A Treasury Minister has admitted that the Government’s flagship ‘levelling up’ policy is taking longer to kickstart the economy in regions like the North East, but insisted that “transformative change” was coming.
Gareth Davies, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, was speaking after visiting the Port of Tyne to see how loans from the UK Infrastructure Bank are supporting the port’s transition to supporting green industries such as offshore wind and biomass. He said the port was a good example of the North East contributing to the UK’s green transition, as well as the Government’s ambition to ensure that all regions of the UK were seeing improving productivity and the creation of new jobs.
Mr Davies’ visit came just a month before the spring Budget, with pressure on the Government to show that it is delivering in regions like the North East in what is likely to be the last big fiscal event before the general election. But it took place after a damning report from the Centre for Cities last month suggested that the average person in the North East is £11,500 poorer since the Conservatives came to power, leading to an allegation of “levelling down” poorer regions.
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Mr Davies said: “We completely share local people’s desire to see levelling up happening in action. Over the last few years I would point to the announcements that have already been made: on devolution, we’ll shortly be seeing the North East Combined Authority launch with a £1.5bn uplift; in Darlington the Treasury has moved a significant chunk of our staff to the Darlington Economic Campus, there’s over 750 jobs there and we’re on target to increase that.
“There are various funding pots that enable investment and regeneration. We’ve got various other initatives which are helping very specific areas in the North East, and this is in the context of having an incredibly competitive tax environment to ensure that we’re the second in the world for foreign direct investment, ahead of China and second only to the US.
“While it may take longer than all of us would like, the policies are in place, the investment is coming in and we are very confident this part of the world will see transformative change over the next few years.”
Asked about measures to help the North East in next month’s Budget, Mr Davies said: “I can’t comment on what may or may not be in the Budget but I can tell you that we are absolutely laser-like focussed on growing our economy.
“If you think about the last two fiscal events that we’ve had, we set about tackling things like planning and the grid that will help unlock investment, provide jobs and improve the growth in our country. We see the North East as being central to that and we’ll always be mindful that we want to create more jobs here and see this area contributing to our economy.”
Mr Davies was also asked about energy company Environmena being told that a project to create a battery storage site for clean energy in Northumberland could not be connected to the National Grid until 2036.
He said that there had been “unacceptable delays” in improving grid connectivity but said that the Government was taking “significant action” to reverse that.
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