The high price of policy dither

THE abrupt decision by Sheffield Forgemasters to pull out of the Government’s flagship Regional Growth Fund scheme will be interpreted by some as an embarrassment for Nick Clegg, one of the firm’s local MPs and the Deputy Prime Minister.

It was the coalition’s decision to cancel an £80m loan – a deal signed off by Gordon Brown’s government – that triggered an unprecedented attack by Labour against the Liberal Democrat leader, and a foretaste of even more acrimonious clashes.

Having already abolished regional development agencies like Yorkshire Forward because of their profligacy, Mr Clegg did, to his credit, persuade the Government to launch a Regional Growth Fund so that cities – and businesses – could compete for some regeneration funding.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

And the assumption, until this surprise announcement, was that Sheffield Forgemasters would be the recipient of a much-trailed £36m loan to help finance its extremely specialist work in the field of nuclear engineering.

The firm says that the money is no longer needed because of changing priorities, and this presumably means another bid will the unexpected beneficiary of this volte-face, but it does not reflect well on the speed of the RGF’s decision-making processes – and which have already been the subject of repeated consternation.

It is a criticism that the Government needs to address if it is serious about rebalancing the economy and narrowing the North-South divide. As well as being time-consuming, regional regeneration funding is now complicated, convoluted and cumbersome, as illustrated earlier this week by those Leeds councillors who appeared to be naive about the opportunities available to their authority and LEP.

And then there is this dilemma – should funding be open to private businesses, like Sheffield Forgemasters, or should it be ring-fenced and used to pay for the infrastructure improvements that help attract new companies to previously redundant areas? It is an issue that has suddenly become more pressing.

The wrong target

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

ED Davey is right to say that consumers should not need to be “stock market analysts” to switch from one energy supplier to another. Yet the fact that the process is not more straightforward underlines the challenge facing the Energy Secretary when it comes to simplifying a market steeped in deliberate complexity.

Far from increasing competition, privatisation has instead left households at the mercy of a small number of firms who appear to act collectively in order to drive up their profits.

It is why Mr Davey’s decision to focus on speeding up the switching process 
fails to get to the real heart 
of the problem.

While the idea of customers being able to find the cheapest tariffs by scanning QR barcodes with a smartphone will be welcomed by some, it relies on people being sufficiently technologically-savvy to know how to do this.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

More fundamental than that, however, is the simple fact that there is absolutely no point in making it easier to switch between energy providers if there is little or no difference between the prices on offer.

Rather than putting pressure on the “Big Six” firms to bring the time it takes to switch from the current five weeks 
to 24 hours, the Energy Secretary should be putting policies in place that fuel competition.

For that to happen the stranglehold of the “Big Six” must be broken, with the different divisions of their businesses – generation, trading and supply – ring-fenced to make it clearer exactly how much money they are making.

At the same time, smaller companies must be encouraged to enter the market. An exemption from green taxes would equip them with the means by which to compete, and ultimately lead to an industry that is forced to offer consumers genuine value for money.

Crisis of identity

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

LIKE so many hamlets and communities across Yorkshire, Cottingham is proud of its identity and claim to fame as England’s largest village. Its character could not contrast greater with its near-neighbour Hull – and the social and financial challenges that face this port city as it emerges from the economic doldrums.

Given Cottingham’s appeal and well-utilised local services, it is unsurprising that developers want to build 600 homes on the outskirts of the village that can trace its origins back to the 11th century. This is a popular place to live, with good road and rail access to Hull, Beverley and the wider East Riding.

It is why Yorkshire MPs 
like Stuart Andrew, Julian Sturdy and others are 
calling on the Government to look again at its planning laws; they want tighter controls to prevent the continuation of a never-ending suburban sprawl. They also want policies to ensure that public services can keep pace with the volume of new homes proposed.

This is a powerful argument but, as is so often the case, it returns to this one question that remains unanswered: what more can be done to persuade developers to prioritise those brownfield sites that have been left to wither, and which are in desperate need of regeneration?