Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what recent steps his Department has taken to ensure that economic growth occurs across the country.

The Government's economic policy objective is to achieve 'strong, sustainable and balanced growth that is more evenly shared across the country and between industries.' The economy is growing and unemployment falling in all regions.

To date significant progress has been made to achieve this. This includes:

· Industrial strategy, through which the whole of government is working in partnership with industry to set the long term direction needed to give business the confidence to invest. Industrial strategy has already helped to create jobs and encourage significant investment by industry. Notable examples include the announcements by Siemens and the UK’s Associated British Ports to invest a total of £310m in wind turbine factories in Hull and across the UK creating over 1,000 jobs and Balfour Beatty to spend a record £1bn in 2014 on contracts with SMEs across the country.

· Growth Deals. These are a crucial part of the Government’s long term economic plan to secure a better future and stronger economy for our country. The first £6bn of local projects agreed under the first wave of Growth Deals were announced in July 2014. This includes £74.1million invested in the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership area, which will help to create at least 1,000 jobs and allow up to 1,000 homes to be built. It will also generate up to £30million in public and private investment

· Finally, the Regional Growth Fund which is a competitive £3.2 billion government fund operating across England to provide grants to private sector projects and programmes with significant potential for economic growth and support particular areas and communities that are currently dependent on the public sector for employment. To date £2.9 billion has been allocated across England with over £1 billion going to projects and programmes in the north and £670 million to nationwide programmes. These investments have in turn generated £2.4 billion of private investment with a further £13.6 billion to follow over the next ten years.