Virus is spreading because families cannot afford to stay at home – Jayne Dowle

Whilst the Government uses the carte blanche of emergency powers legislation to lock down whole swathes of the country, running rough-shod over pleas from metro mayors and local leaders to allow them at least some degree of control, it seems to have forgotten its friends in the North.

Can it really only be 10 months since all those ‘Red Wall’ constituencies fell from Labour to Conservative, like so many dominoes? Once-solid Labour seats such as Don Valley, held by Labour since 1922 turned blue, under the thrall of Brexit and the failings of the Labour leadership under Jeremy Corbyn.

There are other reasons too; it’s arguable that the chutzpah and showmanship of Boris Johnson helped to sway voters in his favour. Yet, behind the soundbites and the silly photo-ops, there was no solid commitment to ‘levelling up’ North and South.

This became abundantly clear within weeks of Mr Johnson taking office when he downgraded the role of Northern Powerhouse Minister.

Unbelievably, responsibility for the North at Cabinet level now rests with the Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, who represents the seat of Welwyn Hatfield just outside London. Some have remarked that this was because the Prime Minister thought that the North was “all about trains” rather than devolving power and driving economic prosperity in the regions.

Leaving out the Northern Powerhouse at this level is a travesty that betrays the original vision of former Chancellor George Osborne, who represented the Cheshire seat of Tatton. And to think, it could have been so different.

As the Prime Minister is fond of observing, hindsight is a wonderful thing. If the Government’s initial response to the pandemic had taken into account the concerns of Northern MPs, we might not be living under constant threat of local and regional lockdowns for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps if the test and trace system was to accept the greater on-the-ground knowledge of local councils and local public health teams, further lockdowns could be avoided.

If senior Ministers really were so keen on embracing us all, they would do it forthwith, instead of contracting out vital systems to private companies far removed from challenges at a local level.

Local council leaders are right to complain that the constant and confusing stream of edicts from Whitehall does not take into account the realities of life in Northern towns and cities.

Does your average Cabinet Minister have any idea what it is like to work in a job which is not possible to do from home, cosy and warm in the spare room or garden office?

Do they have even an inkling of what it might be like to have an employer who orders you into work, whatever your illness, or lose your job?

Or find that the only work available is in a badly-run factory or sweat-shop, where health and safety is disregarded even in normal times?

I accept that this may also be the case in any part of the UK, but I would also argue that, in our region, disproportionately large numbers of people have no choice but to take low-skilled, low-paid jobs which give them no voice, representation or personal freedom.

I’ll spell it out for the benefit of the Government. Our communities are suffering and coronavirus is spreading because people are simply unable to afford not to go out to work.

If more attention had been paid to reversing the damage caused by a decade of austerity, economic and employment opportunities might be wider, more rewarding and less punishing.

And also, if there had been sustained investment in public services and infrastructure, our region might have been better equipped to meet the challenge coronavirus has presented us with.

Apart from HS2, which is always trotted out as justification that the Government really does care about joining up both halves of the country, the concerns of the North are constantly sidelined and over-ridden.

If this was not the case, then why is the long-awaited Yorkshire flooding summit today dealing only with South Yorkshire?

No Minister has so far given an adequate justification for leaving out York, Hebden Bridge, Bradford and all the other areas of our region at risk of loss and economic devastation from rising flood levels.

This cavalier attitude towards Northern communities is disrespectful, dilatory and, above all, damaging to the very people who voted this Government into power. How sad that less than a year after so many promises were made, we are left ever further out in the cold.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson