the town’s rail links to Liverpool and Manchester, so that we will have access to jobs in the two major cities that our town lies halfway between. With that investment, Leigh could be transformed from a poor post-industrial community into a wealthy commuter community.

I have faith in the Government’s promise to invest in and level up the north, so that we can share in and help to build up the wealth of our nation. We must now deliver on the promises we made during the election.