The Look North Debate Our Economy

We all know the Government is trying to balance the nation's

books but it's led to protests on the streets as our economy starts

to feel the squeeze. We have seen factory closures, jobs

under threat and rising unemployment. All this experience

I've got and there's nothing out there. You think what's the point.

Families across East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire are struggling to make

ends meet. The prices keep going up and up. If we didn't have the

benefits coming in, we would be in so much trouble. It is easy to

think our economy is teetering on the edge. But some say there are

signs of the green shoots of recovery, with a cut in Humber

bridge tolls on the way, a real desire for growth and the potential

for a green energy jobs boost. are getting ahead of our seems. We

need to start looking at the opportunities that will flow on

from it, it is extremely exciting. Tonight we are at the University of

Lincoln's business school to find out what the future could hold for

Welcome to our economy, the Look North debate. There is less than

two days until the budget and tonight we have an audience of

invited people from across East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. No

doubt they will have their own ideas about what the Chancellor

should be doing in Wednesday's budget. We have business leaders,

farmers, politicians, and ordinary families who are struggling to make

ends meet. I am Tracy Cook. My husband works, he is on an average

wage. I am unable to work because I have three children out of four

with additional needs. We get working tax credits, we get DLA and

child tax. That is what we live on. We couldn't live on my husband's

wages. If you have got your budget to go shopping on the maximum I can

afford to spend is �100. With four children, that is not always easy.

I do use cash loans for things we wouldn't be able to afford. You do

pay over the odds, but sometimes you don't have any choice. The

prices keep going up. Electric and gas especially, but I don't see why

my kids should freeze so we end up overspending. It is my choice that

I have children, but it is not my choice that I couldn't work. We are

real people. We live off these benefits. Someone like David

Cameron, he can say we are going to do this and that, but it will never

effect him. It is easy to ruin someone else's life when it's not

affecting your own. Tracy Cook is here tonight. What should the

Chancellor be doing on Wednesday to help families like your? It should

be a fairer budget for everyone. He keeps making these cuts, but like I

had already said, we live off these benefits. My husband is on a low

wage and we wouldn't be able to afford to be able to live, to be

able to go shopping. I need him to understand when he makes these cuts

it is people like myself that are affected. Any who identifies with

Tracy's situation. You are from Hull. It is a massive problem. Fuel

poverty is a massive thing that effects thousands of families.

Families have to make a choice of making sure their kids are warm or

buying food. It is really important we change it. It is appropriate

when talking about the potential for green shoots of recovery that

we have a number of farmers here tonight. We are talking about the

cost of living and the cost of food, Lincolnshire is snon as the bread

basket of England, fantastic produce grown here, but why is food

so expensive? Take fuel as an example. That cost has to be

absorbed within the farming production business. It is very

challenging and difficult out there. For example, nationally, 24% of

growers didn't actually turn a profit last year. So there are big

issues in terms of industry, in terms of Lincolnshire there is

great opportunity as well. We have some of the best land in Europe

frankly, with we've got some world class producers, what is a

stronghold are the increasing costs of production and the need for

businesses to try and absorb that when there is little opportunity to

do so. Which is why we are seeing a lot of businesses fall to the

wayside over the past 20 years in food production. Up until 2008

Lincolnshire farming contributed an additional 34% to the economy, so

in terms of its importance, and you are right to call it the bread

basket of the country, it is crucial to supply affordable,

healthy fruit and vegetables in the country. Let's speak to one of our

MPs, Andrew Percy, Conservative MP. Do you think the Chancellor is

aware of the unique set of problems we have in East Yorkshire and

Lincolnshire? Absolutely. Every politician in the country is aware

of the north/south divide and here in Yorkshire, even in the good

years we were moving relatively backwards. More people became

dependent on benefits. We know the poverty gap widening. He is aware

of that. These problems can't be solved overnight. Fuel is a massive

issue at the moment. We have acted on that. We have taken 2.5 pence

off fuel. We have delayed Labour planned inflation rises. But oil

prices are beyond the control of government. Whatever the Government

does on fuel, we are still at the behest of international markets.

think the Government could reduce VAT, they have increased VAT to 20%.

We say it is unnecessary, to reduce that, that would give everybody

three pence per litre reduction. Andrew makes fair points in

relation to north/south divide. The Government's policy in relation to

families is complete disarray at the moment. We have a situation

where by they are scrapping effectively tax credits for people

who can only work 16 hours a week. They receive �73 a week. It tells

them forget having a job, don't bother, unless you can get your

hours increased to 24 hours a week, don't bother with that job, go on

benefits. The policy is in demret disarrare, as a result of decisions

made by the Treasury. Another issue which is pertinent to most families

is the issue with child benefit. If you earn �43,000 you will lose your

child benefit. It sounds a lot of money, but it is not when you think

of the cost of living. The Government's policies are in

complete disarray. Tory backbenchers are extremely annoyed

about this policy. We have got quite a few business people here

tonight. You run a huge retail construction firm based in East

Yorkshire, what would you like to see from the budget? On fuel 80% of

a gallon of fuel is tax, where one could say if you want to be a

greener country, you have to get people out of the cars, but 80% of

that tax is going out to business and then business pass it on to the

consumer. I don't think we can possibly be taxed any more in that

way. The Government has got to go elsewhere. You are an art zan

chocolatier. How is the cost of fuel affecting your business?

had this last year. It is still killing me. I work from home and go

to shows. But the fact is that we have to look very hard this year.

We don't take our car or vehicles off the drive unless we have two or

three journeys to do in one go. It is still crippling us. We could do

with the price of fuel coming down. It's tough. Fuel is a priority for

you. Absolutely but farming, there is a real opportunity to try and

alleviate the pressures here, particularly in energy. I would

like to see the Government alleviate some of the issue around

feeding tariffs. The incentive was there and taken away and we are

left with confusion, and industry and business, we don't know whether

to go forwards or backwards. businesses I speak to, they say to

me the consultation was the the problem. The reality is we expected

it to go down, 43 pence, there was no discussion with businesses. It

was just done with one shake of... What Karl isn't telling you about

the feeding tariff is what it's paid for. It's paid for by higher

electricity bills. People on the one hand are saying it wants higher

fuel bills but it is arguing for money to be put on to fuel bills.

They got the policy policy wrong. We are going to talk about green

energy in detail. Let's talk about unemployment. A huge challenge

facing many people in East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. The

jobless total rose again last week in parts of Hull now, there are 35

people chasing every vacancy. For some people there's little sign of

any optimism in sight. I'm 40-years-old and I have been

looking for work for three years. All this experience I've got and

there's nothing out there. I had a job driving with a soft drinks

company and I did that for 18 years. Three years ago I found myself

unemployed. I did numeracy and literacy through the job centre. I

asked for training for fork lift lessons and they said there's no

funding any more. I want to be a security guard and you need a

licence, but they don't fund that either. If I want to work in the

town I am not going to get somewhere to live, it is impossible

to do. People say what is the point, I have to keep on the dole. It's

been really hard. Peter is with us now. How optimistic you will find a

job? I am not very optimistic really. There's that many people

applying for the same jobs. I'm not getting no feed back. There's no

letters coming back saying you haven't succeeded with this

application. I have one or two where I had an interview. There's

no joy to be honest. Who else has first hand experience of

unemployment? Lee, you are a stew student here. Tell us your

experience. About three years ago I was employed through the financial

services sector and as Peter was saying I was applying for jobs left

right and centre. Very little feed back was coming back to me unless I

was chasing it. I was fortunate to be passing the university one day

during an open day and walked in, explained my situation, and was

encouraged to apply for a course. I didn't have any qualifications

other than my GCSEs and A-levels, so it was a opportunity to take a

step back, refocus, retrain and give myself a new direction. I

really feel it's benefited me. Professor Andrew Atherton from the

university, what are the economic circumstances that's led to this

problem, high unemployment? To pick up on Lee's point, the first

question we get asked is what kind of job am I going to get if I go to

the University of Lincoln. We have open days where that is what people

are asking. Our team are there to advise on that. In In terms of

broader unemployment, the problem we have is Hull is a big city with

big industry issues and challenges, high levels of unemployment. There

are parts of Lincolnshire where even with 3 million unemployment,

labour market is site. We have set up a engineering school with

Siemens, they want the right graduates with practical applied

skills, so there are places, but the job situation is very difficult

but there are other places where there are people are looking for a

different type of skill. Plenty of people here have plenty of

experience. I was working for a firm plastering and my job was to

be a secure one on the week I was told. On the Friday I was given a

notice to say there was no more work for me and on the Saturday I

saw two colleagues in town who said two Polish lads had been taken on

in my place. There's no work for English people. They need to make

cuts and a lot of farmers are employing migrant labour because

they will get it cheaper. You are a farmer in the county. That's right.

There is a minimum wage which you have to pay anyway, and he is not

wrong saying they will do it cheaper, but the only way they will

do it is if the gang master take it off the worker. We are a legitimate

business, we have to pay holidays. Why don't you employ more British-

born workers. We would love to and we do. Our workforce is nearly 60%

market workers. These migrant workers who work these 12 hour days

will do it on minimum wage, but when it was English workers you had

to give us a proper pay and overtime. But because you can get

it done cheaper, you you prefer to employ migrants rather than British.

It is because of the work ethick. We would love to be the English

workers. Don't get me wrong, the work is tlrks but from the source

you have to use, there's more often or not, no-one to work the longer

hours. You put a broken accent on, and you will find there is work.

You are a farmer. One of the biggest challenges is that it is

very seasonal work and one of the biggest issues to get domestic

situations engage indeed this is the welfare system. If work is

available and people take that work for a week or a month, it can take

up to ten weeks after that work has ended for any income then to come

back into that family home after that work. What the Government

could do is provide a bit more flexibility to accept that there

are seasonal peeks and opportunities for UK citizens to

actually go into the workplace, but not create that barrier where it is

a working and no income into the family until they get back on to

the jock seekers system. Then we might be able to see flexibility

and more UK assistance demoming. it too easy to bring in migrant

workers. There has been an issue with the large immigration we

haven't be able to control. There is an issue in that I talk to

employers and say why are you employing so many migrant labourers,

they say because it is cheaper, sometimes they will they are the

only ones that turn up. But in some cases it hasn't had the skills in

this country. The Irish r issue with unemployment, some is to do

with migration, but other issues are to do with the skills we have

in this country. 7 million people in this country are unemployed.

Aren't the migrants adding to the unemployment figures. The bigger

The There is an issue with the politicians to get a handle on.

It's been too difficult for us to start. I think we should. We need a

plan for jobs and growth. In the last 12 months in my constituency,

youth unemployment has increased by 77%. We have unemployment at 3

million, youth unemployment a million. The Government are not

doing anything to deal with that issue. Of Let's get away from the

politics, we talked about unemployment and the financial

squeeze on families. Let's move on and look at potentially some of the

positive news out there. Many say there is some light at the end of

the tunnel and that could come from green energy.

I am Matt Jukes, port director. Green port hull is the

redevelopment of Alexandra dock to provide manufacturing facility for

Siemens. 200 million pounds investment, will create a factory

employing around 700 people. You then apply the port multiplier,

which is the number of indirect jobs in the city to support those

700 jobs. 4,000 people will come on to the docks to work every day and

20,000 people employed in Hull. It is probably the biggest development

ever taking place in the docks apart from when the docks

themselves were built. We are in an ideal location. We are in the right

spot, lady luck has played a hand here. We are getting ahead of

ourselves in terms of getting Siemens here and green port

delivered, but beyond that, when you look at the opportunities that

will hopefully flow on from that, it is extrimly exciting. A very

exciting development, but it is going to need the support of the

engineering giant Siemens, where are we with that, has that deal

been signed and sealed? We are committed planning applications to

the counsel and MMO and it is going through the process of being

approved hopefully. We would hope that will be approved by the

council mid-April time, then we have process that sits behind that.

The timings at the moment are that we are hopeful, late summer early

autumn we will have what is known an unconditional consent, which

means we will do the development, nobody can stop us and that is the

timing we are working to. Hopefully this will bring new jobs and many

people need them right now. We have a couple of lads from British

Aerospace BAe Systems. You are the main union representive there. Are

you optimistic about green jobs possibly as a driver of our

economy? I think there is some real optimism there and I am pleased

seem Siemens are coming in, but I think think and I am sure every is

aware the difficulty of BAe Systems at the moment which 900 members

jobs disappearing, going into the unemployment pool. What is really

keen for us, we want advanced manufacturing with Siemens coming

in, but we also need the BAe Systems, people properly employed.

The potential to support Siemens in the event of BAe Systems on the

sight is clearly there. It is a great opportunity. This could be a

hugely exciting prospect and comes at a time when East Yorkshire

desperately needs jobs for skilled workers. Absolutely, and it is

desperately disappointing that BAe Systems is planning to end

manufacturing at bruf. And it is very difficult to understand the

logic of that when it is a key manufacturing manufacturing

capability in a strategically important industry. There are good

prospects for East Yorkshire in going forward in renewable energy.

Wave and tidal power, biomass and biofuels. The challenge is now

because now it is very, very tough, very high levels of unemployment.

The jobs are going to come down the line. It is bridging the gap,

particularly if we lose so many skilled jobs. Could this be the

solution, do you think the you have the skills to pick up on the green

energy jobs boom? To be honest, I have got to be interested in that

type of work. That type of work, I am not interested in. Help being

the big programme on the health and education from the government, NHS

programme, �500 million and we promised that that work would go

locally and that promise has been exceeded with 90% local labour on

that. There's got to be a will to do it. We have to have promises

from Siemens that when we get a multi-planner - if you can spend

this money locally, but there's got to be a will and there's got to be

promises kept. This is the big worry, how confident are you these

will be jobs that go to local people. It is a huge challenge to

skill up the local workforce so we can grab these jobs locally.

There's lots of work going on in that area. Paul's company has a

training academy that's very well regarded and it's beginning that

work in terms of the gentleman here, he can work in these industries. It

is possible to retrain people from the more traditional jobs that

existed in the local marketplace into these new forms of employment

and that's a challenge we must meet. Are you confident local workers

have the right skills here? That is one of the big challenges, to make

sure when we do deals, that is when immediately what must kick in is

making sure we work with Siemens, and other supply chains, let's not

lose sight of the fact this is going to be a cluster, and we then

have two years in which to make sure people are skilled in the

right way, Siemens a big stake holder in the city of Lincoln here

and the university, we are hopeful they will do the same in Hull and

benefits for the East Riding and they have said they will look to

employ as many local people as they can. They have done a big selection

process. They started off with 100 locations and down to 30 in the UK.

The challenges that Hull have got, there are vngs to someone like

Siemens. Is there a danger we could talk down our economy too much. You

are a business woman from Lincolnshire. Tell us your story.

When we are talking about the unemployment rate rising, I think

that's been increased because we did have the middle of the

population, but we have now increased the the pension age, so

we have more older people coming into the market. We are

discouraging students from going to university because they can't

afford it. Isn't it time if we have companies like yourselves coming to

Lincolnshire, how about bringing or promoting apprenticeships, so

students maybe go to Siemens, get trained and then you will keep

local workers in the local area. You work at BAe Systems. I am going

to lose my job by the end of the year. The trick we miss is the

investment into the UK. We have foreign companies can coming into

our country, starting off businesses, whereas we should be

there first, not reliant on Siemens doing T the the UK government and

Labour and Conservative, they shubed the ones doing it and

bringing it there so we have jobs going forward. We can invest the

money back into the people. We watch these companies come in, pay

our people, they pay some of the taxes some of the time and they

then take the profits out to their own countries. We lose out

nationally in so much. It's worked to a large extend in Scotland and

in Wales, is regional government the key to economic success? In

other words, home rule for the north.

I am a Labour MP for Grimsby. I have always been a campaigner for

the north. In the '90s when the Labour Party began to move to

evolution for skort land and Wales, now that campaign for regional

government and devolution to the north actually becomes relevant

again. We are sandwiched between two areas which get more government

help than we do. We get nothing. Scotland gets a worse deal was we

are in an English parliament dominated by London and the south-

east. Let's fight for ourselves. It is effectively a government for the

south-east by the south-east. It is time to calm tain for the north --

campaign for the north and for devolution we want power to rule

ourselves. Do you agree with your colleague, would regional

government boost our economy? been tried before by the previous

Labour government. My predecessor was very keen on the idea. We had a

referendum on it. I think it was rejected by a fair majority. We do

stand up for the north. There is a problem in the north, Andrew would

agree with me, we go to Westminster, we fight for our own constituencies,

I have been chasing ministers through the division lobby the

other day, I grabbed Ken Clarke and insisted he gave me five minutes of

his time. We do it any way S wouldn't mess with Ken Clarke.

agree with Karl. I partly represent East Yorkshire. The idea that we

have a regional government, I don't think it would go down very well

with my Lincolnshire residents. We do actually get a lot by working

together as local councilors and MPs. We got �150 million for the

Humber bridge. I like Austin but it is not that we get nothing. There's

been an issue with Yorkshire not getting as much as Scotland has

been getting. But I don't think if you ask the public they want a

whole other layer of politicians at this time. I was a member of the

East Midlands assembly and it did us no favours in Lincolnshire. As

we have a north and south divide, similarly with the east and west

divide, the towns and cities particularly the mining areas and

in Grimsby, they have much more power than the rural areas, in

rural communities are dying. Young people are moving, there are no

jobs. The farming industry, the farms get bigger and we lose the

jobs for the small hamlets. But there is opportunity there. Because

these are ripe for development. We could be revitalising the villages

and hamlets of Lincolnshire and that is what I am looking forward

to. Do we need more politicians in the form of regional assemblies?

you are going to do an opinion poll on the streets of Hull, I don't

think it is going to be at the top of anybody's list. It was rejected

in the north-east by 80% to 20% last time. What people want is more

jobs and more successful businesses in the economy. That is what

everybody is talking about. To do that we need Britain to be an

enterpriser. Not just small enterprise zones all over the place.

Etc You are a member of the youth parliament, what is your take on

this, regional government? people don't want more decision

makers, they don't want bureaucracy. Britain can be better. Economic

stability for hard-working families should be the priority. You don't

need billions of pounds to be invested. It is simple decisions

that need to be made. Anyone who suggests there is no skills or

talent amongst our kun trip, shame on them because every person in

this country is skilled, talented and full of ambition, but we must

invest in our people. We can drive this forward. We have plenty of

opportunities but we have got to get rid of bureaucracy. At the end

of the day, it is a shame on the government. Saying 97 to 2010, cut

the party politics, let's get down to the problem, hard-working people

want value for money and want the support. We have to engage with

them and give people skills, training and investment. The bigger

issue is that everybody's agreed they want to support working

families but we need to - it may not be in at the moment to talk

about it but we are still spending 120 million a day on interest. It

would be lovely to shower money all over the economy. It is about

priorities, Tim. We have gone through these arguments. I am quite

contrary to what is being said. It isn't about fierce of bureaucracy

and government, that is just the politics has a bad name. If you ask

anybody which is the Powerhouse of Europe, they will tell you Germany.

Germany is run on a series of federal skills reporting to central

government. It is built on a backbone of small and medium

enterprises that thrive off family industry. I think there is a real

opportunity for us. There is no rebalancing of the economy. That

has not happened. It is still the north and it is still the south.

There is a real opportunity, it will cost money but it is being

brave enough to get away from our old Conservative ways of doing

business in England and look to what the Scots and Welsh have done

and embrace it more. Anyone who wants to have their say. Rachel you

represent the needs of older people. We work with older people, over 50,

that is not old, is it. People are finding it incredibly hard because

the things they need they can't afford. A lot of older people have

a decision to make, to either be warm or hungry. That is really,

really unacceptable. I think as well we were talking about the

employment, older people are unemployed for longer and oler

people's unemployment is increasing as well. It It shoulding a priority,

that we can use their kills better. The only way I believe forward is

to get our entrepreneurs on the case. Unless entrepreneurs start

new businesses, we are shot. Just picking up on the point about

Germany. Banks in Germany tend to look at the long-term investment

with business is which has not not happened for many years in this

country. We are still suffering here from a lack of support through

the banking system. If you can get it, it is an exorbitant rate. We

have to get businesses able to find the the the source of support to

encourage them to trade. There are many opportunities around the world

to trade. There are many strong businesses in this country that can

develop further but we have to get rid of the log janl and that will

bring employment back. We have run out of time. Thank you to everyone

who had their say here. I am sorry you couldn't speak to everyone. I