Five years ago Andy Bounds (FT) wrote: “Hype pervades the city amid talk of a regional boom driven by the ‘Midlands Engine . . .  with hoardings boasting of its prolific job creation, abundant businesses, Michelin-starred restaurants and upscale shops”.

The Midlands Engine, which was set up in 2017 and supported financially by the European Union, funded the Midlands Engine Observatory a year later. It was intended to deliver the regionally focused research and analysis needed to develop knowledge needed to fully understand the region’s economic strengths and inform policy choices.

Its achievements –  celebrated at the first Midlands Engine All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) Annual General Meeting (May’21)- include relocating several Government departments into the Midlands region.

In March 2021 the Midlands Engine Investment Fund reported that it had invested £100m in the region’s small businesses – making 481 investments in 350 businesses located in the West Midlands and East and South East Midlands.

The Northern Powerhouse was set up to boost the local economy by investing in skills, innovation, transport and culture and devolve significant powers and budgets to directly elected mayors. Its investment fund (NPIF) also received substantial support from the European Regional Development Fund,

Dr Andy Sloan (Guernsey Finance, formerly Guernsey Chief Economist) commented: “Ten years since inception, the Northern Powerhouse has achieved little other than demonstrate that half-measures are no measures for a regional levelling up agenda.

“Regional industrial policy over the last 30 years has been one long forlorn hope that expensive quangos and supply side investment will make a difference”.

IPPR North, a think tank said in 2019 that the government had “undermined” the Northern Powerhouse by making cuts in public spending while south-east and south-west England saw a £4.7bn rise.

The UK government is now seeking to reinvigorate its plan to “level up” prosperity across the country by creating a new Northern Powerhouse “growth board” to drive economic growth in the north of England.

The Financial Times reported that Jim O’Neill, the former Goldman Sachs economist and Treasury minister, currently Vice-Chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, is in talks with the government to chair the new Northern Powerhouse “growth board”.

The Northern Research Group of MPs – founded by MPs which won ‘red wall’ seats from Labour in the 2019 election – has been lobbying for an independent and private sector-led board to suggest policies and initiatives for powering growth across the North and help to realise Boris Johnson’s election promise to narrow the UK’s north-south wealth gap.

Dr Sloan stresses that the English regions require a degree of fiscal federalism

They should have an independent capacity to levy taxes to finance the public services they provide for their citizens – to be able to exert autonomy over their economic policies and influence their own economic destiny. He adds that the Swiss Cantons and German Lander provide a guide to how such empowered regions work.

George Morran, whose working life has been spent in local government, commented by email: “Devolution has to be rooted in the local. The Northern Powerhouse like the Midlands engine are creations of Whitehall. They are not rooted in the local or region”.

He stresses that a framework is needed which can then be worked on and adjusted at the local, regional and national levels, reaching consensus on how to recast constitution in favour of the local, nations and regions and forming a coalition of support for it.

George’s submission to the Labour Party’s devolution and constitution commission to further develop these ideas may be read here.

 

 

 

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