Yahoo News Labour's vow to the North East as Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledges to repay voters with jobs boom
Labour’s new Chancellor has vowed to repay the trust of North East voters and usher in a jobs boom for the region.
Rachel Reeves has pledged that the new government will deliver a transformation of the North East economy and better lives for its people, after winning a near clean sweep of seats across the entire region at last week’s general election. But the Chancellor refused to commit Sir Keir Starmer’s administration to delivering on some crucial issues demanded by key figures in the North East, including the reopening of the mothballed Leamside railway line and the end of the two-child benefit cap.
Speaking on a visit to the Treasury’s northern base in Darlington, her first trip to the region since Labour’s landslide election victory, Ms Reeves said her party’s “number one mission” to grow the economy and bring good jobs to all parts of the country was nowhere more important than in the North East. She hailed the region’s “huge potential” in industries such as offshore wind and said that “for too long too many jobs have been focused in London and the South East”.
But the Chancellor remained steadfastly cautious on any spending pledges, repeatedly stating that the government would not commit to any project without knowing where the money will come from.
ChronicleLive and The Journal have this week called on Sir Keir’s government and Labour’s North East mayor, Kim McGuinness, to act on the key challenges facing our region – reducing child poverty, boosting the region’s economy and living standards, improving our transport infrastructure, and restoring local services that have been hollowed out by years of cuts.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Ms Reeves said on Thursday: “The people of the North East have put their trust in Labour at this election.
"You have seen that with the results, with so many Labour gains in the North East. And you also know my commitment to the North East – I have spent a lot of time up here campaigning and I have family connections here, so it is very important to me that this new government delivers for the people of the North East.”
The Leeds West and Pudsey MP talked up planning reforms designed to accelerate housebuilding and the launch of a new National Wealth Fund to invest in industries like carbon capture and storage, green hydrogen, offshore wind and gigafactories for electric vehicle battery production. Saying that Labour was “not about gimmicks” in the week that it dropped Boris Johnson’s flagship “levelling up” phrase, Ms Reeves added: “There are crucial industries for the North East of England and we want to bring good jobs here paying decent wages.
“I know [North East mayor] Kim McGuinness talks about ‘stubborn stayers’ in the North East and that is how she describes herself. We want more people to know that they can stay in the North East and do a good job, paying a decent wage, having a home that they can afford to bring up a family, and we are determined to deliver on that in government.”
Ms Reeves said that she wanted Treasury ministers to spend more time working at the Darlington Economic Campus and said Labour wanted to expand the site so that it is home to 1,400 staff, up from 950.
The Chancellor acknowledged the “dire” state of council services and “huge pressure” on cash-strapped local authorities, amid warnings that councils in England face a £6.2 billion over the next two years alone and half of all town halls could go bankrupt by 2029. She committed that Labour would give councils greater security through longer-term, rather than 12-month, funding settlements.
Her visit to the region came a day after Ms McGuinness announced a £8 million cash injection to try and kickstart the restoration of the Leamside Line, described as the single most important piece of infrastructure needed to transform the region’s economic prospects. The use of a northern section of the line to create a new Washington loop of the Tyne and Wear Metro is currently expected to cost around £745 million and is likely to need significant government backing to become a reality.
Ms Reeves refused to make any promises on the project, saying she was “not going to make any unfunded spending commitments”. And she gave the same line when asked whether Labour will remove the two-child benefit cap, a policy which the North East Child Poverty Commission warned is hitting 19,000 families in the region.
The Chancellor told the LDRS: “We are going to publish our own child poverty reduction strategy and it will be at the heart of what we do as a government. But I have also been really clear that I am not going to make spending commitments without being able to say where the money is going to come from – that is the route to economic ruin.”
