DESPERATE MEASURES?
MPs blast Government’s £105m funding for the North East in advance of Brexit votes
THERESA May has been accused of attempting to buy the votes of North East MPs, after offering the region £105m.
The cash, to be shared across the entire region, comes after Newcastle City Council alone was forced to make budget cuts of £327m since 2010.
The funding has been seen as an attempt to convince MPs in the areas which benefit to vote for Prime Minister May’s proposed Brexit withdrawal agreement.
Catherine McKinnell, Labour MP for Newcastle North, said: “This really is pathetic, and attempts to buy MPs’ votes in this way show just how desperate Theresa May has become.”
It’s part of a £1.6bn Stronger Towns Fund, which the Government says will help places that have been left behind while other parts of the country become richer.
A total of £1bn will be distributed to Local Enterprise Partnerships, which are run by councillors and business leaders. Another £600m will be available specifically for towns in any part of the country, which will be invited to bid for a share of the funding.
Mrs May said: “For too long in our country prosperity has been unfairly spread. Our economy has worked well for some places but we want it to work for all communities.
“Communities across the country voted for Brexit as an expression of their desire to see change – that must be a change for the better, with more opportunity and greater control.
“These towns have a glorious heritage, huge potential and, with the right help, a bright future ahead of them.”
But North East Labour MPs said the money would not come close to making up for cuts imposed on the region.
Chi Onwurah, who represents Newcastle Central, said that funding was far less than the money the region had been due to receive from the EU before Brexit.
She said: “This is a last-minute attempt to bribe the North with derisory sums which don’t even begin to make up for the years of austerity and neglect never mind the hit our economy will take if her bad Brexit deal goes ahead.
“The North East would have got £1bn if we’d remained in the EU and just last week the Minister couldn’t say if that money would be replaced.
“This would be laughable if it weren’t so serious.”
Ms McKinnell said: “Newcastle City Council alone will have lost £327m from its budget by 2022, whilst Northumbria Police has had to make cuts of £142m with the loss of over a thousand officers in that time.
“Our schools are making teachers redundant in the midst of a funding crisis, and the list of cuts goes on and on.
“Yet the entire North East - the region that will be hardest hit by any form of Brexit - will be offered what looks like just £15m a year as part of this dodgy attempt to get the Prime Minister’s deal over the line.”
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell claimed the money, which will be spread over seven financial years to 2025-2026, was a “desperate bribe”.
Communities Secretary James Brokenshire said the money would be “transformative” and was not conditional on support for the Prime Minister’s Withdrawal Agreement.
Mrs May’s efforts to make the deal more palatable to hardline Brexiteers have hit a setback, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.
The DUP and the Tory European Research Group (ERG) have made it clear they will not support the PM’s Withdrawal Agreement in crunch Commons votes without such legally binding measures.