As I said last week, the hope was for a budget for the north, well I was absolutely delighted with the huge announcements made. Foremost upon these for us was the Treasury to lead an Economic campus to be based in Darlington, to have this complemented by the Freeport for Teesside and the Offshore wind infrastructure at Port of Tees was just outstanding. There were many other positive announcements, but these were the stand outs for me. I will take time in future columns to explain the benefits of a Freeport but today will focus on the Treasury. From what I have heard so far, the intent will be to move around 750 jobs to this campus. The important word here is jobs, not people. It will probably only see around 100-150 people relocate. When I spoke to the Chancellor, at the 1922 committee, he assured me that the jobs on the campus will include real decision makers and that he himself expects to spend several days a week there. Another point to note is that it is an Economic Campus, not just the Treasury but Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy; International Trade and Local Government will also be residents. This is fantastic for job and career opportunities but in my time in the local councils one of the regular complaints was that these departments didn’t understand our region when making decisions and having these jobs based in our patch should be transformative in this understanding.
Normally with a budget there is some point of detail that opposition politicians find that can be misinterpreted for their political advantage, it’s a shame that this time they are again politicising our fantastic front line NHS workers by claiming they have been offered a 1% rise. My understanding is that in the budget Government set aside the money for the NHS pay rise, that money equates to a 1% pay rise across all grades – but that isn’t necessarily what DHSC want or that the Independent Pay Review Body will recommend. That could translate into a 2% pay rise for nurses, 1% for healthcare workers and no rise for doctors, or whatever scenario the review body propose, but it’s for the Independent Body to make their recommendations.
One of my great pleasures this week was a call with the team at Job Centre Plus, whilst clearly they are seeing more demand, they are also seeing significant numbers of new positions being filled. The team were fabulous to talk to, they are so positive and enthusiastic in their work and doing all they can to match people to the different opportunities arising. I also had discussions with Tom Dower, the head of the UTC, and Lord Baker who was one of the primary motivators for its founding. It was great to hear their future plans but also that every one of the students leaving them went on to either employment, education or training. The primary companies supporting the UTC are Gestamp and Hitachi.
On Friday I was able to visit Hitachi to see what normally would have been my highlight of the week. I met with their UK lead, Jim Brewin, who showed me their latest investment in welding and paint facilities. This is such a powerful and fundamental step forward for the site, it changes them from being primarily an assembly operation to being a manufacturer. This adds so many more skill sets to their outstanding employee base and increases the range of their capabilities when bidding for contracts. It has also been an important week for the Restoring Your Railways agendas, I will go into more details another time but the detail work plan on the Ferryhill Station bid evaluation has been agreed and the Leamside and Weardale bids have been submitted. I also met the team at Teesside Airport to see the way the Airport is being reconfigured to deal with the increased business. They are creating separate check in desks for the new Ryan Air flights as well as new scheduled check in desks. Let’s hope we get the opportunity to use them sooner rather than later.
I also popped in to see the vaccination team at Cobbler’s Hall and found yet another group of people so enthusiastic about their work. They are delivering an outstanding roll out and I can only thank them for all they are doing. I am scheduled for my first jab on Friday 12th, I can’t wait. I join the team in being intensely irritated by those continuing to deny Covid, in particular a local councillor whose nonsense is not helpful.
This week will have seen the schools open and us all thinking about the next steps. It will not be long before we will see the opportunity for pubs with outdoor spaces to open and I hope the local councils do everything they can to support them, should planning permissions be needed, as I am sure demand will be high.
Please continue to follow the rules, we are making fantastic progress.
For now, Stay Home, Protect the NHS and Save Lives – Stay Safe.
Paul Howell
Member of Parliament for Sedgefield
