The Northern Powerhouse Five Years on is not what was expected Five Years Ago

Manchester Day Parade 23 July 2019

© 2018 Jane Lambert: all rights reserved

Jane Lambert

Yesterday was Manchester Day, a celebration of our city region and its 2.8 million inhabitants.  It happened to coincide with the 5th anniversary of George Osborne's speech"We need a Northern Powerhouse".  Like a lot of people at the time, I welcomed Mr Osborne's speech.

The key passage of that speech was as follows:

"There is a hard truth we need to address.
The cities of the north are individually strong, but collectively not strong enough. The whole is less than the sum of its parts.
So the powerhouse of London dominates more and more.
And that’s not healthy for our economy. It’s not good for our country.
We need a Northern Powerhouse too.
Not one city, but a collection of northern cities - sufficiently close to each other that combined they can take on the world.
Able to provide jobs and opportunities and security to the many, many people who live here, and for whom this is all about.
You know, if you brought together the best players from each of the Premiership teams in the north, you’d have a team that would wipe the floor with any competition.
We need to bring the cities of the north together as a team – that’s how Britain will beat the rest."

Notice the emphasis on cities.  This was a vision for the cities of the North or, to be more precise, the conurbations of Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South and West Yorkshire, and not for the North as a whole.  Doubtless, communities in the rest of the North would have benefited from the economic growth and possibly better transport links that would have resulted from greater integration of those metropolitan countries but they were not part of Osborne's plan.

Nor could they because the interests of the cities are different from those of the towns and countryside.  That was clear from the results of the 2016 referendum on EU membership the anniversary of which also fell on Manchester Day.  Generally,  the cities voted "remain" while towns and rural areas voted "leave". Accordingly, Manchester has more in common with London than it does with Blackpool or indeed Greater London has with most of the Home Counties.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published Northern Powerhouse reaches five year milestone. It lists its achievements as follows:

"Since its launch in June 2014, government has worked in partnership with businesses and communities to drive productivity and increase opportunities for people all across the North:

• The economy of the North is now worth more than £339 billion – a £10 billion increase in real terms – and supports an additional 287,000 people in employment.
• The Government is spending a record £13 billion investment in transport which includes an upcoming £3 billion investment into the Trans-Pennine route and support for HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail.
• Almost half of people in the North are now represented by elected metro mayors with control over local spending plans and who provide their region with an influential voice on the national and world stage.
• There has been a renewed focus on education and skills with the £70 million Northern Powerhouse school strategy to raise standards while investment in vocational qualifications means that a third of the country’s apprentices are in the North. In addition to this there has been support for schools in the North East with £24 million of funding through the Opportunity North East programme, a bespoke programme of support for schools and communities.  
• The Northern Powerhouse is firmly on the international stage – since 2010 the Government has roughly doubled the number of foreign direct investments to more than 1,000, creating more than 39,400 jobs.
• Businesses in the Northern Powerhouse have been supported through £20 million of new funding for a ‘Made Smarter’ pilot in the North West to support 3000 SME’s to adopt new digital technologies to improve competitiveness and productivity, Growth Hubs have also supported over 44k businesses helping over 8000 people start and grow their own businesses
• The Government has also supported major cultural projects in the North with the £15 million Northern Cultural Investment Fund. In 2018, following a competition, three areas were awarded money: £4 million for the restoration of the Odeon Cinema in Bradford as a 4000 capacity live music venue, £4 million to create a museum in Blackpool that will celebrate the town’s history as the UK’s first mass seaside holiday resort and £3.3 million to enhance the visitor experience at cultural attractions across the Lake District, the UK’s newest World Heritage Site "

These are all very worthy projects but the emphasis is on the North and its communities. No mention at all of the integration of the 4 conurbations - the most dynamic parts of the North - in a British second city that performs the role of Hamburg, Chicago, Shanghai or St Petersburg in their respective countries which Osborne and his mentor Jim O'Neill envisaged.  The only step in that direction is the creation of the  Business and Property Courts which had the aim of enabling any type of case to be heard in Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester or other great cities (see Jane Lambert Launch of a Judicial Superhighway  12 July 2017 IP Northwest). That was an act of serendipity rather than policy.  

A lot of publications have appeared on the 5th anniversary of Osborne's speech. Most, in particular, the IPPR North's The Northern Powerhouse Five Years  On,  have been critical. It is not hard to see why. Anyone wishing to discuss this article or the Northern Powerhouse generally should call me on 020 7404 5252 or send me a message through my contact form.