‘Red Wall’ Tory MPs demand a ‘Northern Big Bang’ of investment and Government action to boost the region as they warn voters are ‘tired of being neglected in favour of London and the South East’
- Northern Tories want PM to unleash a new investment boom in the region
- They say it needs plan comparable to 1980s deregulation of the City of London
- Demanded Government match voters’ ‘radicalism’ with radical agenda of its own
Northern Tories are today demanding Boris Johnson trigger an economic ‘Big Bang’ as part of his plan to ‘level up the country’.
Conservatives, many of them in so-called ‘red wall’ seats taken from Labour at the last election, want the Prime Minister to unleash a new investment boom in the region.
The Northern Research Group (NRG) of MPs said the region needs its a shot in the arm comparable to the deregulation of the City of London in the 1980s to deliver opportunity and prosperity.
In a report written with the Centre for Policy Studies think tank, the NRG said the Government now needed to match the ‘radicalism’ of voters who backed the Conservatives for the first time with a radical agenda of its own.
They said locals were tired of being ‘neglected’ by Westminster politicians in favour of the prosperous capital and South East.
NRG chairman Jake Berry said: ‘At the last election millions of northern voters broke with tradition by voting for the Conservative Party, in many cases for the first time.
‘The Prime Minister needs to recognise that they did so not only to deliver Brexit, but to voice the systemic disadvantages felt in many communities that were tired of being neglected in favour of London and the South East.
‘The measures we have put forward will help the Prime Minister and this Government to ‘level up’ the economy and help make the North build back better as one of the most investable places in modern times.’
NRG chairman Jake Berry said millions voted for the Tories ‘not only to deliver Brexit, but to voice the systemic disadvantages felt in many communities that were tired of being neglected’
The Northern Research Group (NRG) of MPs said the region needs its a shot in the arm comparable to the deregulation of the City of London in the 1980s to deliver opportunity and prosperity
In a report written with the Centre for Policy Studies think tank, Mr Berry’s (centre) NRG said Boris Johnson’s (left) Government now needed to match the ‘radicalism’ of voters who backed the Conservatives for the first time with a radical agenda of its own
The report’s recommendations include cash incentives for investors to spur a ‘green industrial revolution’, fast-tracking major planning applications with decisions in ‘weeks not years’ and updating pension scheme rules to encourage more investment in northern infrastructure.
It called also for the creations of a new northern infrastructure bond aimed at global investors with a northern recovery bond to allow local investors to support growth and a new growth board for the North to help steer investment.
‘The aim of a Northern Big Bang should be to unleash a torrent of investment into the Northern economy, to deliver the productivity gains, economic growth and higher wages that are so desperately needed,’ it said.
‘These proposals, and that investment, can help create a Northern Big Bang, comparable to the 1980s Big Bang in the City of London, which did so much to bring new opportunities and economic growth in London and the South East.’
The report said the various proposals put together had the potential to unlock billions of pounds of private sector investment in the region.
‘There is a particular opportunity to make the North the home of the green industrial revolution which the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has called for,’ it said.
‘The innovation and technology which will allow us to achieve our net-zero ambitions need to be inculcated somewhere, and the North of England is the most obvious place, given its manufacturing strengths and industrial pedigree.’