Great Northern Conference 2023: Mayors call for North to be priority for Labour's £28bn annual green investment plan

Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged the party will invest that amount in green industries from 2027 should it be elected to Government. An initial promise to make such an investment from 2024 made two years ago was watered down earlier this year to the later date, with Ms Reeves blaming the state of the economy under the Conservative party as the reason for the delay.

Research last year by the Resolution Foundation said that the UK's net zero drive is expected to affect around 1.3m workers in carbon-intensive ‘brown’ jobs but the thinktank said that rather than the mass job losses of the past it is expected that the economic transformation will “change existing jobs rather than to destroy them”.

But speaking at the Great Northern Conference in Bradford this morning, South Yorkshire mayor Oliver Coppard called for his region to be prioritised for spending and said there were “fears” locally about the push for net zero would mean in reality.

He said efforts to reach net zero in the coming decades represent a “huge opportunity” if done right but added the mistakes made during the decline of the coal-mining industry in the 1980s must not be allowed to reoccur.

"The 1980s was when we closed down the pits in South Yorkshire and there was no plan,” he said.

"We went from having thousands upon thousands of people who worked in the pits who practically overnight were put out of work.

"As those industries were torn up and thrown on the scrapheap, our communities fractured and those fractures are still there to this day. There’s a muscle memory in South Yorkshire of what this looks like and there is a fear in South Yorkshire of what this looks like.

"Rachel [Reeves] has committed to £28bn a year investment in net zero and I would very much like to think a significant part of that would come to places like South Yorkshire so we can grow those industries.”

He added: “I do hope that the next year – with touch wood, a Labour Government – is an opportunity to transform the future of places like South Yorkshire and net zero should be absolutely where we start.”

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham went further and said that spending should be assessed outside of normal Treasury ‘Green Book’ calculations on public sector investment decisions.

He said: “We should be saying to the Labour frontbench that when it comes to that £28bn that has been identified as going to be spent in the UK if there is a Labour government that there should be no Green Book on this one and you should be prioritising the North of England for that investment.

"That would then become a funding stream of significance for us year-after-year to create green energy infrastructure across the North of England from tidal power in the Liverpool City Region to offshore wind in the North Sea. That’s a massive opportunity.”

West Yorkshire’s Tracy Brabin was also on the panel but did not discuss the issue of the fund during her time on stage. But in a statement after the event to The Yorkshire Post, she said: “The scale of the challenge presented by the climate emergency demands transformative action.

“The North should absolutely be a top priority for green investment — and working together as Mayors, we are able to deliver at speed on this urgent issue.

“Here in West Yorkshire we are working to deliver our mission of a net zero region by 2038.”

The mayors also backed ‘new deal for the North’ plan put forward by event organisers The Northern Powerhouse Partnership.

The NPP is asking all mainstream political parties to include the five pledges in their manifestos for the next General Election, with the first being a promise to ‘power the net zero transition’ with support for investment in small modular reactors, carbon capture and storage, and wider renewables as well as Northern-made heat pumps and home insulation.

Ms Brabin said: “Investing in the north can drive the UK’s economic growth and create opportunities for millions of people across our regions.”

When Labour’s Green Investment Plan was originally launched in 2021, Ms Reeves said the £28bn would come from borrowing and go towards projects like offshore wind farms and developing batteries for electric vehicles.

After the plan was adjusted earlier this summer, Ms Reeves refused to say how much investment in the plan there would be in the first year of government but suggested details would be given following further fiscal updates from the Government.

“I will never be reckless with the public finances,” the shadow chancellor told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in June. “Economic stability, financial stability, always has to come first and it will do with Labour.

“That’s why it’s important to ramp up and phase up our plans to get to the investment we need to secure these jobs so that it is also consistent with those fiscal rules to get debt down as a share of GDP and to balance day-to-day spending.”