North-East Independent Economic Review

John Bercow Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The time limit will have to be reduced with immediate effect to six minutes for each Back-Bench speech.

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[Mr Wright]

Businesses do not have confidence that the Government’s business bank is having any impact whatsoever. It is slow off the mark—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman would stop chuntering and allow me to speak, I will respond to his question. The business bank is not working. It has had no impact in the regions. It is merely a desk in the Minister’s Department in Whitehall. A proper British investment bank would help fast-growing, innovative businesses, working together on proposals for a network of regional banks, to spark activity and economic growth in the north-east as well as other regions.

A number of hon. Members have discussed Government spending and infrastructure. The north-east has been singled out for particularly savage cuts. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) mentioned the more than £200 million-worth of cuts in the local enterprise partnership area over the next two years. Hartlepool and Middlesbrough have been particularly badly hit.

The Institute for Public Policy Research has set out clearly:

“The North…suffers from weak public investment: government spending per capita on science and technology and transport in the North is almost half that spent in London and the south east.”

As my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) said, that has a long-term cumulative effect: lower spend and investment lead to weaker demand, competitiveness and economic growth, which in turn undermines a justification for additional spending and investment.

As my hon. Friends the Members for Gateshead, for South Shields and for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) have all said, the north-east did not do well in the Government’s announcement in June on infrastructure. That has been exacerbated by the capital spend cuts of northern local authorities. The North East chamber of commerce said at the time:

“One disappointing element of today’s announcement is the lack of investment in projects in the Tees Valley, which requires significant infrastructure upgrades.”

Will the Minister explain why that was the case?

In the three months since the announcement, there has been precious little evidence of work commencing. When will the construction of the A19 Testos flyover start? When will the A19-A1058 coast road improve access to the Port of Tyne? When I used the A19 last week to visit Ford Aerospace in the Port of Tyne in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields, I saw precious little evidence of work on the ground. There seems to be a big lag between Government announcements and actual work starting. Will the Minister display a sense of boldness, priority and urgency and deal with those matters now?

Will the Minister comment on yesterday’s announcement in the World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness report—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I say to the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) that he may chunter from a sedentary position on a continuing basis to no evident purpose, but he must bear his burden with stoicism and fortitude, in the best parliamentary tradition.

[Mr Wright]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I am conscious of the time, but will the Minister comment on the global competitiveness index, which shows that our infrastructure ranking has moved from fourth in the world to 28th? That will not help productivity and innovation.

It is clear from the remarks of all north-east MPs that the region does not face inevitable and terminal decline. We are not asking for handouts or sympathy as we somehow slide towards obsolescence. The north-east has always been characterised by grit, ingenuity, invention and imagination. It led the world through the industrial revolution and has the potential in the 21st century to be the biggest global player in fields such as low-emission vehicles, renewable technology and high-value engineering.

To achieve that potential, the north-east needs a Government who are on the side of its businesses and its people, supporting it through a long-term industrial policy and giving it the freedoms and flexibilities needed to chart our own destiny, not a Government who prioritise austerity and neglect, as this Government have done over the past three years, and turn a blind eye to high unemployment and low pay.

The Minister has heard today of the potential and ambition of the north-east. We need boldness and action now. Will he and the Government deliver?