What's in the (red) box?
What's in the (red) box?
It's Budget day, plus IPPR's State of the North report, trust in government and more
I was in The QT last week (£) with a list of things I’ll be listening out for when the Chancellor stands up this lunchtime. I’ll be back in it this afternoon with a bit of a round-up and some gathered analysis.
Some of my list are things people across the entire will be looking for - long-term funding for local government, proper funding for Further Education - but others are very much North East based, including the Leamside Line and FulwellCain’s Crown Works Studio in Sunderland.
If I had to bet on one of those (and I wouldn’t bet on any of them tbh), it would be Crown Works getting some funding to get the wheels turning.
That said, I do think Local Government will get something, because too many councils are too close to the wall. Just last week nineteen councils, including Middlesbrough, were given the flexibility to sell assets to fund day-to-day services…something they’re not usually allowed to do. But I don’t think we’ll get a substantial change, or anything long-term.
I enjoy the pageantry of Budget Day, and although most of it has gone - the battered red box used by William Gladstone in the 1850s has been retired'; no one since Ken Clarke has had an alcoholic drink while doing their speech - one traditional still alive and well is the leaking of half of the Budget the week before to see how it goes.
What’s been leaked is mostly tax cuts - another 2p chunk off National Insurance (there had been Income Tax rumours, but they seem to have settled on NI) with some possible tinkering to Non-Dom Status or Holiday Lets to make it look like it’s paid for.
As I argued in The QT, I don’t think I’d look at the state of public services and think ‘now’s the time to cut some taxes’.
What the country needs, and the North East in particular, is investment.
Research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggests that’s more or less where much of the public are - they are worried about essential services, not about receiving marginal tax cuts.
If life costs you more because support services are crumbling, then any small improvement in your situation from a tax cut will quickly disappear.
There’s also a chance to invest for the future of the country, and the two big North East projects I mentioned above fit that bill.
The Leamside Line is a a nationally-significant project, which I’ve written about before. Reopening 21 miles of disused freight line could take pressure off the East Coast Mainline, connect isolated communities in Co. Durham and unlock the extension of the metro through Washington.
That benefits the North East, but the resilience it would bring to an increasingly dodgy bit of the rail network - one which is getting precisely zip from the scaled back HS2 and its cancellation - would benefit everyone from Scotland to London.
It's been poorly treated, as it was initially included in the ‘Network North’ announcements following the cancellation of HS2, before it suddenly disappeared. That's probably because it's a project which will cost upwards of £1bn, but no one thought to check that.
Yesterday it received about 300 grand to continue development of a business case, which is welcome. The day before the rail minister said it was up to the North East to decide if it wanted to reopen the line - the official talking point appears to be that the region has had its transport money and can spend it on Leamside of it wants. It's too big and too expensive a project for that though, as it would take almost all the devolved transport funding. So, forget about buses or metros, or roads, or cycling, or anything else.
That business case money probably means there won't be anything else for that project in the Budget
The Crown Works film and TV studio stands a chance. It is being promoted by the team behind Sunderland ‘Til I Die, and will boost the UK’s production industry and create much needed additional capacity. It’s a big plan, worth hundreds of millions to the regional economy each year, plus 8,500 jobs in the sector.
That kind of project comes with skills and supply chains which will need to be developed, as well as the practicalities of planning and construction, but what FulwellCain are asking for is a fairly modest £20m a year in incentives for ten years to bring productions to the North East and de-risk the initial few years.
If they announce anything like that I’ll be pleased / amazed.
The Chancellor himself has an appreciation of the power of money, as he's apparently been giving more £20k a year to his local Conservative Association in an effort to fend off other parties in his constituency. I’m not sure he’s going to be able to buy his way out of a stern Lib Dem challenge for this seat.
IPPR’s State of the North Report
This annual set piece report is in its tenth year, and they’ve chosen to focus on healthy life expectancy in particular, alongside a host of other inequalities between North and South.
The findings are summed up by this sentence: “Gaps in power, wealth, opportunity, and health result in shorter, sicker, less fulfilling lives.”
They call out a need to…
Restore voters’ trust, they suggest through deeper devolution and more empowered regions
Rebalance wealth in England, recommending equalising tax on wealth and income (there being, generally speaking quite a lot more wealth in the south)
Empower places, through fixing local authority funding
Create opportunity across England, through a green industrial strategy
Rebuild healthy places by taxing health-harming activities and spending the money locally to improve outcomes
There’s lots of good data and interesting analysis in the full document. Here’s one of the maps, showing the clustering of health and economic activity outcomes. As you can see the North East doesn’t fare particularly well.
Civil Partnership Stats
Just 2.2% of the civil partnerships which took place in England and Wales in 2022 happened in the North East.
There were 127 opposite-sex civil partnerships in the North East (it was 131 in 2021), and just 23 same-sex civil partnerships (10 male, 13 female…up from 19 total in 2021).
Wind the clock back to 2013 and there were two-hundred same-sex civil partnerships…what changed in 2013? The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act was passed.
I mentioned last week a successful policy intervention on teenage pregnancy, and here’s an example of another successful social policy. Civil partnerships are right for some couples, but for most they are a sub-optimal version of what they’d like.
Access to that thing changed in 2013, and people stopped wanting civil partnerships.
Trust in government
Who do you trust most in the machinery of state?
Apparently 62% of adults have high trust in the courts and judiciary, the highest of all the elements of state, ahead of the police (56%) in second, and the civil service (45%) in third.
Bad luck if you work for a political party (68% low or no trust) or the news media (66% low or no trust), as apparently the public don’t like the cut of your jib.
If I was the Association of Chief Police Officers, I’d be absolutely chuffed with that result given how hard the Met have been working to undermine themselves.
Overall though, I’m not sure how much we can read into this for the usual reason that most people don’t actually stop to think about this stuff. They don’t know or care who is responsible for what, or who they’ve interacted with for different things. It’s basically an excuse to bash the usual suspects.
I’ll evidence that with the 7% of people who, in the political engagement section of the research, said they’d participated in a national referendum in the last 12 months.
It’s been eight years this year since the last one of those…can you believe it?
What I’ve been reading this week
This for the Local Government Association from Dr Henry Kippin and Prof Katy Shaw on the value of culture. They say: “The culture of a region is more than just the icing on the cake: it can offer a unique connection between its past, present and future, while the cultural and creative industries can position a region at the forefront of innovation, design, and investment on a global stage.” (Hattip to Jamie Hardesty for sharing this with me)
The Prime Minister and his wife, in an effort to appear human and relatable, have done an interview with Grazia. They disagree over meals, how to load a dishwasher, who should make the beds. On reading books: “‘I’m too exhausted when I get home so I watch an episode of Friends and go to bed,’ Sunak says. They’ve watched the same episodes of the sitcom countless times. ‘It never gets old,’ they add.” I’m put in mind of the interview Theresa May did where she suggested Philip did the ‘boy jobs’ like taking out the bins, and hopefully everyone involved in that Grazia interview will get in that bin.
What to look out for in the next week or so
Budget obviously, round about 12.30 I think - my thoughts will by in The QT this afternoon
But PMQs first at lunchtime
Some crime trends data this morning
Data on access to sports facilities and other amenities in local areas, out tomorrow
Also tomorrow stats on bullying and online experiences of young people
Low carbon and renewable energy economy figures on Friday, delayed from Feb
Inflation and labour market stats are Monday and Tuesday next week (NB/ the next BoE interest rate decision is on 21st March)
Working with me
I’m now pretty much booked up through until well into April, but last minute slots do open up.
Get in touch to chat about bits I might be able to help with from May onwards, or any urgent last minute bits.
You can find out more about me on my website.
You can email me on worroom@substack.com or arlen@arlenpettitt.co.uk
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