Every part of UK will benefit from recovery, vows Cameron

The Prime Minister admitted there was still “more to do” to make sure more people could take advantage of growth returning to the economy.

But he said the Grimethorpe operation of online retailer Asos, which he visited yesterday, showed how jobs and businesses were coming to Yorkshire.

However, Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna insisted ordinary people were not feeling the benefits.

Figures to be published this morning are expected to show the economy grew by around 0.7 per cent in the third quarter of 2013.

It will be the first time since 2010 that the UK economy has grown for three quarters in a row.

Mr Cameron said: “What we have seen over the last three years across the country is a million more people employed than when I became Prime Minister and here in Yorkshire and Humberside it’s been the fastest jobs growth outside London and the South-East.

“There’s always more to do but our agenda of increasing the number of apprenticeships, cutting business taxation, investing in transport infrastructure, supporting entrepreneurship and enterprise I think is having a good effect.

“We need to make sure this is a recovery that benefits everybody. I don’t want just a recovery where we see big jobs growth in the South but not much benefits in the rest of the country.

“We’ve got to make sure its properly spread and that’s why businesses like this in Barnsley are so worthwhile.”

But Labour insisted the Government was failing to ensure that ordinary families were benefiting from better economic times.

Mr Umunna said: “The question is what type of growth do we get and do people in Yorkshire benefit?

“We are clear that post 2008-09 we can’t go back to business as usual and a growth model where output is coming from household consumption, finance and rising house prices.

“We are seeing house prices rise at five times the rate of wages. Housing is two to three times more expensive than it is, say, in the United States with the potential of a further housing bubble at the same time that we’ve got the lowest rate of new build since the 1920s.

“That doesn’t look like the investment and export-led recovery we were promised and even as we were welcoming the return of growth over the summer months exports actually fell and business investment is £2bn lower now than it was a year ago.”

Mr Umunna was on a visit to West Yorkshire yesterday, meeting business leaders in Garforth and Leeds and he insisted the Government needed to take stronger action to ensure the North benefits from economic growth.

“We want to see everybody share in prosperity and growth and I don’t think giving a tax cut to 13,000 people earning millions of pounds is the way you share the proceeds of growth.

“He will need to do a lot to convince the British public that actually he will stand up for the hardworking majority in this country as opposed to people earning millions of pounds, energy companies and others who are doing very well.”

Mr Umunna said it was only by every Government department pursuing a proper industrial strategy that a proper rebalancing of the economy would be achieved.