LEPS TO GET MORE GROWTH DEALS, CASH FOR HOUSE BUILDING AND A SMALL BUSINESS REPRESENTATIVE ON ALL BOARDS

In his eighth Budget, George Osborne argued the Government has chosen to put stability first, taking long term solutions to long term problems, choosing to focus on the long-term and putting the next generation first.

In terms of the specific impact on LEPs, he confirmed that up to £1.8 billion will be allocated through a further round of Growth Deals later this year and announcing that a further £2 billion of the Local Growth Fund is being allocated through the Home Building Fund (para 1.282), and requiring a nominated Small Business Representative sits on all boards (para 2.316), the Budget’s specific references to LEPs were to cite examples of initiatives with specific partnerships, such as:

• The agreement with LEPs in the Midlands and the British Business Bank to create a Midlands Engine Investment Fund of over £250 million to invest in smaller businesses in the Midlands (para 1.306);

• Greater Manchester and East Cheshire, Sheffield City Region and Lancashire LEP, and the Midlands will each benefit from a science and innovation audit to map their research and innovation strengths and to identify areas of potential global competitive advantage. With future audits in other areas to be announced later in the year (para 1.286);

• Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP to be supported to develop a proposal for a new Knowledge Quarter in the area around the Curzon Street HS2 station (para 1.312).

The “Devolution Revolution” features prominently with some deals being on LEP geographies. The Budget conformed new mayoral devolution deals with the West of England, Greater Lincolnshire and East Anglia, seeing deals extend to English counties and southern cities (para 1.279). Local Growth Fund allocations will be included in un-ringfenced single pots of funding for areas with previously agreed mayoral devolution deals to spend on local priorities, worth £2.86 billion in total (para 1.280).

The government will create a new MarineHub Enterprise Zone in Cornwall as well as creating new Enterprise Zones in Brierley Hill in Dudley, Loughborough and Leicester and extending the Sheffield City Region Enterprise Zone. Enterprise Zones are to be able to offer Enhanced Capital Allowances for eight years following the establishment of the ECA site. (para 1.283).

On the Northern Powerhouse: the Budget gives the green light to High Speed 3 between Leeds and Manchester with £60 million being provided to develop plans for both the Leeds-Manchester route by 2017 and to improve transport connections between cities of the North; accelerating the upgrade of the M62 to a four-lane smart motorway and developing the future transformation of east-west road connections, including a new Trans-Pennine tunnel under the Peak District between Sheffield and Manchester (para 1.291).