Tag: Liverpool

LIVERPOOL DEAL DONE. NOW LEEDS IS THE PROBLEM

 

The road to the Northern Powerhouse is proving more rocky than originally anticipated. Rows about elected mayors, the boundaries of Combined Authority areas and the complete lack of democracy in setting it all up means the North presents a patchwork of progress and delay ahead of the crucial Autumn Statement.

It looks as if the resistance of St Helens, Wirral and Halton to an elected city region mayor has been overcome and they look set to join Greater Manchester and Sheffield will devolution deals done this month. In Lancashire Wyre Council are holding out against joining a county wide Combined Authority, but it is in Yorkshire that the bitterest row has broken out.

The leader of Kirklees Council, the area around Huddersfield, has accused North Yorkshire Council of “blatant self-interest and gerrymandering”. David Sheard is referring to the proposals for Greater Yorkshire that have been submitted to the government. This is a plan to bring Hull, York and four North Yorkshire districts together. The rival plan brings together West Yorkshire, based around Leeds but including Craven, Harrogate and Selby. North Yorkshire has refused to give over its transport and highways powers in those three districts. This would put a major curb on the transport and infrastructure role of the Leeds based city region.

Apart from the row over boundaries, there is a feeling that there is now less on the table for Leeds than when it was named a frontrunner for devolution in the summer. Envious eyes are being turned to the deal struck by Sheffield with some concluding that the idea of accepting an elected mayor for Leeds City Region with less powers than Sheffield got may not be worth doing.

It needs to be noted that Leeds City Region has already negotiated a growth deal investment fund of £600m, and it has control of the adult skills budget. It wants powers to manage European funding, an infrastructure levy ability and to run the buses, but talks seem to have stalled.

Even in Greater Manchester there is growing discontent with the total lack of public involvement in the Combined Authority deal. A group has been formed, the Greater Manchester Referendum Campaign for Democratic Devolution, and they will be targeting the wards of the ten leaders of Greater Manchester in next May’s elections.

They claim public awareness is low about the deal which is all about business and growth but very little about issues like social housing. They also worry about the accountability of people doing the deals now and how the city region mayor will be held accountable from 2017.

Concern about this issue was expressed at a high level meeting of the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) held in Liverpool this week. It concluded that for all the talk of the Northern Powerhouse there was no urban policy to back it up and answer questions about the unsustainable growth of London, how continuing support for the North over many decades was going to be achieved and what was to be the fate of smaller northern towns with little growth prospects.

One of the speakers at the TCPA meeting was Alan Harding from Liverpool University’s Heseltine Institute. He’ll be leaving in January to become economic adviser to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

 

DON’T MENTION THE NORTHERN POWERHOUSE IN BUDGET GEORGE.

 

RAIL BETRAYAL.

I have rarely been so angered as I was on hearing the government had pulled the rug on major rail plans including the electrification of the Leeds- Manchester line.

It’s difficult to know where to start with this act of betrayal, almost deceit, being perpetrated on the people of the North. So here is a brief list of the things that were wrong with the announcement of the Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin.

Number one, the fundamental principle of the Northern Powerhouse is connectivity, bringing closer together the great cities of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Hull and Newcastle. This “pause” which is a Whitehall weasel word for cancel, drives a coach and horses through the whole proposition.

Number two, for decades businesses dependent on government contracts have complained about the stop start approach of Ministers. The reason why our infrastructure is so poor is that successive governments have kept turning the investment tap on and off, making long term planning impossible.

Number three, for a year in the run up to the General Election Tory politicians were promising more and more spending on our rail connections. They must have known at least some of the truth. No wonder people are utterly cynical about politicians’ promises.

Number four, the chairman of Network Rail is made the scapegoat when the Transport Secretary should have gone too.

And finally will Crossrail 2 in London be affected by this plan? I don’t expect so. In which case the huge disparity between transport spend in the capital and the North will widen still further.

The only answer is to to devolve most of the transport budget to a Northern devolved government where we can make decisions for ourselves.

So George Osborne, don’t dare to tell us how much you support the Northern Powerhouse when you announce your budget on Wednesday because few will believe you.

BUDGET PREVIEW.

In his first budget this year George Osborne had Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander reminding him he was in a Coalition. Alexander has now gone back to his old job with the Highland Tourist Board for all I know. Anyway Osborne is now free to show us what the first fully Tory budget since 1997 looks like.

Will he implement £12bn of welfare cuts? Will he continue to hammer local council spending? Will he pursue an ideological approach to create a smaller state? The Chancellor has planned a roller-coaster of deep cuts at the beginning of the parliament followed by spending increases on the back of a surplus at the end. Great politics but it has attracted criticism from business that wants a smoother path to aid planning.

The Chancellor will have to fulfil his extraordinary promise to enshrine in law no increases in VAT, Income Tax and National Insurance. Other election promises centre around a rise in the threshold for Inheritance Tax and more measures on tax avoidance.

A growing issue is the UK’s poor productivity. Measures to tackle that would be good…..and that rail investment for the north.

 

WARSI QUIT OVER EUROPE TOO.

 

 

TORY TURMOIL.

 

No sooner had the Tory cat (David Cameron) gone off to Portugal, than the mice began to play back home. Sayeeda Warsi’s resigned and Boris Johnson threw down his Westminster gauntlet.

 

The press has concentrated on the criticism of the Prime Minister’s stance on Gaza but Warsi’s statement also contained significant criticism of his European Union policy and this was picked up by North West Tory MEP Saj Karim.

 

Karim began life as a Lib Dem MEP and clearly retains his pro European credentials. He joined Warsi’s criticism of the government’s Gaza policy saying Israel was being given more room than any other state but then went on to refer to the “directional shift” in European policy. He told the BBC that we would miss the advice of Ken Clarke and former Attorney General Dominic Grieve and could be embarked on a path to undermine our ability to negotiate concessions from the EU.

 

Ken Clarke has been the most prominent pro European Tory member of this Cabinet and Grieve’s sacking is widely believed to have been to clear the way for a fundamental reshaping of our relationship with the European Court of Human Rights.

 

Warsi’s resignation may be quickly forgotten, particularly if the Gaza ceasefire holds. However her criticism of the sacking of pro European cabinet members may be the first sign of a real fightback by the EU positive wing of the Conservative Party who have been silenced by the Eurosceptic madness that has swept the party up to now.

 

NO LEAP FOR THE SALMON.

 

After years of being called dull and boring the former Tory Chancellor Sir Geoffrey Howe had one great speech in him and it helped to bring down the mighty Margaret Thatcher.

 

Another former Chancellor, Alistair Darling has been similarly criticised for being dull. However on Tuesday those distinctive black eyebrows were fairly bristling during his debate with the leader of the Scottish Government, Alex Salmond. Darling believes we are better together and hammered away at what an independent Scotland would do for a currency. Mr Salmond, who had a great reception in Liverpool the other week, was deflated by the onslaught. It may have been Darling’s Geoffrey Howe moment and it may have saved the Union.

 

WHERE’S WARRINGTON?

I was travelling back from London the other day and it soon became apparent that the lady in front of me had got the wrong train. Instead of getting off at Milton Keynes, I told her the first stop would be Warrington. She phoned her waiting father with the bad news and in desperate tones asked him “Where is Warrington?”

 

The question had the fearful tone that I expect Russian dissidents expressed when they were told they were heading for exile in Novosibirsk, Siberia.

 

I don’t think she had ventured out of the South East before. The episode highlighted once again for me that for people living in the London area, the North is another country. It is a mindset which has influenced government policy and led to massive underinvestment in our transport infrastructure.

 

Let’s see if that’s going to change. It has taken years to begin to repair the damage done by the coalition in dismantling regional policy but now our big cities like Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool are trying to force the Chancellor to make real his pledge to create a powerhouse of the northern cities.

 

It may help that George Osborne is the MP for Tatton and will listen to demands for £15bn spending on trans Pennine transport links. He’s called the plan “imaginative” and promises a full response in the Autumn Statement.

Let’s see if big city power can deliver.

 

Follow me at www.jimhancock.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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TORIES DISCOVER NORTH SHOCKER!

Having swept away all the organisations that were helping the Northern economy, the Coalition government has spent the last few years building them up again.

Although the patchwork of Local Enterprise Partnerships(LEPs), Mayoral Zones and Regional Growth Funds will never make up for the lost coherence of the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in the North West and Yorkshire, there are signs that some LEPs are getting to grips with their task.

This is important as the Chancellor has signified this week that he may be getting serious about doing something to empower the North, sandwiched as it is between Scotland and London which both want for nothing in terms of government spending.

The Northern Way, which was the umbrella organisation for the northern RDAs, would have been the perfect organisation to deliver the trans Pennine HS3 rail link that George Osborne envisages. We will have to wait and see how the project is to be managed if this announcement is anything other than a smokescreen for the complete lack of a coherent policy for the North.

Another example of the government’s incoherence has been with elected mayors. First they wanted them just for cities and with no extra power. Now they want them for city regions with some real power and money.

Liverpool in particular could do with a city region mayor to bring democratic accountability to the LEP which has substantial achievements under its belt. A mayor who covered the whole sub region from Wirral to St Helens would also help solve the current impasse with the Liverpool Combined Authority (CA) of councils. This is caused by the fact that Phil Davies, the leader of Wirral, heads the organisation rather than the Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson.

The government will have a tough job selling the concept of an elected mayor for the whole of Greater Manchester for a number of reasons. Manchester residents rejected the concept for their city, and there is already an elected mayor in Salford. Furthermore the LEP under chair Mike Blackburn, the Combined Authority under Lord Smith of Wigan and Manchester City Council led by Sir Richard Leese are already driving economic regeneration effectively.

The Liverpool LEP has an impressive record too, partly helped because it inherited the Mersey Partnership. It has 450 subscribing private sector members. Recent figures from the Office of National Statistics concerning growth rates shows Liverpool as ninth out of 39 LEPs in the UK.

Liverpool LEP is hoping to be allocated a good chunk of the £2bn Local Growth Fund to be announced soon and is coordinating the spending of 221 million Euros it has been allocated from European coffers.

Specific achievements include helping fibre optic company Tratos expand in Knowsley with the creation of 100 jobs. The LEPs Business Growth Grant will help create 2000 new jobs and the New Markets Programme, developed by the LEP is helping small businesses get a 35% subsidy for their growth plans. Meanwhile the Skills for Growth Bank, backed by the LEP has approved £2.5m for business growth.

The Liverpool LEP is headed up by Robert Hough who has patiently rebuilt an organisation to support business after being chairman of the North West Development Agency when it was swept away. A quietly efficient man who does not seek the headlines, his organisation’s profile might be improved if its boundaries were shared with an elected mayor for the same area.

Politicians bring campaigns and the media spotlight would then perhaps be turned on to the somewhat dry world of economic regeneration.

Personally I believe if the government wants city region mayors, they should legislate for them. There are enough referenda in the air at the moment.

In the meantime the Liverpool LEP will get on with the job of bringing employment to the City Region.