At the end of February, I had the pleasure and privilege of attending the Convention of the North in Preston. I was able to attend two workshops, which were full of positivity and a determination to change the North for the better. However, it was only towards the end of the second workshop I attended that what is perhaps the greatest stumbling block to people across the North of England having a brighter future was mentioned.
Culture and Place Northern Convention
At the first workshop on Culture and Place, Tourism CEO of Visit Britain reminded us that half of the visitors to Britain don’t go actually outside London, while a speaker from Culture One Creative North rightly said that it was important for Northern authorities to be working together. Another speaker commented that it was important to have growth of Wellbeing and sense of purpose as well as financial growth.
People in the North of England were said to be proud of their places, but they don’t always see investment in them and the question of quality of life in many places was being neglected. It was also claimed correctly again in my view, that young people need cultural outlets to be able to thrive.
Transport Workshop
The second workshop I attended included elected mayors Andy Burnham and our own Kim McGuinness among the speakers. There was much sensible talk about the need for better public transport across the North and for fully integrated transport systems. The leader of Balckburn and Darwen Council regaled us with a story of how his partner coming back to Blackburn from a day in Leeds, had had to phone him from Hebden Bridge; the train had had to stop there due to crew shortages and so hadn’t even made its way out of Yorkshire.
Meanwhile another councillor, from Morecambe, mentioned how the town was going to get a great boost from the building of the Edeen North Project, but wondered how any visitors were going to get there, as no plans had as yet been put in place to improve public transport access to the famous old seaside town.
It was also at the transport workshop that Burnham mentioned the elephant in the room; the Treasury Green Book and the destructive effect it has had for years on investment in and hence quality of life for people across the North. If we want more cultural opportunities for our people, young and old, and better public transport, then it is an issue that needs resolving.
The Green Book
The Treasury Green Book is basically a book of rules held in the Treasury, which determine what funding investment by the government should be permitted and what should be blocked. It is driven by short-term thinking and short-term financial gain.
The idea is that investment goes where there will be what is seen as the best return for the country, through a cost-benefit analysis. What in practice this means is that it goes where there is the quickest return and short-term gain. It is the epitome of short-termism.
As the London and Southeast area is the fastest growing region economically, this means that investment is concentrated there. Investment is increasingly concentrated in that one corner of the country, so it becomes even more attractive for investment vis-à-vis the north and hence the Green Book reinforces that trend at the expense of other regions.
Andy Burnham
As Andy Burnham, who himself was Chief Secretary to the Treasury between 28 June 2007 – 24 January 2008n the 2000’s, puts it in Head North: “In 2020, the Treasury’s own review of the Green Book, found that it failed to support the idea of ‘levelling up’ the regions. It concluded that this was because the process ‘relied too heavily on cost-benefit analysis’.
“It said BCR placed too much weight on benefits that could ‘easily be assigned monetary value, with insufficient weight given to whether the proposed project addressed strategic policy priorities. Even they knew it needed to change but, subsequently, nothing has happened.”
In the government’s introduction to the Green Book on their own Treasury website it is described as follows: “The Green Book is the government’s guidance on options appraisal and evaluation. It supports proper consideration of the costs, benefits, and trade-offs of alternative options for delivering policy objectives. The Green Book uses the five-case model as outlined in the business case guidance for projects and programmes. This is the government’s recommended framework for developing business cases.”
Rachel Reeves and the Green Book
It was reported by Civil Service World in January that Rachel Reeves had said that the Green Book would be updated to “ensure that investment in all regions is given a “fair hearing””.
Reeves were reported to have announced the government’s latest plans to drive growth in a speech to an audience of business chiefs at Siemens in North Oxfordshire on 29th January.
Civil Service World went on to say that , “alongside headline announcements backing Heathrow expansion and a new role for civil servant-turned-minister Sir Patrick Vallance as champion for the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor, the so-called “Silicon Valley of Europe”, Reeves outlined the aims of the government’s Green Book review, which is set to report back at the conclusion of this year’s Spending Review. The SR is due to conclude on June 11”.
Green Book Review
Reeves was reported as saying: “As the metro mayor of Liverpool, Steve Rotherham, has called for, we will review the Green Book and how it is being used to provide objective, transparent advice on public investment across the country, including outside London, and the South East. This means that investment in all regions is given a fair hearing by the Treasury that I lead.”
It is difficult to avoid the irony here. As the Civil Service World piece demonstrates, Reeves was talking about all regions being given a fair hearing while in almost the same breath, making it clear that the real investment priorities were all to be in and around London and the Southeast. This irony was compounded a few weeks later when, on the very same day as the workshops I attended at the Convention of the North, it was also announced that Gatwick Airport would be getting a second runway.
What is to be done?
In the Northeast we have a number of famous sayings, but perhaps none is as poignant in its own way as “shy bairns get nowt”. I say that because of the irony again here. We have been shy bairns for far too long and consequently have got nowt…or next to nothing at best.
The promised review of the Treasury Green Book is an opportunity for the Northeast and indeed the wider North. It is an opportunity for us to make our voices heard, whether from Morecambe or Middlesbrough, or any other of our forgotten and neglected villages, towns and cities.
We can come together across the North to demand better investment in infrastructure, a proper Green New Deal and Just Transition that would honour and remember the unique role the North played in the first industrial revolution and meaningful investment that start to reduce inequalities and pull people out of poverty in the North country.
The Elected Mayors
The elected mayors need to work together and, crucially, with a revived civil society across the North, to demand a fairer treatment after the review and to show that we have the energy and ideas, the kind of which were so evident at the workshops I attended at the Convention of the North, to improve the quality of life for our citizens – if we are treated fairly and get a decent amount of investment.
Then we might have tarins that go all the way to Blackburn from Leeds and don’t suddenly terminate in Hebden Bridge. Then we might have opportunities for people across the North to celebrate their heritage and culture. And we might even get the long-promised and much needed high-speed rail across the North and a real Trans Pennine Express, that can get from Newcastle Central Station to Liverpool Lime Street in two hours.
Let ‘s make all this and much else besides happen.
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