Labour, The North and the Challenges Ahead
No English region has benefited more from the big policy decisions made by the Labour Government than the Northern Region. The most important single thing that the Labour Government can do to help the North is to maintain its sense of direction and sense of purpose. The greatest danger facing the Labour Party is that it becomes complacent in office, loses its way and forgets who it is we’re trying to help and why we do it. The Labour Party has a rich history, nowhere more so than in the Northern Region, with deep-seated values and a sense of moral purpose. These are important things to hang on to.
The Northern Region has benefited disproportionately from policies such as the minimum wage, making work pay, the drive for full employment, and the large investments that the Government has made in health and education. I would argue that our single most effective anti-crime policy is to provide jobs and a decent alternative for those who might otherwise be tempted by crime. It’s not of course the only response and the Government are right to take a tough stand on anti-social behaviour and to side with the victims not the criminals and those who make excuses for them.
Giving young people a decent start in life through schooling and then further education is one of the best things that the State can do for them. The investment in higher education and the expansion of student places gives opportunities to youngsters that weren’t there before. This sense of direction needs defending and consolidating, and not cut back on, as our political opponents propose.
There are nevertheless big challenges ahead. The employment base of the Northern Region has gone through a substantial transformation. The region’s employment base relies much more on the service sector than it used to. We must do more to attract to our region the high quality, well paid service sector jobs that are the mainstay of the labour market in London and the South East of England. The region still has a strong manufacturing base. It is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that free trade is also fair trade and that the Government does everything that it can and should to ensure that competition from elsewhere doesn’t have an unfair advantage.
The investment in regeneration schemes in the region has been on an unprecedented scale. We have some really beautiful buildings to underpin the region’s growing culture and tourism industries.
The region’s transport infrastructure and in particular the road network needs further investment. My priority would be the public transport system. The deregulation of the mid-1980s has done more harm than good. New structures should be put in place to make public transport more attractive. The motorway links north, south, east and west are also in need of more investment. The inadequacies of the road network are now a constraint on economic growth – this is something that the region just can’t afford.
The Government’s investment in public sector housing is welcome but we need to do more. Not everybody wants to be an owner-occupier. I would like to see investment in modern good quality housing for rent for those who don’t want to exercise the ‘right to buy’, who are in work, and would therefore like to pay a lower rent. No region would benefit more from a pilot scheme of this kind.
The Northern Region is not immune from changes that are taking place in the rest of the country or in the rest of the world – nor should we want to be. An excessive parochialism will do us nothing but harm. Our region has a lot to offer, and through the difficult times of the Tory years no region did more to help itself.
