GOVERNMENT STILL DOESN’T HAVE A STRATEGY FOR GROWTH

The Tory-Lib Dem Government is failing on growth. Their policies are causing uncertainty, deterring investment and holding regional economies back.

They mistakenly rushed through the scrapping of Labour’s successful Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) without putting in to place an adequate replacement.

Their replacement for RDAs, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), have not been given the powers or resources to drive growth in the regions.

And their ‘flagship’ Regional Growth Fund (RGF) has proved to be a fiasco, failing to meet regional needs, with millions of pounds still sitting in Government coffers and failing to get to businesses to secure jobs.

Over the past year net lending to businesses has fallen by £13.5bn the recent Bank of England Trends in Lending selected data sets have found.