Private Sector Investment: Lancashire

Debate between Paul Foster and Maya Ellis

Wednesday 17th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Maya Ellis]

I absolutely agree. As I will come on to, it is about ensuring that we make the most of all areas of our country. Some of those areas already have growth, and we need to ensure that we are expanding the growth that is already there.

Without a proper holistic look at how the Government can support businesses in Lancashire, not only will businesses struggle, but our UK economy will struggle more when we miss out on the huge potential for growth.

I could stand here all night waxing lyrical about how wonderful Lancashire is—our hills, our grand town halls, our coastline, our grit—but I know none of those things speak the language of the Treasury, Government and growth, so I will focus on the numbers and the examples of how the Government have a growth opportunity in Lancashire that they need to not miss.

Lancashire is a £40 billion GVA powerhouse. That makes us the 5th largest economy in the north. As the Minister knows, the current growth narrative for the north is often dominated by our major metropolitan neighbours. While we celebrate their success, any true growth narrative for the north must take non-metropolitan areas into account. At this point, let me be clear: “non-metropolitan” does not mean rural. There is a serious risk of people in Westminster making that mistake.

[Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is a passionate advocate for the Ribble Valley in Lancashire. Does she agree that Lancashire has missed out on millions of pounds of investment because the likes of Manchester and Liverpool have been prioritised and because we have not had a fully functioning combined authority?

[Maya Ellis]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. As I will come on to, the people and places in counties such as Lancashire deserve that kind of funding. Even if the politicians who have been making the decisions have maybe delayed those opportunities to get devolution, we should not penalise the people there for that.

Lancashire is a prime example of a polycentric economy. We have coastal and rural environments, but also urban environments from city centres to market towns, with many of the same issues and opportunities as our metropolitan neighbours. We are a county of 1.57 million people and over 55,000 businesses, contributing a massive portion of the north’s economic output. We face the same challenges—some of the highest levels of deprivation and worklessness in our urban pockets—yet we also have areas that rank in the top five of northern local authorities for productivity. We are not just waiting for growth; we have an economic base that matches any of our neighbours, where strengths in defence, energy and advanced engineering add unique productive potential to the north as a whole.

The private sector in Lancashire is ready to lead. We have a dynamic project pipeline with the potential to attract over £20 billion in additional investment over the next decade. However, we are currently fighting with one hand tied behind our back. The macroeconomic data tells a sobering story: since 1998, Lancashire has experienced the lowest growth in investment spending of any UK region. Despite our high-value production base, we rank in the bottom quarter for average Innovate UK grant size, for example. These grants are increasingly concentrated in areas with strong knowledge-intensive business services, rather than production-oriented economies such as Lancashire’s.

We must be honest about what Lancashire is missing out on because we lack mayoral arrangements, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr Foster) highlighted. Currently, we are excluded from 30-year investment funds estimated to be worth £30 million per year for our county. We are also missing out on the collective £200 million per year available to new mayoral areas and the city region sustainable transport settlements that our neighbours in Greater Manchester and Liverpool enjoy.

[Mr Foster]

On transport and infrastructure, we are all aware in Lancashire that if we could have investment in a second bridge across the River Ribble linking the M55 and opening up Blackpool airport, and linking it with the M6 and the M65, we could have huge opportunity, but the Government, the Green Book and the Treasury do not seem to want to recognise or support that. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Maya Ellis]

I completely agree. As many of my constituents regularly tell me, the congestion we get when the M6 fails or has a closure is a nightmare when it falls on to the A-roads around the constituency, so a second bridge around Preston to create a ring road is critical.

Staying with the subject of transport, my hon. Friends the Members for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton) and for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) are having to fight relentlessly for better connectivity in their constituencies, which is where devolution could really help us. The Government may say that Lancashire did not come to the table when the offer was first there for devolution, but that is not the fault of Lancashire’s places and people, so it does not seem fair that they should suffer. Lancashire leaders are at the table now, so let us crack on.

The disparities are reflected in our venture capital and equity investment volumes, which trail significantly behind Greater Manchester. In the first quarter of 2024, Greater Manchester reached approximately £104 million in investment, while Lancashire secured just £7 million. That innovation gap is not due to a lack of ingenuity; it is a lack of investment that acts as a direct drag on our wider commercial performance.

When I speak to private investors—both those investing in small companies and those investing in big infrastructure —they often sheepishly tell me they know they should probably be doing more in Lancashire, but that they are creatures of habit. I am making it one of my missions to coax more of them up to Lancashire to see what is on offer, but I ask the Minister not to let this Government fall into the same bad habit of sticking to what we know, even though there is clearly such growth potential in Lancashire.