2017 Northern Powerhouse conference - What we learned

Political Editor James Reed offers some thoughts at the end of the two-day event

Uncertainty - For all the questions George Osborne faced over whether his 'northern powerhouse' vision was anything more than a sound bite, the uncertainty created by his departure from Government resonated through this year's event. The right noises were made in terms of asserting that the drive to improve the North's economic fortunes existed long before Mr Osborne put a catchy label on it and will endure afterwards. And Northern Powerhouse Minister Andrew Percy made a valiant attempt to reassure the Manchester gathering that nothing had fundamentally changed. But still, the nagging doubts were impossible to avoid.

HS3 - There is an overwhelming consensus that high speed trans-Pennine rail links, a project known variously as Northern Powerhouse Rail or HS3, is the North's collective top transport priority and there is impatience at its slow progress from drawing board to construction. The Government must move to accelerate progress on this project or risk a major backlash,

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Transport - Despite all the attempts to broaden out Northern Powerhouse concept, transport remains the area where there is a clear common agenda. There is a shared interest in making it easier to travel quicker around the North that makes it easy to gather support behind projects such as HS3. In other areas, such as skills and business support, there is a shared call for control to be put in local hands but not for pan-Northern solutions.

Expectations - The problems that have held back the North's economy are longstanding and will take prolonged and determined action to produce results. Ben Page of polling firm Ipsos Mori was right to identify managing expectations as one of the main challenges facing the Northern Powerhouse.

Mayors - In a matter of months, elected mayors will take on key powers across much of the North - except Yorkshire of course. Curiously they featured little in this year's event. Will they have made their mark by next year's meeting?

White Men - No conference gets off to the best start when it has to begin with an apology about the lack of gender balance among its speakers. And what a curious apology it was too. The commitment to end single gender panels was welcome but the assertion that organisers "have already started to work with key women leaders to understand how we make this happen" invited the observation from many in the audience that rectifying the lack of women speakers should be fairly straightforward - invite some. It was not just gender diversity that was lacking with ethnic minority representation also seriously deficient. But to focus solely on the conference organisers would be to ignore the wider issue. Certainly the lack of diversity in speakers was in part down to a lack of imagination on the part of the bookers, but it also reflects that white men still dominate the jobs that tend to get you invited to address this kind of event. Encouraging more diversity at the top of the North's public and private sector should be a priority.