John Denham
Main Page: John Denham (Labour - Southampton, Itchen)Department Debates - View all John Denham's debates with the Department for Education
(13 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Prisk
We are in negotiations with the black country, and I hope that there will be a positive outcome, but the point of the partnerships is to remove the local barriers to growth and ensure that planning in local areas is addressed, that red tape is tackled and that local transport projects are dealt with jointly by business and civic leaders. That is what LEPs can do. It is not all about subsidies; it is about real action on the ground.
Mr John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)
But the director general of the CBI described local economic partnerships as
“a bit of a shambles”.
Indeed, the Minister himself wrote to the Business Secretary, who is sitting next to him, to say that many LEPs were
“undermining our agenda for growth,”
and now the Business Secretary has told people in Birmingham that the abolition of RDAs is
“a little Maoist and chaotic”.
Can the Minister now tell the House: is he responsible for the Maoism or just for the chaos?
Mr Denham
Yesterday, Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister told you and the House that whatever the Business Secretary had said, it was not what he believed. I know that Ministers have just come back from China, but I thought that public humiliation for incorrect thought went out with the cultural revolution.
Nissan told the Select Committee that the now abolished grant for business investment was vital to bring new investment and highly skilled jobs to the north-east. Was Nissan not right to say:
“The UK has a clear choice of whether it chooses to fight for new business, new jobs, and rebalance the economy or allow the opportunity of this business to go elsewhere”?
Does that not show that the Government have no plan for growth?