‘Investment zone’ plans questioned
THEY’RE one of the few policy ideas left after Liz Truss’ low-tax economic vision was torn to shreds by her new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt a few days before she was ultimately forced from office.
Dozens of expressions of interest for lowtax, low regulation investment zones were handed in to the Government ahead of last week’s deadline by Northern leaders.
But have Ministers checked whether the idea will work or what kind of impact the zones will have?
Based on exchanges between Levelling Up Secretary Simon Clarke and his Labour shadow Lisa Nandy in the Commons it appears not.
Wigan MP Ms Nandy pressed Mr Clarke to share how bids for investment zones will create growth, describing the policy as the “only thing left of this bin fire of a budget”, following moves to scrap the PM’S tax-cutting agenda.
But Mr Clarke, MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, said Labour’s understanding was “back to front” as bids to host investment zones were still being considered and no estimate of their success was yet available.
“Oh my word, he hasn’t done an assessment has he?” Ms Nandy responded: “This is literally the only policy they have got left, and he hasn’t checked whether it is going to work or not.”
She added: “The truth is, isn’t it, that the only thing that is growing under this
Government is the size of people’s mortgage payments?”
Investment zones are described by the Government as a measure to “drive growth and unlock housing across the UK by offering time-limited tax benefits and cutting planning red tape to encourage rapid development and business investment”.
Some Northern town halls have embraced the idea, with North East Lincolnshire putting forward eight sites and North Yorkshire even more.
But others are less keen. West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin’s office is proposing six locations but making “clear to the government that we will not accept investment zones that reduce working conditions or trash the environment”.
In the Commons this week, Harrogate Tory
MP Andrew Jones pointed out that three proposed zones in his patch were “existing commercial operations earmarked for future investment” and said “the understandable concerns about special protection landscape areas are not borne out by the reality”.
The Government’s Levelling Up Department is currently sifting through the bids and will decide how to proceed after considering factors including the distribution around the country and how quickly they can be delivered.
There was worrying news in the same Commons question session as Mr Clarke hinted that rampant inflation could mean levelling up projects in communities around the North could be “resized”.
Shadow Levelling Up Minister Alex Norris said many of those “who have been promised money are now concerned that Downing Street’s economic crisis and soaring inflation will mean their bids are no longer affordable”.