Local Growth White Paper

Adrian Bailey Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

In terms of private sector participation, the LEPs will have boards that are split 50:50 between business and the local communities and will be chaired by business representatives. They will be driven by business, which has a direct interest in ensuring that growth takes place. It will be a change from a begging-bowl relationship to a partnership; that is the essence of this approach. The Black Country LEP is not on the first list. The assessment made was that there was not a sufficient business input into the proposal, but we hope it will proceed very quickly.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I endorse the comment made by my fellow black country MP, the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), about the quality of the black country LEP bid, and I hope that it will be favourably considered in future. May I focus for a moment on the Secretary of State’s comment about particularly welcoming bids from areas that are highly dependent on public sector employment? Such areas are often dependent on public sector employment because of the weakness of the private sector. Given that the public sector is under extreme financial pressures, can he explain how such areas will be able to put together the expertise, and have the people, time and resources, to make a bid to the regional growth fund that would be capable of balancing or rebalancing their regional economy?

[Vince Cable]

In terms of the process for dealing with the LEPs, we had what my colleagues call a traffic light system. Very good, imaginative proposals with a strong business input that meet the needs of economic geography were put through to the first group. Quite a lot of the proposals were yellow rather than green, and they are being processed. I hope that soon we will have a list. Some had no ambition and no private sector input, and we have simply told them that they need to think again.

It is easy, I think, to fall lazily into stereotypes about growth in areas dominated by public sector employment. I recently looked at the figures produced by my Department on the rate of growth of new company formation in different towns and cities in Britain. The best performance in the UK was in Sunderland, followed by Rotherham. They are not archetypal south-east of England growth areas. There is a lot of entrepreneurial potential across this country, and we want to encourage and develop it.