Tag: Mike Blackburn

BREXIT CONSEQUENCES BEGIN TO BITE.

 

BOTH BREXITEERS SHOULD BE OUT OF THE CABINET.

A government weakened by scandal and divided over its approach to Europe continues with its ill-starred attempt to leave the European Union.

One leading Brexiteer Cabinet Minister Priti Patel has resigned, but another, Boris Johnson is still in place despite risking extending the detention of a British national in Iran.

Immigrant workers, vital to our caring services, are staying away, jobs are going at British Aerospace in Lancashire and Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port. Both industries rely on the easy movement of parts across borders. Thousands of lawyers and civil servants are being taken on to deal with the whole miserable negative exercise of Brexit. (No doubt their wages will be coming out of the £350m a week that was promised for the NHS.) The port of Dover is making plans for the huge congestion that will build up after March 2019.

So how is all this affecting the heart of the Northern Powerhouse? What is the economic outlook in Greater Manchester as the Budget approaches? I’ve been testing economic opinion which indicates that the crash that was forecast immediately after the EU referendum didn’t happen because of a credit boom and the growth of car leasing. It is felt that is now coming to an end as inflation and now the rise in interest rates kicks in. There is a fall in business confidence amidst the chronic Brexit uncertainty with a demand that the 2019-21 transitional agreement be broadly in line with the final agreement.

Northern economists believe we are looking at a growth rate of 1.5% not 2.5% that was previously hoped for. Looking further into the future we need to prepare for automation, robotics and paying more for UK workers as immigration falls.

In Greater Manchester next year jobs growth is expected to be flat. Employment in retail and financial services will be weak. Mike Blackburn, boss of the Local Enterprise Partnership, is worried that ministers don’t realise the impact Brexit will have on an area which exports 58% of its goods to the EU compared to a national average of 42%. He wants powers returned from the EU devolved to the North.

The Chancellor will be under severe pressure in the Budget to do more on housing. Steve Rumbelow, CEO of Rochdale Council, wants a major programme of council house building. He points out that permission for 50,000 houses in Greater Manchester are not being exercised.

Joanne Roney has had a quiet start since succeeding Sir Howard Bernstein as CEO of Manchester Council. She has indicated her priority is people rather than infrastructure development which characterised her predecessor’s tenure. She identified poor school starts for a large section of Manchester pupils fed into poor GCSE performance leaving colleges to teach Level 2 skills.

Eamonn Boylan is charged with looking at the picture across Greater Manchester as CEO of the Combined Authority. The spatial strategy which deals with the use of green belt and brownfield land is being rewritten after running into opposition from Mayor Burnham, is being rewritten.

Boylan points out the devolution deal is much more about powers than giving the city region money. Promises over devolving power over adult skills had still not been delivered. Local politicians and officers had many bright ideas about what could be done locally. For instance, there was an abundance of advice on how to get to university but very little on taking up vocational courses.

So that’s a sample of the thinking of people charged with putting the concept of the Northern Powerhouse into reality. But they are handicapped by the shadow of Brexit. Let’s hope for a substantial change in popular opinion that would allow Labour to oppose our leaving the EU and we could have an Exit to Brexit.

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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.