Back in August 2024, I wrote about Houchen’s jobs myth, perpetuated by the UK’s client media. I’ve returned to the subject again, but this time with a closer focus on wages.
Another handout to private companies
Another day, another Ben Houchen jobs announcement. Here’s the latest press release from the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) on 17 March 2025. Jobs on the way at Teesside Airport, 250 of them. The blurb that accompanied this press release was unusually restrained. It usually goes something like this:
Repeat that mantra
Since being elected in May 2017, Ben Houchen has repeated a claim about job creation so many times that it’s almost impossible to count. It’s become a time-worn mantra:
***20,000 jobs *** Highly-paid jobs***high paid jobs***
There’s an example from November 2017 here and another one from a year later here. However, the mayor occasionally goes off-piste, as he did here in August 2019. Ben promised 37,000 here for some random reason. But, what’s 17,000 fictional high-wage, highly-skilled jobs between friends? Especially as the other 20,000 jobs are never going to exist either.
New jobs
The Tees Valley has created 21,600 jobs since Ben Houchen became mayor. So, a promise kept? Well, not exactly. The area has outperformed its peers and the UK economy as a whole, but not by the barnstorming margins promised. Here’s the chart:
An increase of 8% in employment in the eight years between 2017 and 2025. And this exceeds the UK’s 7.2% increase. This is an achievement that can’t be denied. But the Tees Valley isn’t the only part of the North East that has created jobs. During the period covered by these statistics, Tyneside created 26,912 jobs, 5,312 more than Teesside. And Tyneside didn’t have all of the advantages that were thrown at the Tees Valley. While in power, the UK Conservative Government tried to load the dice in favour of mayor Ben Houchen for seven years, as follows:
- The first-ever loan from the UK Infrastructure bank, £107mn for South Bank Quay.
- The first-ever “Invest-to-Export” loan guarantee. A joint undertaking of £500mn by both the UK and South Korea governments to provide export finance to SeAH Steel Holdings for their monopile factory at South Bank Quay.
- A decision, taken in March 2021 by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak, to select Darlington for the transfer of HM Treasury jobs from Whitehall. The decision was announced two months before Ben Houchen’s second Tees Valley mayoral election.
- The UK’s first modern Freeport, launched in October 2021.
- Public investment of £560mn in the Teesworks site.
Has Teesworks turbo-charged the Tees Valley job market?
Well, that’s what people such as Michael Gove and Ben Houchen reckoned. Houchen claimed, via the Executive Summary of the Tees Valley Review, that Teesworks had created almost 9,000 jobs. The claim is included here:
Pants on fire?
But, this statement was based on data provided by Teesworks Limited itself. And it included the verbal gymnastic of stating that these jobs had been “delivered”, but then immediately contradicted itself. Just 940 temporary construction jobs had been delivered. Almost all of these have disappeared now. The remaining 7,935 jobs were either “recently announced” or “would be created” once the site became operational. The difference between the past, present and future tenses is important to the English language. In the 14 months since the Tees Valley Review was published, less than 100 of the promised 7,935 jobs have materialised. Most of these are apprentices at the SeAH monopile factory.
The Emerald City is on hold
So, the monopile factory is under construction and will probably open in a few month’s time. But what about the projects where nothing whatsoever has happened? I’m thinking about every other Teesworks project that Ben Houchen has announced over the past eight years, including Net Zero Teesside, Net Zero Teesside Power, HyGreen, H2Teesside, Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility, Circular Fuels, Willis Aviation SAF, Tees Green Hydrogen, Electric Arc Furnace, Teesside Gigapark, Steel House refurbishment, to name but a few.
The Low Wage Economy
Unsurprisingly, the Tees Valley hasn’t developed a high wage economy in the last eight years either. The facts are stark. ONS data from the period from May 2017, when Ben Houchen was first elected as Tees Valley Mayor, to February 2025 is unequivocal. Here’s the chart:
Local rivals
The Tees Valley, with wage growth of 36.4%, has been out-performed by its closest rivals, Sunderland and Tyneside. Tyneside managed growth of 38.5%, while Sunderland fared even better with 39.8%. Wages in Sunderland are now just below Tees Valley levels. Nationally, all three north east local authorities have been left behind, as wages in the UK have grown by an average of 43.8%. The gap between the Tees Valley and the rest of the UK has widened significantly since 2017. Back then, the Tees Valley lagged the UK average wage by £330 per month. Since then, the gap has almost doubled to £620.
Poverty wages
But the low wage growth in the Tees Valley that we’ve already discovered reveals the true picture. The new jobs are not the promised high-wage, high-skilled jobs. Quite the opposite. They’re low-wage, low-skill, insecure jobs, many with zero-hours contracts. How do we know that the Tees Valley suffers disproportionately from poverty pay? Well, just look at the poverty statistics: 43.9% of households in the Middlesbrough and Thornaby East parliamentary constituency claim Universal Credit, the eighth highest proportion in the UK.
Insecure work
Here’s a reminder of the Tees Valley City Region Employment Profile, produced by Lancaster University and the Work Foundation in November 2023. It revealed that nearly one in four Tees Valley workers are in severely insecure work, compared to the national average of 19.8%. The Tees Valley has the highest level of severely insecure work out of all the City Regions, and has a higher incidence of low paid work relative to England.
Child poverty
In an interview with Local Democracy Reporter Daniel Hodgson on 3 January 2025, Ben Houchen repeated his hackneyed jobs mantra: “You give them money, what’s the best way to give people money? You create jobs and put money in their pockets. So if you’re creating thousands and thousands of jobs, good well paid jobs, that are significantly above the national average wage, and you’re giving jobs and opportunities to people that haven’t had jobs and opportunities for decades, that’s how you solve poverty.”
But here are the facts:
I’ve already debunked Houchen’s claims about good well paid jobs, but his statement about solving child poverty is even more egregious. Because he simply hasn’t done it. The latest statistics prove that child poverty in the Tees Valley has, in fact, worsened since Ben Houchen became mayor. Yep, there’s a chart:
The link between poverty and suicide
Some people were in no position to cheer for Ben Houchen’s illusory successes. The link betweed poverty, despair and suicide is well established. And, yet again, the Tees Valley has a sorry tale to tell, as suicide rates continue to increase.
So, what have we learned?
A bit louder again for those at the back: When it comes to Ben Houchen, don’t believe all the hype.
Thanks to James Waterson for providing additional research for this article
CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO OUR CROWDFUNDER
HELP US BECOME STRONGER SO THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO DELIVER POWERFUL CITIZEN JOURNALISM!
