Labour pledges to fill Yorkshire's EU funding gap

LABOUR will today promise Yorkshire it will make up the European Union funding the region will lose as a result of Brexit if the party wins the next election.
The prospect of Brexit has raised questions over millions in EU funding for YorkshireThe prospect of Brexit has raised questions over millions in EU funding for Yorkshire
The prospect of Brexit has raised questions over millions in EU funding for Yorkshire

Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry will pledge Yorkshire would continue to receive hundreds of millions of pounds to help the region’s economy into the 2020s and beyond.

Yorkshire is due to be given around £600m in so-called “structural funds” in the current EU funding round.

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Chancellor Philip Hammond has promised projects which have been signed off by this year’s Autumn Statement will have their funding guaranteed even if Britain leaves before 2020.

But the Government has not clarified what will happen to the millions of pounds likely to remain uncommitted to projects or what happens beyond Brexit.

In her speech at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Ms Thornberry will say: “Without long-term certainty over funding, our most deprived regions and communities cannot plan ahead. They cannot attract other investment. They cannot make progress.”

Labour will today publish a document on the future of British programmes dependent on EU funding which could include a review of post-Brexit farm subsidies.

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It says: “It could not be clearer that - of all the rights and investment protected by Britain’s membership of the EU- one of the most significant, regional funding, is also one of the most directly and imminently under threat from the Tory Government.”

Today’s pledge is the first Labour commitment over how it would spend Britain’s EU budget contribution.

But major questions remain over Labour’s approach to Brexit and in particular acccess to the European single market over which leader Jeremy Corbyn has expressed concerns.

Leeds West MP Rachel Reeves, the former shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “I want to remain in the single market but I also think there do need to be restrictions on freedom of movement.

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“The role of the Government now is to find common cause with our European neighbours to ensure that we continue with membership, or at least full access to the single market.

“If we can do that then I think those risks about the jobs and investment leaving this country will not happen but if that doesn’t happen I think some of the things we spoke about during the referendum will happen and the people who pay the highest price for that are ordinary working people.”

Ms Reeves argued that Labour should be focused on “securing those things that were good about our membership of the European Union whilst also respecting the result” of the referendum.

Speaking at a Labour conference fringe event organised by the IPPR thinktank, she said the disenchantment which helped fuelled the ‘no’ vote also underlined the need for an “intelligent industrial strategy to rebalance our economy between North and South”.