West Midlands, (Samaj Weekly)- Liam Byrne MP, Labour’s Shadow Mayor of the West Midlands told Rishi Sunak in the Commons today to fix the hole in his budget called the West Midlands.
“Our region has been short-changed for too long. If we had our fair share of national investment we’d have £8 billion extra in fair share investment. Today we got the grand total of just 3% of the money” Liam Byrne told the Chancellor, “It’s time you fixed it.”
“Our region has been the hardest hit by Covid, yet how much did the Budget award the West Midlands in new investment? Just £2 per person a week. That is not going to get our region back to work.
“What we needed today was a real plan to back our ambition to become the Green workshop of the world, making the electric cars, planes and trains, that the world needs to go green.
“Yet today there was no announcement about the critical gigafactory needed to build British batteries for Britain’s electric vehicles. Nor was there anything for green homes, retrofitting or money to end the cladding scandal.
“The Treasury announced more money for a car park in Solihull than it did to tackle our sky high youth unemployment.
“Many of our young people are desperate for jobs with real training, especially good quality apprenticeships. There want secure jobs to help them pay for a home. Parents and grandparents are alarmed at the declining opportunities for young people, in the region that has some of the youth unemployment hot spots.
“Once again we were left behind by others. We secured just three quarters of the budget agreed for the North West and just 40% of the budget awarded to the east Midlands.
“Because there is no proper plan for jobs of the future, growth is forecast to be low and taxes high. In fact £66 billion of tax rises now lie down the track, and much of that will be paid by police officers, senior nurses and teachers. That’s not much of a reward after everything they’ve given this last year”
