Bolton: Levelling up spending decisions ' should be decided locally'

Rachel Reeves MP made the comments while visiting an Openreach apprenticeship training centre in Breightmet, Bolton, where she met apprentice engineers.

She also toured a ‘pole field’, containing 86 telegraph poles, where engineers train to connect fibre optic cabling.

In January, Greater Manchester missed out on more than £276m of levelling up money in the latest round of funding announced by the government.

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Three bids were successful, bringing nearly £60m to Trafford, Wigan and Oldham. Bolton lost out on around £40m of funding, including a £20m package described as ‘key’ to regenerating three areas of the town centre. At the time, Bolton’s Conservative council leadership said they would be protesting that decision ‘at every level of government’.

Speaking after touring the site, Mrs Reeves, condemned the ‘adversarial’ process of bidding for funding and said decision should be taken at a local level.

She said: “I don’t think it is the right way to make decisions about investments which are of huge significance to towns like Bolton.

“The bid would have regenerated much of the town centre but was rejected. This is money which Bolton needed to make a real difference.

“I think the person who put it really well was the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands who said it was a kind of ‘begging bowl culture’ of putting in bids against one another only for civil servants and politicians in Westminster and Whitehall, who might never have been to these places, to make huge investment decisions.

“We need proper devolution and local leaders making decisions about what is right for their area. We need more devolution in a whole range of areas, on skills, transport and housing because decisions are better made closer to where people understand what is needed.”

During the visit to Openreach, where thousands of engineers are being trained each year, including hundreds of apprentices, Mrs Reeves

said the current apprenticeship levy needed to be reformed.

She said: “I’m here to celebrate the success of apprentices and the work that’s being done here to train up the next generation of young people.

“The truth is though the apprenticeship levy is not working as well as it should be either for businesses or the people who want to get on apprenticeship programmes. That is why Labour are talking about reform of the apprenticeship levy to help businesses and help people to get the skills that they need to succeed.”

Rachel Reeves

She also commented on figures released showing zero growth in the last quarter in the UK economy. She, said: “The numbers today show the economy is just bouncing along the bottom.

“Of the G7 most advanced economies the UK economy is the only that is still smaller than before the pandemic. Right now the USA economy is five per cent bigger than before we went into a pandemic , the UK economy is eight per cent smaller.

“We need a proper plan for growth and a proper plan for dealing with the cost of living crisis.”