Category: Northern Powerhouse

SIGNIFICANT BATTLE OVER GAMES

 

GOLDEN GAMES.

Next week business and council chiefs from across the North will meet to demand a fair transport deal for our region. The summit, backed by Downtown in Business, comes in the wake of a watering down of government pledges on connectivity for the Northern Powerhouse (NP) and the simultaneous approval of Crossrail 2 for London.

We’ll see what the response is from ministers. They’ll need to bear in mind that the Conservative conference is in Manchester this autumn and the issue could be an embarrassing one, if not resolved.

But there is another decision to be taken shortly which will indicate whether the NP is still a priority for the government or if the Midlands Engine is to be favoured in the future. The question before ministers is whether to back Birmingham or Liverpool as the UK’s nominee to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

The Liverpool bid has brought rivals together like never before. Everton’s proposed new ground at Bramley Moore Dock would host the athletics, Anfield would stage the rugby sevens. Manchester’s velodrome would be the venue for the cycling. Wayne Rooney, who has played in both cities, has just announced his support for the bid which it is hoped will accelerate a billion pounds of investment in the north docks area and 12,000 jobs.

Liverpool would be a great venue for the Games with other venues like St George’s Hall and the ACC Arena also being used. The North West has already staged one of the most successful Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 and ministers should show confidence in our region again.

This is especially the case as bid chairman Brian Barwick and Mayor Joe Anderson have responded to a crisis following the withdrawal of Durban earlier this year. Liverpool originally intended to bid for 2026. Let’s hope doubts over the city’s ability to deliver to the shorter deadline won’t scupper the bid. Particular focus will be on the ability to deliver Everton’s new stadium. That saga has been dragging on for most of this century.

Birmingham already has a stadium which is the home of UK athletics and claims it is 95% ready to host the games although it does not have an Olympic size swimming pool.

Certainty about facilities being ready on time are important, but so are politics. Conservative Andy Street was recently elected as Mayor of the Birmingham City Region and will be expecting the backing of his government in this important decision.

But as the Liverpool Echo said recently “Birmingham? As the Capital of HS2 and so close to the gold-paved streets of London, they don’t need any further help.”

TRUMP’S WINK TO THE NAZIS.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that the Trump family could rule America till 2033. Now I wonder if Donald Trump will last the year. The laughable clown has now become sinister. There is a difference between fully armed Nazis and Anti-Nazi protesters reacting unwisely to provocation. Trump either doesn’t understand this or regards the far right as part of his blue-collar coalition.

He is alienating the business community although the turmoil doesn’t seem to be affecting the markets. If it does, the cry for Vice President Pence to steady the ship will grow, although such a transition would be fraught with danger particularly after the scenes in Charlottesville.

Follow me @JimHancockUK

THE UNACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT

 

RAIL BETRAYAL.

Since Parliament has gone into recess, hardly a day has passed without a significant policy announcement by ministers. They’ve ranged from banning petrol driven cars by 2040, to transport announcements that have the potential to drain the Northern Powerhouse (NP) of any meaning.

With MPs, away from Westminster and unable to call the government immediately to account, elected mayors and council leaders across the North have had to promise a summit in late August. Let’s hope that the current angry mood will not have turned to dull resignation.

The betrayal by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling is breath-taking. He has rowed back on plans for new platforms at Manchester Piccadilly station, said “bi-mode” trains will do on the Manchester-Leeds line rather than full electrification and downgraded rail schemes in Cumbria. At the same time the government announced their support for a £30bn Crossrail 2 project in London.

A few weeks ago, I challenged the chair of Transport for the North (TFN) John Cridland at a major conference on transport about the Treasury rules that will always mean that London schemes meet investment criteria because of the millions of commuters compared to the needs of the North. Cridland remained optimistic and TFN were urged by Manchester City Region mayor Andy Burnham to persuade the government to look at other criteria for justifying transport spending like economic return.

I said in a blog a few weeks ago that the acid test of the government’s commitment to the Northern Powerhouse would be whether Crossrail 2 or Trans Pennine investment would come first. Well now we know.

The whole Northern Powerhouse project is in serious trouble. Good connectivity between northern cities is the bedrock of the whole scheme. The new NP Minister, Rossendale MP Jake Berry is nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile Business Secretary Greg Clarke made his industrial strategy speech on investment in battery power in Birmingham this week. Ever since Theresa May came to power there has been a pivot from the North to the Midlands.

Let’s hope the summit backed by all the northern cities at the end of next month gets some answers from ministers.

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNAL BLOW FOR BIZ.

 

It is always a shame when people abuse employment rights. But that was why the Coalition government brought in fees to deter vexatious employees and chancers who were taking employers to tribunals in droves. In 2012/13 191,541 cases were lodged before fees were levied. The latest figure is 88,000 which is high enough and by the way, fees were often reimbursed if the grievance was genuine.

Small businesses are set to be hardest hit as claims from aggrieved employees soar again. With Brexit uncertainty as well, it is not a good time to be in business.

Follow me @JimHancockUK

 

ULSTER OR NORTHERN POWERHOUSE?

 

Where does the billion pound bribe for the Democratic Unionist Party leave the drive for devolution in the North? It is not just a question of where the government will put its money. It is also a question of political purpose.

There are plenty of reasons to fear that the May government will take their eye off the Northern Powerhouse (NP) project, but as I found out this week, the answer may lie within our own resources.

First, let’s look at the downside. The NP Minister, Andrew Percy, quit at the reshuffle. That suggests he didn’t see the post as being regarded as important in Whitehall. Then comes news that David Brown is leaving his post as Chief Executive of Transport for the North (TfN) to go to the private sector. Brown has done a good job in translating all the fine talk around the NP into something the public can see as a benefit. TfN will soon have statutory status as the voice of northern transport, will have a big say in rail franchising and this autumn common ticketing will start to be rolled out on our buses and trains. But will Brown’s successor be as good?

In further assessing the drag factors on the NP we have a weak government which will be forced to pay more attention to Belfast than Bradford. Brexit will consume vast amounts of ministers’ time until it hopefully grinds to a halt. While Greater Manchester and Merseyside have got their act together on elected mayors, the rest of the North is frankly a structural mess. George Osborne, the architect of the NP now spends his time using the London Evening Standard to get revenge on Theresa May for sacking him.

It is no wonder that Lord Adonis, head of the National Infrastructure Commission, joined top business organisations in demanding a high priority for infrastructure investment.

I think the government is distracted and we will need to raise our game to compete with those deal makers from Northern Ireland. For instance, why is it going to take till the autumn of 2018 to get the North’s Strategic Transport Plan approved? This emerged at a major transport conference in Manchester this week. We have talked for years about the need to upgrade east-west rail and road links. That is a higher priority for us than HS2. We know this, the government knows that is our position. David Brown told me this week that we’ve never had a statutory plan before. Well OK but delay on our part will just play into the hands of a government distracted by Brussels and Belfast. A government who sent a clearly unprepared Minister to the Manchester conference. In post for eight days junior transport minister, Jesse Norman, had no answer at all to a question about poor quality rolling stock in the North.

Things looked up thereafter though. Council leaders set out an impressive list of priorities. Cumbria wants to improve coastal rail, Lancashire the M65 corridor. Liverpool; resolve the opposition to links between the motorway network and the port. Cheshire; Crewe regeneration around the HS2 hub and Manchester preparing Piccadilly station for the combination of HS2, the northern Hub and improved links to Leeds.

Mayor Andy Burnham, quickly settling into his role as the voice of Greater Manchester, called for HS2 and Northern Powerhouse rail to be done together and Emma Degg, the new boss of the North West Business Leadership Team called for smaller northern towns to be remembered. It was a timely call in an era when there is a fixation on big cities.

There remains a huge gap between transport investment in the South East and North because it is much easier to satisfy Treasury cost benefit criteria when you can produce millions of commuters for any scheme. The conference was told of a vision and validate approach that should be adopted to get northern transport investment off the ground. The private sector will have a vital role in this.

So, we need to use existing powers to keep the Northern Powerhouse moving forward and if you want an acid test of how things are going look out for this. Will Northern Powerhouse rail or Crossrail 2 in London be first to get approval?

Follow me @JimHancockUK

 

 

 

 

 

 

POWERHOUSE NEEDS LOCAL LEADERSHIP

 

George Osborne was in New York this week apparently. However, his ghost haunted the UK Northern Powerhouse (NP) conference with some suggesting that without him as Chancellor the NP project was doomed.

Well the formidable Lord Kerslake had the answer to that as he challenged business and local politicians to step forward to head up the project. The problem is that there is nothing tangible to head up. Transport for The North is the only statutory body covering the North of England. Progress on skills, growth, culture and productivity all depend on business and councils getting together on an ad hoc basis. We need a Council of the North to decide priorities and focus media attention. The NP also needs to get some achievements under its belt. Richard Leese, the leader of Manchester Council, rejected a suggestion of a big public relations drive to get people talking about the NP. By your deeds will ye know them, is a good maxim.

That said the conference has become the annual event where you have a real sense of the northern family getting together with business getting done in the exhibition hall. Although women were scarce on the speaker panels, two stood out. Judith Blake, the leader of Leeds, insisted that if we are to improve the skills base improvement needs to start in the primary school. The government have only given devolved powers after 16 so far. She also said that NP sometimes had too great an emphasis on transport. Housing and health mattered too.

Fiesty Kate Willard from Stobart also had skills in her sights, calling for the abolition of the Skills Funding Agency. She should be the next chair of the Liverpool Local Enterprise Partnership.

The conference saw the last appearance of Sir Howard Bernstein as Chief Executive of Manchester Council although when I used the word “farewell” to him, he assured me he would still be around. Watch this space. His political colleague all these years Sir Richard Leese was encouraged by the publication of the Northern Economic Review as a sign of NP progress but claimed work on the northern hub and trans Pennine rail links “were stuck”.

There were expressions of frustration throughout the two days at the long timescales for infrastructure projects. It is likely to be 2025 before new trans Pennine links will be fully operational. In the meantime however we won’t have to put up with the pacers, Arriva had good news on new rolling stock.

A number of people I spoke to expressed anxiety that NP was still too Manchester focused. Furness Enterprises told me that Barrow’s submarine contracts would be adding more GVA to the north’s economy than some cities. One Leeds businessman has begun a campaign to take a whole new look at the trans Pennine bottleneck. Lance Christie wants the M65 extended from Colne to East Leeds improving links to Leeds Bradford airport and opening a new gateway to the North West from the North East.

The effects of Brexit on the NP was on everyone’s minds with Ged Fitzgerald, the Chief Executive of Liverpool reflecting the current uncertainty. He said the vote was already having an adverse impact on the city’s universities. On the other hand, the port was now facing the right way for global trade as it had in the days of empire before the EU interlude.

Andrew Percy, the new NP Minister, convinced the conference that Theresa May was behind the Northern Powerhouse and claimed the concept was being recognised from Canada to China.

Spades in the ground might to be some way off, but as delegates left at least they could see the Ordsall Curve bridge which had been put in place while the conference was on to link Victoria and Piccadilly stations.

Follow me @JimHancockUK