Transport investment vital to regional growth - Osborne
Chancellor George Osborne has told Insider that improvements to transport bring better benefits to regional economies than regional development agencies and other business support initiatives. He said: “The high speed rail link has the opportunity to change the economic geography of the country. It will bring parts of the North and the Midlands close to the centre.”
He added that the latest round of transport funding was good for the region.
Osborne went on to blast the performance of the regional development agencies, which the coalition government has scrapped. “The disparities between the South East and the North West actually increased, despite the regional development agencies. There are things we could do and the tax break for start-up businesses was just one,” he said.
“This is one of the oldest challenges British governments have faced. How do you deal with some parts of the country that are not growing as quickly as other parts?
“This is going to be an ongoing challenge but we are very, very focused on it. It comes up in all the discussions I have in government.”
Osborne was speaking at a grassroots meeting of the 'Doing Business Together (DBT)' project, which aims to improve the provision of commercial finance by bringing banks and businesses together.
He said: “I commend you for what you have done with the Doing Business Together initiative.
“It is essential that we do all we can to ensure that finance is available for small businesses, enabling them to try to grow.
“I hope you in the small business community are seeing that the banks are starting to lend more. My priority is to get the banks lending and I congratulate projects like this.”
Approximately 250 small business owners, bank representatives, credit rating agencies, trade credit insurers and brokers were given the opportunity to question the Chancellor directly at a Forum of Private Business event.
