Andrew Gwynne
Main Page: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)(9 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Penny Mordaunt
My hon. Friend is right. It is important that people choose locally how to organise themselves. There would be no support for pressure to get smaller authorities to change how they operate.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Greater Manchester is a case in point. The city region and the LEP boundaries are coterminous, which is working well, but there is a democratic deficit. What more will the Government do to address that problem, so that local populations have buy-in to the economic regeneration plans for the city region?
Penny Mordaunt
We are providing support, as are other organisations, such as, most recently, the Federation of Small Businesses, to help LEPs to develop and to have better representation on their boards. The Manchester LEP is doing extremely well—we need to do more to encourage it to allocate its growth funding to projects, but it is doing well. Further support, both from the Government and from third-party organisations, is being provided to develop democratic structures.