By
Nigel Wilson, Legal General Chief Executive
20:56 GMT, 6 April 2014
|
07:25 GMT, 7 April 2014
‘One nation’: Labour leader Ed Miliband
The North-South divide – a line from the Severn to the Humber – has existed since traditional Northern manufacturing industries started to decline, and Ed Miliband’s ‘one nation’ looks as elusive today as it did for Macmillan and Disraeli before him.
Unemployment is higher in the North and incomes are lower, so the economic recovery in the South East is slow to spread.
Your health is likely to be worse, your life expectancy shorter and your chances of getting to a top university lower if you live north of Nottingham.
Affluence – or lack of it – is the driver. Sadly, poor people tend to live shorter, unhealthier lives than the rich, whether in Bradford or Guildford. Moreover, they are more likely to work in the public sector, and be more impacted by government cuts and austerity.
The unfair stereotype has it that the South are taxpayers, the North tax-eaters – unfair because we don’t have enough private sector businesses creating high quality jobs in the North to absorb the impact of job losses in the public sector.
As a proud Northerner, who grew up in Newton Aycliffe, now based in the South, I believe we urgently need to do three things.
First, improve infrastructure. Iconic landmarks such as Manchester Central Library, the Mersey Tunnel and the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall all date from the 1930s.
Today, more cranes are at work in London than in the rest of England put together, and Londoners get twenty times more transport spending per head than those in the North East.
Big cities with good transport links create growth, so we need hubs with critical mass. For the £50bn-plus price of HS2 we can fund multiple road, rail and digital improvements.
These include the already-funded northern rail hub linking Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds, worth an estimated £4bn to the broader economy, and the Manchester transport upgrade where progress is also already being made.
We also need to make better use of what we have, including plentiful natural shale oil – the case for fracking in the North is compelling. Second: invest in housing. The Great Depression spurred massive investment in the North.
One hundred and forty thousand people were re-housed by Liverpool Corporation between the wars, in over 33,335 purpose-built houses and similar efforts were made in Manchester.
We are beginning to make progress. Our £252m financing for PfP, a leading social housing provider in the North West will deliver 7,000 more homes, we purchased Cala Homes and our English Cities Fund invested £50m in Salford and is also investing in regeneration in Wakefield and Liverpool.
Third, we need to generate private sector investment, entrepreneurs and growth.
We have some superb northern universities including UMIST, Salford, Durham, Newcastle and York.
They should become modern industrial hubs, capable of stemming the brain drain to an over-priced South East. I have seen first-hand that we have a great car industry in the North East, Hitachi is moving into my home town, and we are creating a media hub around the BBC in Salford.
Unfortunately companies have cut UK investment in drug research, which deprives the North of a potential hi-tech opportunity, but on the plus side almost half-a-million work in financial services, including our own in Barnsley.
It doesn’t have to be grim up North. A family on £30,000 in the North East can live better than a family on twice that in London, and bigger mortgage bills risk creating a new ‘southern discomfort’.
Sheffield Hallam is the richest constituency outside London. But we need much more investment, prosperity and civic pride – things the Victorians knew were mutually reinforcing.
The North needs to become more like Bavaria – far from Germany’s capital, but home to BMW, Siemens, Adidas and Puma.
Politicians and companies need to deliver northern investment and northern jobs. It is ironic that despite Tony Blair’s Sedgefield and Peter Mandelson’s Hartlepool constituencies, the game-changing Nissan plant in Sunderland was delivered under Mrs Thatcher.
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Comments (18)
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Greg Malaysia,
Kedah,
8 hours ago
What a stupid story. The north is the industrial revolution its even where the Sydney bridge was made. You would not want a Lancaster bomber made in St Austell would you. Between Birmingham and Glasgow is industry beyond compare. Typical southern verbal stuff. There is more social claimed in London than Leeds I’lle bet. Its time the country grew out of this north south divide rubbish.
clubcat136,
halifax,
4 hours ago
it might be time it did but it never will
Sally,
London, United Kingdom,
8 hours ago
They need to offer tax incentives – China did it in their specialist “zones” – surely the only way to encourage business and even some factories again back into this country.
Gregory,
Liverpool United Kingdom,
11 hours ago
Give us a proper federal United Kingdom then
Turnip,
Fulham,
13 hours ago
Abolish the corporate tax in the north (let the north be the Swiss Zug of the UK), that will attract the companies from the south and abroad, and it will give the local companies further incentive to grow. The north already has great people, affordable accomodations and office spaces and not too bad communications! New times requires new thinking!
nancyp,
newcastleupontyne, United Kingdom,
14 hours ago
Sitting in an Ivory Tower comes to mind…..what is he doing about it ….instead of telling us the obviouse being in a positio to do something why does he not influence events.Sorry but found article condescending.
John S,
Bromley, United Kingdom,
14 hours ago
What about the Midlands?
Church,
Beaumont,
15 hours ago
A good article and worthy of further investigation, the Northern people are as hard working as the Southerners but lack what? well one thing for sure is looking at an alternative to Liebour, why is it that all of the poorest areas are still voting for a party that has done nothing for them, because they have always done so is not an answer, the problem is with the Conservative party, they need to promote better in the North and change the attitude to get more support, only this will change the way they vote.
Terry,
Chichester,
8 hours ago
Church…I disagree…”the problem..”…..is with the northern voter. As you state, they vote, in the main for Liebour, at both national and local elections. Hull is an example….Hull has three parliamentary constituencies….have all been Liebour for many years..as has the local Council….it has even had very senior Liebour MP’s…John Prescott and Alan Johnson….what have they done to improve Hull…..nothing. Not that I’m too bothered, I don’t go anywhere north of Surrey myself…but it is astonishing that the south is in the main, thriving, and votes Conservative, with a business, private sector base, and the north is pretty poor with in the main a public sector base and votes Liebour…Perhaps the answer is in there.
sugarspun9,
Blackburn, United Kingdom,
16 hours ago
As a southerner based in the north. I take exception that the writer seems to think the south starts and finishes in London
Benny,
London,
18 hours ago
“As a proud Northerner…now based in the South”. Says it all really, obviously not so proud as to stay working and generating jobs in the North. If he wonders why there is so little private enterprise in the towns of his youth and so many corporate headquarters have moved to London then all he need do is look in the mirror.
sunnysideup,
Manchester,
9 hours ago
He is no different to any other talented Northerner – he has to go where the opportunities are to further his career, i.e. London. The same considerations have compelled my own children to move there. This situation will not change until there is some courageous and imaginative policies to distribute the opportunities more evenly across the nation.
John S,
Bromley, United Kingdom,
22 hours ago
I have (British) friends who live in Bavaria. Bayern (as the locals call it) has the very same problems that many areas of the UK have – a severe shortage of skilled workers and very few opportunities for unskilled workers. The problem has been exacerbated recently by home-sick, skilled “newcomers” returning to the former East Germany. The problem is not so much geographical but is skills related.
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