29.10.12
Latest round of City Deals to be announced
The next round of English cities to receive additional spending powers is to be announced today.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is to invite cities to set out the powers they need to drive local growth.
Earlier this year, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and five other cities received the right to spend tax receipts from local firms, along with other specific powers, negotiated with Government individually. These included a £1bn transport fund in Leeds, a £1bn investment fund in Bristol and a £45m venture capital fund in Nottingham.
Cities in the next round will also gain extra control over infrastructure projects, transport and job training budgets, with Whitehall especially keen to fund projects on a match-funded basis, where half the money is raised locally.
Clegg will say: “You can’t revive the regions just through handouts from Whitehall. Certainly not now when the Treasury’s coffers are bare. And even if we did have lots of money, the previous approach was fundamentally flawed.
“Revenues from the financial services sector were recycled round the rest of the country through the long arm of the state, creating the illusion of strong, national growth.
“Jobs were created but in an unbalanced way, over-relying on the public sector, funded by tax receipts from the City of London.”
The cities and city regions in the next round are: the Black Country; Bournemouth; Brighton and Hove; Cambridge; Coventry and Warwickshire; Hull and Humber; Ipswich; Leicester and Leicestershire; Milton Keynes; Norwich; Oxford; Reading; Plymouth; Preston and Lancashire; Southampton and Portsmouth; Southend; Stoke and Staffordshire; Sunderland and the North East; Swindon and Wiltshire; and Tees Valley.
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