Time to end this Whitehall farce over Northern Powerhouse – Tom Richmond

Increasingly suspicious that this policy agenda has been marginalised, when it has never been more vital to the region’s recovery, it was important to test Whitehall’s awareness of these agendas.

But the revealing responses of these perfectly polite telephonists did, in fact, provide a national service – there is no central co-ordination – and I hope they understand my motives.

The phone farce began when I called 10 Downing Street to ask to speak to the official in charge of the Northern Powerhouse. “There isn’t one, sorry,” they replied. I’m unconvinced they even knew of the Northern Powerhouse’s existence.

Next the Treasury. “Have you a name?” I was asked before suggesting that I searched Google for a direct contact or try the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government instead.

No joy there, they suggested there might be an office for the North but didn’t know where, before I tried the Department for Transport where I do know that Grant Shapps – the Transport Secretary – also has a dual role as Northern Powerhouse Minister.

The very helpful lady said she had looked ‘Northern Powerhouse’ up on her computer and that no one at the DfT had any responsibility for it. She suggested I drop the department an email.

Undeterred, I made one last call to the Cabinet Office which does have a policy co-ordination role. They must know, surely? “Have you the right number?” they asked.

No, I had not – and that was the very point. There’s been a lack of focus since the role of Northern Powerhouse Minister was downgraded just before Covid triggered a recession like no other.

Previously it allowed Jake Berry to attend the Cabinet in this capacity, and represent 15 million people in so-called ‘red wall’ seats, after Boris Johnson acceded to the demands of the Power Up The North campaign.

Now this region is paying the price for the role being added to the Transport Secretary’s brief in February, weeks before Grant Shapps became so integral to the Government’s pandemic response.

It means that he has uttered the words ‘Northern Powerhouse’ fleetingly in the Commons just twice since he was given the extra remit, though his progress on rail improvements has been significant.

That Mr Berry, a longstanding ally of the Prime Minister, felt moved to share this newspaper’s misgivings – and our renewed calls for a fully fledged Northern Powerhouse department – on social media is telling.

First, the PM made a promise at the Convention for the North in Rotherham last September to set up a bespoke body “to make sure our great Northern Powerhouse is firing on all its cylinders”. We’re still waiting.

Next, his promised Yorkshire-wide summit after last November’s floods in South Yorkshire. A date was set on Tuesday – 10 months later.

Then, the farce over exam results which risked penalising pupils across the North amid claims the Department for Education is indifferent to ‘levelling up’.

Now Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s decision to delay a Budget and Spending Review which was intended to overhaul the Treasury’s ‘Green Book’ so neglected areas receive fairer funding in future.

No wonder ex-Treasury Minister Jim O’Neill told the House of Lords this week that the Government “shows no sign of this rhetoric being backed up by deed”.

Lord Agnew of Oulton – he’s a Treasury Minister – replied by saying the North was in line for £600bn of investment and that he is “continually pressing and challenging departments that do not advertise” key Civil Service posts outside London. Good for him – but his response shows, unwittingly, the scale of the battle we’re all up against until the time comes to base a team of high-flying officials in this region to drive forward policies.

Their work also needs to be overseen by a Cabinet-rank Minister, as previously accepted by the PM, with dedicated Northern Powerhouse questions in Parliament and a select committee scrutinising officials.

And to those who maintain that the Covid-19 takes precedence, the economic fallout from lockdowns makes the ‘levelling up’ agenda even more urgent if North-South regional inequalities are not to become even more stark.

That both Lord O’Neill, an architect of the Northern Powerhouse, and Jake Berry, the only Northern Powerhouse Minister to sit in the Cabinet, now recognise this speaks even more volumes than Whitehall’s ‘sorry I haven’t a clue’ telephone tangle, ironically on the day Boris Johnson apologised for his muddle over the latest lockdown rules. And, if the PM thinks he can take voters here for granted after they gave him their trust, he should think again. Now.

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Tom Richmond is Comment Editor of The Yorkshire Post. He tweets via OpinionYP.

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