Clause 67
Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]
11:00 am
Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Yorkshire and the Humber), Department for Communities and Local Government; Doncaster Central, Labour)
This is complete nonsense. Is the right hon. Gentleman committing his Front-Bench team to say that, since local authorities should be the only ones doing economic planning, they are going to be given a forecast of 20 years of actual public expenditure? He is entirely missing the point of a regional spatial strategy, which is about saying, for example, in the Yorkshire and Humber area, what the future possibilities are in green technologies. What does the region need to plan for regarding skills? What does it need to plan for in transport? We need to shape economic thinking, showing inward investors that we seek to provide, within the region, the right economic conditions and the right education, bringing together the universities in the way we have been, looking at research and development for the future.
The right hon. Gentleman knows what happens if such a long-term strategy is set out. Implementation will be geared towards the relevant amount of public expenditure, but his argument and attitude is, “Unless you can put a figure on every single part of the strategy, we should not do anything. Let’s not have a go and think about the real economic forward planning; do nothing because you can’t put an exact figure on every single part of it.”