Exclusive: Clegg says Yorkshire faces long wait for new jobs

The coalition Government has been adamant private sector employers have the tools to keep economies going as thousands of public sector workers are axed.

Mr Clegg, speaking exclusively to the Yorkshire Post, conceded, however, there could be an issue over “timing” – but added the coalition was working “flat out” to close the North-South divide.

Our Fair Deal for Yorkshire campaign was launched after business and public sector leaders warned Whitehall policies had a disproportionate impact on the region.

Prime Minister David Cameron last week claimed Yorkshire had “done well” out of policy changes which would “set the fires of enterprise alight”.

The Government is under pressure following reports which claimed funding has favoured London and the wider South-East, while employment in the North continues to struggle.

Mr Clegg said coalition policy would bring long-term benefits and attacked the former Labour administration for failing to close the North-South divide despite having “pots of money”.

The Sheffield Hallam MP cited new apprenticeships and tax breaks for manufacturing as policies that would help Yorkshire.

“There is a fair point about timing here. We have got the right plans on apprenticeships, on boosting manufacturing and technology centres, devolving business rates, all of these things are really important big changes which will really boost Yorkshire. The question is will they come quickly enough and the truth is some will come more quickly than others.

“If there was one magic wand right now, we would bring them all forward and let them happen, but we are working flat out as a Government to make sure these things meet the needs (of the economy).”

A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers has claimed the North has suffered years of chronic under-investment while KPMG published data showing the jobs market is likely to contract across the region but grow in the South.

The country’s jobless total stood at 2.49 million or 7.9 per cent between April and June, according to the figures released earlier this month. The total figure for Yorkshire and the Humber was 223,000, down 21,000 on the previous three months. But the rate of 8.5 per cent was still above the national average.

Mr Clegg said: “We have had a North-South divide in this country for a very long time. The question we need to ask is why is it, that during the good years when Labour had pots and pots of money to throw around, so little was achieved in closing that gap?

“One of the reasons for that is for years we have been mollycoddling the city of London and the South-East, hoping they would then generate tax revenues which get recycled through public subsidies, through public sector employment here in Yorkshire and elsewhere in the North.

“That whole conveyer belt has of course come to a crashing halt. We are trying to rebalance an economy that was all about the South-East and not the North, was all about financial services and not manufacturing.”

Last night, after a survey revealing retail optimism is at a two-year low, Labour’s Treasury Minister Chris Leslie said: “The Government’s reckless decision to cut too far and too fast is hitting families and costing jobs. And it isn’t working as even Nick Clegg now seems to admit. More people on the dole doesn’t save money it wastes money – getting people in work paying taxes is the best way to get the deficit down and yet unemployment is now up 38,000 in the last three months alone.”

Mr Clegg was embarrassed last night when blue paint was thrown at him during a meeting in Glasgow, but he dismissed the incident as “not a big deal”.