Employment: Cuts in Public Expenditure

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Liddle]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they will generate the increase in private sector jobs growth in the north of England to offset the employment impact of the Government’s planned cuts in public expenditure.

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as the chair of Cumbria Vision, the soon-to-be-abolished sub-regional partnership with the North-West Development Agency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Wilcox)]

My Lords, we recently published our White Paper on local growth, which sets out our approach to rebalance the economy and to drive sustainable growth. Initiatives will include local enterprise partnerships that will see local business and civic leaders working together to create new jobs in their communities and the regional growth fund, which will support communities currently dependent on the public sector, helping them make the transition to private-sector-led growth and prosperity.

[Lord Liddle]

I thank the noble Baroness for her Answer, but I sadly find her response inadequate to the challenge that areas like the north of England face. When will the Government understand that a combination of a growth fund worth £1.4 billion over three years, which is two-thirds only of what the RDA spent in each year, and an announcement of local economic partnerships, which so far do not cover, in the north, Lancashire and large parts of the north-east, and have no resources whatever from central government, at a time when the capabilities of the agencies are being abolished—

[Noble Lords]

Too long.

[Lord Liddle]

Is this not a totally inadequate response to what independent experts expect to be a rise in unemployment and 233,000 jobs lost as a result of the spending White Paper?

[Baroness Wilcox]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, is something of an expert on this subject because of course he worked with the previous Administration to see how they could make the RDAs work. The RDAs spent £19 billion over 10 years and failed to make any impact on the imbalances in growth. Although I am delighted to hear what he has to say, I am not sure that I would take lessons from it. We do not yet know how significant the cuts in public sector employment in the north will be. As there is less money, it is important to ensure that our investments are well targeted. It is less money because we were left with no money.