Greater Manchester

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I absolutely agree with my noble friend that the airport has been a huge success. Transport links to the airport have been greatly enhanced and it now has one of the best intermodal hubs of any airport in the UK. Further funding is going in for roads—the A6 Manchester Airport relief road is being funded by the Department for Transport via the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Any funding of the kind that my noble friend seeks for the A538 would most likely come from the growth deal process, which is now under way.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as I used to represent a part of Greater Manchester, namely Oldham, a town of which I am inordinately proud and eager to assist. However, how does the Minister think that the Chancellor can sustain the pretence of being a champion of the north when he has cut local government funding for northern cities such as Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool more than he has the wealthier areas of southern England?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, we have to look at what has been happening to the Greater Manchester economy and the north-west more generally, where there has been a massive increase in the number of apprenticeships, for example, and a dramatic fall in unemployment. There is specific funding in terms of hundreds of millions of pounds of additional funding for rail developments and to innovative new world-leading developments in the Manchester area, such as the National Graphene Institute.