Tata opposed to AWM abolition, says Balls
Bosses at Tata, the owner of Jaguar Land Rover, were opposed to the abolition of Advantage West Midlands (AWM), according to the shadow chancellor. Ed Balls told Insider: "Tata was persuaded by AWM’s Rover Taskforce to take on the company and they said to me when I visited them last year that they couldn’t understand why the RDAs were being abolished."
Balls said: "I went to visit Longbridge last year to see the changes at the plant after AWM’s Rover Taskforce intervention.
"The one thing I remember about my visit is talking to the Chinese management; they said the reason they invested in the future of the Longbridge plant is because they were persuaded by AWM. They asked me why it had been abolished."
Balls visited Marco Pierre White’s restaurant on the top floor of The Cube on Saturday to lend his support to Sion Simons’ bid for Birmingham’s elected mayor.
Commenting on Simons’ bid for mayor of Birmingham, Balls said that he didn’t think that elected mayors were the answer in every part of the UK. However, he thought Birmingham was ripe for such a figurehead.
He added: "An elected mayor could give a real boost to this city, and I hope, if the referendum goes our way, that it can every area of Birmingham closer together."
As Simons looked on, Balls said: "It’s not my place to say if there’s a right or wrong candidate. The first thing we need to go is make sure win the argument for an elected mayor and elect a strong Labour choice in Birmingham."
Balls said that Birmingham’s economy isn’t just competing against Leeds and Manchester, but also places like Frankfurt and Amsterdam. "Birmingham needs a strong voice," he said.
Balls’ trip came on the same day as his controversial speech to the Fabian Society in which he said he would stick to the Tory public sector wage freeze.
Touching on the subject in Birmingham, Balls said: "I don’t disagree with George Osborne on what we want to achieve, but there are big disagreements between us on how and why we get there.
"Osborne’s cuts are too hard and too fast, and they don’t make it easier to get the economy moving again – they make it harder. We should be taking a more balanced approach."
Balls said Osborne failed to recognise that the downturn is a global problem. “I wish the government was still at the European table,” he said. “Isolationism is taking us backwards not forwards.”
He said that government and business should work together, adding: "We’re not going to stimulate jobs growth by the government simply getting out of the way. We need to in transport, infrastructure, skills… we need partnerships."
The LEPs aren’t an adequate replacement for RDAs, said Balls, describing them as "weak". He added: "I fear that when the time comes for the economy to pick itself up again then we’ll be going in the opposite direction to the rest of the world."
Balls promised that if Labour was elected at the next General Election that there "would be no return to the 1970s". He said: "An effective partnership between the government and business is essential. We need to need to embrace this partnership."
