Rebalancing Regional Economies

Alex Norris Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Alex Norris)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Dowd. It was a pleasure to hear the outstanding contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae). I am grateful to him for securing the debate, and I am grateful to my colleagues who have come and found a way to contribute to it as well. This is a very important debate. The frustration over the imbalances both between and within regions is felt locally, whether it is in Teesside or Cornwall or anywhere in between, so it is right that colleagues are interested in this.

I have a whole argument to set out, but instinctively I will start with something I have said for a number of years, both when I shadowed this brief in opposition and throughout my time in government—something, most importantly, that the Prime Minister has said on multiple occasions: we see the fundamental transfer of power and resources from this place to local communities as a huge priority for this Government. We do that because we believe it is right that people should have a stronger say over their future, be it their economic future, their social future or the future of the fabric of their community, but we also strongly believe that that is what delivers.

It is right that the No. 1 mission for this Government is growth, but if we are to get that, the heart of our growth mission must be making sure that everybody has good opportunities, and that prosperity is spread across the UK. This is hard to say, especially as a Minister, but also from Westminster itself: it is an inside job. When I became the Minister for local growth, a job I loved doing, I did not walk through a sheep dip that gave me omniscience over Lancashire, Teesside, the west Midlands or Halesowen. The experts are my hon. Friends, but more importantly they are their constituents. My role—and our job as a Government—is to get those resources and powers out to them, so that they can change their communities and shape their economic futures. That is an important and huge goal.

It is very hard not to get into a conversation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) says, about either north or south, urban or rural and city or town, and that is a feature of this debate. But certainly when it comes to growth across those areas outside London and the south-east that have had the hardest time over the past few decades, I do not see these things as either/or’s. I think they interlock.

[Afzal Khan]

This is an important debate. In Manchester, a shocking 11 children in a class of 30 are living in poverty, which we know impacts their development, experiences, education and mental health. We must ensure that the economy works for the people we serve, so does the Minister agree that tackling child poverty must be central to our plans for regional rebalancing, especially in areas such as Manchester Rusholme?

[Alex Norris]

I agree that child poverty is particularly cruel. It is cruel because of the hardship that those children grow up in, but it is also cruel because their potential is snuffed out before they have even had a chance, and we should want everybody to have a chance to play their role in their community. That speaks to the very important point that even within communities that are thriving, there are still some of those neighbourhoods. This is a conversation about towns, but it is also a conversation about neighbourhoods. The very poorest neighbourhoods exist in all parts of the country, and we should have a real neighbourhoods focus for how we tackle that.

As I said, I think that these things interlock. I make no apology for believing that there is an importance in ensuring that our cities thrive. If our largest 11 underperforming cities got to the national average, that would be worth £20.5 billion; to the Exchequer, it would be £63 billion of additional output. That is a huge prize. I am thinking about Belfast and the incredible success story that is going on there in banking and finance, in the creative industries and in tech generally. These are incredible opportunities, which have the potential to change that community and change lives.

However, it is right that colleagues here, such as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), should ask, “But what does that mean for Newtownards? What does that mean for Coleraine? What does that mean for Ballymena?” Those conversations are very much in the spirit that my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen led us off in. We will as a Government—this has been part of the debate already today—look to back those projects that have a potentially transformative impact. Whether that involves the Oxford, Milton Keynes and Cambridge corridor or unlocking the growth potential of our cities, we are going to do those things. We think that that should be at the core of our industrial strategy. I am talking about backing places with potential for growth, and growth with a degree of speed as well. There is the clustering that is going on. I am thinking about Liverpool and Manchester and some of the technology clustering. We are going to back those things. We think that is the right thing to do. But I want to give colleagues a real assurance that our approach has a lot more than that, too. As I have said, it is about power and it is about resources.

With regard to the power piece, I am very proud of our devolution agenda. As a Government, we have built on what the previous Government did. They did good things in establishing the mayoralties that they did. We want that to go wider and deeper, which I will talk about in a second. In recent months, I have been working very closely with our mayors on the development of local growth plans, so that—again, in the spirit of what my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen says—rather than Ministers sitting in Whitehall with a map and working out where they think there might be some potential, we are saying to the leaders of those communities, “Get together with your community. Tell us where your economic future is. Tell us what the hurdles are to realising that economic future. Tell us what resources you need to deliver that economic future. We will agree those plans with you and we will back you. We will give you the power to do that. You can use tools, such as investment zones or freeports, but we want you to say what it takes.”

I am very pleased to say that as we get to the spending review this year, we will see those plans come out. Whether we are talking about the Liverpool city region, the east midlands—my area—the Greater Manchester combined authority, the west midlands or elsewhere, people will see emerging very exciting plans that will be about a new vision, a new understanding of where this country’s potential and opportunities are, because suddenly they will be popping up all over the country. I am really excited about that, but we need more people to be part of the settlement.

The devolution steps taken by previous Governments were good ones, but it could go much further, so we have made a commitment to a deeper devolution settlement—more powers across housing, planning, transport, energy, skills, employment support and more, so that locally those tools are there to shape place and to shape the economic future. I am delighted to say that Lancashire is soon to be part of this. We want more people to be in on that settlement because we think it delivers for their communities, so it is great that the Lancashire combined county authority is up and running. Of course, there are six areas in the devolution priority programme. That means that when those priorities are delivered and over the line, in addition to the devolution we have already, the proportion of England covered by devolution will rise to 77%, or just over 44 million people, by next May.

[Perran Moon]

Will the Minister give way?

[Alex Norris]

I will shortly. That will cover the entirety of the north, which may well be the point that my hon. Friend wants to make.

[Perran Moon]

I wholeheartedly agree with the principle of devolving powers out of this place and into regions, but does the Minister agree that in certain parts of the country, namely Cornwall, it will be very difficult for the model that is designed within the English devolution Bill to apply? Does he agree that we need flexibility and a nuanced approach to those areas that are desperate for devolution but will not and cannot sign up to the model that is currently Government strategy?

[Alex Norris]

I recognise that Cornwall is different. That point is obviously established in multinational architecture as well. There is no doubt that there are differences in Cornwall. I know that my hon. Friend and his Cornish colleagues are making that case very strongly to my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and English Devolution, and I am hearing that case as well. We know that that will continue. We need to have a programme that fits, and my hon. Friend will understand our need for coherence, too, but I appreciate the spirit in which he makes his point. I know there are differences in Cornwall, and those conversations will continue.

[Luke Myer]

Do the Government accept the subsidiarity principle wherein powers should not just sit at the mayoral level, but should be as close to the community as possible? That would empower our local authorities and communities themselves, rather than just creating structures that sit above communities and are distant from them.

[Alex Norris]

My hon. Friend, with characteristic vigour, takes me to the next part of my argument. I do not see the finished devolution product being a shift of power from Whitehall and Westminster to a regional or sub-regional body that is far away from communities and the local authority. I think that transfer is an unalloyed good, but I do not think it is the whole job.

That is why I was so pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen was the one who opened the debate. Our plan for neighbourhoods is a step in that direction—we are saying that we want money and power to be held at a neighbourhood level, to shape place. We think that is the second part of devolution. The first part probably gets the most public attention—creating new mayors and new structures creates a lot of interest. For me, the magic is in that next stage, which is where communities really take control for themselves—and of their future.

That is not just rhetoric from me; we have put our money where our mouths are. The £1.5 billion we have committed to the plan for neighbourhoods will deliver up to £20 million of funding and support for 75 areas over the next decade. It is hopefully a starting point. In April I had the pleasure of visiting two of the areas, Darwen and Rawtenstall, which are in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I was struck by the energy—my hon. Friend always has that characteristic energy, of course, but his former colleagues in local government had it too, as well as the neighbourhood board and all the folks who had come to play their role in that process. I was struck by how ambitious they were for their communities, and the plans they had. As I go around the UK talking to people, mentioning local growth and the plan for neighbourhoods, it is striking how they want to use the money to catalyse further investments in their communities.

[Andy MacNae]

This is all wonderful stuff, and obviously we are massively behind these plans, but does the Minister agree that in order to make the most of the plan for neighbourhoods, we must address the infrastructure constraints within the sub-regions—constraints that have traditionally held back our areas? In the case of Rawtenstall and many areas, it is the rail links. There is also the transport grid. There are so many aspects of this. We will only get the value for money out of our plan for neighbourhoods if we address the infrastructure around our areas, too.

[Alex Norris]

I agree with that. When I visited my hon. Friend’s constituency, I was struck by the fact that he is in a valley, and if anything is wrong with that road, everything is wrong with that road and everything grinds to a halt. Of course the plan cannot be seen in isolation.

I have only one minute left, and I want to cover the Green Book before I conclude. My hon. Friend made a very good case for updating the Green Book. As he said, a review is under way. That will ensure that the Green Book provides objective, transparent advice on public investment across the country, including outside of London and the south-east, meaning that investment in all regions gets a proper hearing and areas get proper backing for growth. I encourage colleagues to continue to talk to the Treasury, as I know they are doing, about what they want to see from a future Green Book to ensure that they are getting the investment they need in their communities.

There has been a lot of energy in this room; there is always a lot of energy in the room when we talk about local devolution and local leadership. We have huge untapped potential in this country, and what it takes to tap into that potential, and that desire for communities to take control of their future, is a Government who support the transfer of money and power from this place to them to allow them to shape place. I am really excited to be getting on with that job, and to be working with colleagues in doing so.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).