Economic Growth

Mike Kane Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the balanced and thoughtful speech by the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). Securing high, sustained economic growth in every part of the country is an ambition we should all have in this House. The challenge lies in how we go about achieving that ambition.

The Government’s plan just is not working. At the start of the year, the Prime Minister and Chancellor promised to get the economy growing; instead growth is flatlining, as the shadow Chancellor mentioned. The Bank of England has downgraded its economic forecasts and the International Monetary Fund forecasts that the UK will have the lowest growth in the G7 next year.

Labour does have a plan: one that will grow the economy and get Britain building again. We need faster approval of critical infrastructure, we need investment in the industries of the future, we need to get more people owning their own homes and we must raise living standards. In my constituency, we have oven-ready schemes that would help achieve our ambition—schemes would unlock the delivery of more than 3,000 homes, enable the development of world-class health and care research facilities, and create thousands of jobs and opportunities across growth sectors. The Government are aware of those schemes, and should and could have supported Manchester and Trafford to deliver them.

The two town centres in my constituency, Wythenshawe and Sale, submitted bids to the last round of the levelling-up fund. In Wythenshawe town centre, Manchester City Council has invested £20 million in plans to provide a once-in-a-generation programme of regeneration, including more than 1,600 new homes—it should not be this difficult. Those homes will breathe new life, jobs and vital economic activity into the town centre.

In Sale town centre, in addition to the successful regeneration of Stanley Square by Altered/Space, Trafford Council has bought and is demolishing Sale magistrates court in order to build dozens of new and affordable homes on the site. It has regeneration plans for other locations in the town centre, including the leisure facilities and the public realm. However, both bids to the levelling-up fund—for Wythenshawe and for Sale—were rejected by the Government.

We have an approved masterplan for Wythenshawe Hospital in my constituency, which will see the transformation of the increasingly out-of-date hospital campus into a state-of-the-art health village, with affordable housing for nurses and an aparthotel. It will also create world-class research facilities in the health and care sector, a sustainable campus that delivers a commitment to be net zero by 2038, and other complementary uses, such as hotels, conferencing, training and retail. All of that will be done while delivering inclusive growth, which will derives maximum benefit through local job creation and employment and training opportunities, ensuring that it is local people who see the benefit, in addition to those in the region.

The delivery model proposed for the development of Wythenshawe Hospital is a financially driven, phased construction approach, using blended funding. That funding solution could leverage the many commercial, health and social-related investment opportunities afforded by the site’s prime location, while supporting the requirement of reduced levels of NHS capital. However, to realise this opportunity, Government and Treasury support is needed to unlock a technical solution to the current NHS capital regime. It is now more than 18 months since the approval of the masterplan and we have seen zero progress from this Government on a workable solution, although I am grateful to Lord Markham for engaging with me and with Homes England on this issue. This is not getting Britain building; it is blocking Britain building and flatlining our economic growth.

My area also has the Airport City masterplan. Manchester airport in my constituency is the largest UK airport outside London, and it provides international and domestic passenger and freight connectivity for the whole of northern Britain. I welcome the Government’s pledge in the King’s Speech to begin to look at consumer protection and the consumer experience in our airlines industry. The current transformation plan at my local airport will support 50 million passengers by 2030. There is still much to do; surface transport, the fabric of the estate and active travel all need to be addressed. The plan is set to deliver up to 5 million square feet and 16,000 jobs, with companies such as The Hut Group, Amazon and DHL already working on site.

Wythenshawe and Sale East has a plan to get Britain building and to grow our economy. We have a world-class airport, an Airport City enterprise zone, the Wythenshawe Hospital masterplan and plans for the development of Wythenshawe and Sale town centres. This is the Prime Minister’s first King’s Speech, yet he has nothing to say on housing and it includes more division and more of the same. What is needed to deliver the economic growth our country needs is change. Change is the question at the next election and the answer is Labour. A Labour Government will offer a decade of national renewal and replace the 13 years of national decline that we have had.