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By ROB PARSONS - July 5 2022
In a political universe where Westminster hadn't descended into Lord of the Flies-style anarchy, your Northern Agenda today would likely have focused on the hugely important and potentially explosive issue of whether government would approve a new coal mine for steel production in Cumbria.
An announcement was due today but late last night the man due to make it, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, was sacked by Boris Johnson as he clung on to power, limpet-like and deluded, at 10 Downing Street.
At the start of a morning when Mr Johnson finally accepted the inevitable and resigned, as Tory leader after ministers and MPs made clear his position was untenable, Mr Gove's Levelling Up Department was down to a rump of three Ministers with everyone else having quit.
As well as no Cumbrian coal mine announcement it meant there was no Minister to represent the Government as its flagship Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill reached committee stage in the Commons and confusion over whether local leaders would be able to submit bids to the £4.8bn Levelling Up fund to help their communities.
In fact, with a host of departments losing nearly all their Ministers and the business of government ground to a halt, it remained unclear this morning when a host of huge issues that matter to the North - devolution, fracking, high speed rail - would be picked up again.
Mr Johnson is due to give a statement to the nation at around 1pm today announcing his resignation after a slew of damaging scandals. He will remain as Prime Minister until a successor is in place, expected to be by the time of the Conservative Party conference in October.
In a sign that some of the dozens of lost Ministers would start being replaced, it emerged this morning that Middlesbrough-born former Business Secretary Greg Clark was being lined up to replace Mr Gove .
But will 'levelling up', the phrase brought to prominence by the Prime Minister as he sought to win over Northern voters in 2019, survive his departure? Andy Westwood, Professor of Government Practice at the University of Manchester, said it looked as though "the whole agenda - like all others - is now on ice until a new Conservative leader and Cabinet is in place in the Autumn".
He added: "I suspect the terminology - like much associated with Boris Johnson - will become toxic and disappear. But the bigger question is whether the substance ie the extreme levels of regional/local inequality that underpin and drive our politics, will form a major element of the leadership contest that is already starting. It will certainly be a major element of the next General Election when it comes. And the one after that."
And Zoë Billingham, director of IPPR North, said: “It’s time to break the cycle. The next Prime Minister should devolve real power and resource to regions like the North, so that progress in communities can’t be delayed or halted because of political chaos in Westminster."
Perhaps the most sure sign the end of Boris Johnson's reign was nigh came yesterday and this morning as some of his most loyal Northern MPs finally turned against him after months of holding the line.
Redcar MP Jacob Young and Penistone and Stocksbridge's Miriam Cates both published their letters twisting the knife in the Prime Minister who helped take huge swathes of the North from Labour in the last General Election.
Another, Bury North MP James Daly , resigned as a PPS and told Mr Johnson: "It has become very clear that you are sadly unable to lead our Government and deliver on the policies that will change lives for the better and create opportunity for all."
Mr Daly, who won his seat with a razor-thin majority in 2019, showed signs of wobbling when he spoke to the The Northern Agenda podcast in early June.
Listen to what James Daly had to say here:
Asked whether MPs like him would be better served by a different PM, he described how Boris Johnson's demise could potentially put at risk investments in his constituency like a local school which needs a full rebuild.
And he said: "From my view of the Prime Minister's conduct, and from the explanation that he's given to me, that does not trump me and I should not do anything in my view to prejudice the interests of my constituents, in getting them the investment and the frontline services they deserve, before they have the opportunity to get rid of me."
Some 250 miles north on the Teesworks site at Redcar, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng was joining Tory mayor Ben Houchen to formally break the ground on a new offshore wind factory which officials hope will bring hundreds of new jobs to the area.
The 1.13million square foot SeAH Wind factory will produce bases for offshore wind turbines, delivering up to 1,500 jobs in the supply chain and during construction, plus 750 direct jobs when fully operational.
In a video this morning Mr Houchen said the news was delivering on promises to the area "to get into construction, building new factories, creating new good quality long term jobs in the offshore wind sector".
And Mr Kwarteng tweeted that while Westminster was "a mess...this investment - and those jobs - will outlast any PM. The wheels of Government must continue in the meantime".
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Tory councillor: My party is riddled with treachery and betrayal
The chaos at Westminster was also causing ructions at local level. In the East Riding of Yorkshire a leading councillor and former deputy leader of the authority resigned from the ruling Conservatives, claiming the party is riddled with treachery and betrayal .
Mike Stathers said his resignation was prompted by what he dubbed the scandalous behaviour of some MPs and ministers and stagnation in the East Riding Conservative group. Local Democracy Reporter Joe Gerrard writes that at least two other Conservative councillors were weighing up resignations from the group yesterday.
Cllr Stathers said: "I feel I can no longer represent an organisation that is riddled with treachery and betrayal both at national and local levels."
Meanwhile leaders of Tory groups at town halls across the North were yesterday turning on the PM. Cheshire East Tory leader Janet Clowes said Mr Johnson had steered the country through some difficult times but now was the time for him to go.
She said: "Whilst important legislation has continued to be delivered, not least the levelling-up agenda and all the benefits that’s bringing to Cheshire East, we definitely need new leadership."
Leeds council's top Conservative Andrew Carte r added: “Whilst Boris Johnson can claim some big successes, not least Brexit, the commitment to levelling up, the managing of Covid and the Ukraine crisis, what’s happened recently is completely unacceptable.”
North's ageing housing stock 'adding to fuel poverty woes'
Darlington MP Peter Gibson was among those to quit yesterday, citing "the damage our party has inflicted on itself over the failure to include trans people in the ban on conversion therapy" as he stood down as a PPS to the Department for International Trade.
But the Tory MP also led a debate in Westminster Hall where he urged the Government to tackle the poor energy efficiency in homes across the North, something he said "only serves to make our higher rates of fuel poverty even worse".
With 14% of homes in his patch classed as 'fuel poor', he said insulating homes better and reducing the reliance on fossil fuels to heat homes means less money spent on wasted energy.
Mr Gibson told his fellow MPs that 26% of the North's carbon emissions come from homes, adding "if we are to tackle climate change and meet net zero, we have to do something about that 26%, in addition to all the other things that we are doing".
He said: "Despite all the house building going on around the country, the UK’s housing stock is generally older than that across the rest of Europe.
"And in the North, we have a higher percentage of older properties than the rest of the country: 24% of all homes in the North were built before 1919, and 41% were built before 1944. These older homes are largely beautiful, characterful properties that provide us with the backdrop to much of our northern constituencies, but they pose serious issues when it comes to energy efficiency."
Tractor convoy joins protest against 'nonsense' garden village bid
Convoys of tractors took to the roads around the Lancashire village of Samlesbury during yesterday morning’s rush hour in protest at a proposed garden village development .
Local farmers led the demonstration in a show of solidarity with the Save Samlesbury Action Group, formed with the aim of opposing plans for 1,300 new homes on greenbelt land to the east of the motorway.
Story Homes – the developer behind the the proposed Cuerdale Garden Village – submitted plans to South Ribble Borough Council last month, writes Local Democracy Reporter Paul Faulkner. But action group member Ian Seed said the idea was “total nonsense” - as were attempts to justify it by linking it to the national cyber force centre to be built in the area.
The saga is not the only controversy currently raging in the North over plans to build on protected green belt land. Plans for 158 new homes in the green belt in a York village are being recommended for approval – despite claims they would harm the city’s character and historic setting.
Historic England opposes the application on the edge of Copmanthorpe because it said it “would harm the relationship of the main built-up area with one of its surrounding villages” and would “fail to preserve the special character and setting of the historic City of York”.
Meanwhile dozens of representations have been received over a controversial plan to build more than 150 homes on the edge of Kendal in Cumbria on grassland currently used for agricultural purposes and a third field used as a driving range.
Power station to keep firing coal in face of winter energy crisis
Back in early 2020 the huge Drax power station in North Yorkshire set a deadline of March 2021 to end coal-firing, having completed a £750 million switch to renewable energy in the form of forestry pellets.
But yesterday it announced that it would be maintainimg its coal-firing capability through the coming winter, at the request of the government, writes David Laister for BusinessLive . It has struck a deal with National Grid to provide contingency on the two remaining units from October to the end of March 2023.
Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said: “With Russia cutting off gas to parts of Europe, this is a sensible precaution back home. As Energy Secretary, I have a responsibility to ensure we have enough supply this winter."
The company is also progressing carbon capture plans for a huge site that sits on the North Yorkshire and East Yorkshire border - based on entire biomass-firing in the near future, as part of a pan-Humber clean up of one of the most polluting industrial clusters in Europe.
Meanwhile North Yorkshire County Council, which has repeatedly been challenged over the speed and scale of its carbon cutting actions, has made a U-turn to declare a climate change emergency, several years after many of its neighbouring authorities, writes Local Democracy Reporter Stuart Minting .
In a move which was notably not accompanied by the issuing of a press release, the Tory-run council's executive agreed the authority would be immediately adopting climate emergency, following in the footsteps of several hundred British councils.
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Northern Stories
A window clean offer for folk in the Teesside town of Thornaby blighted by demolition dust has been branded a “token gesture” amid calls for more to be done . Contractors are bringing down Anson and Hudson House in the town centre on behalf of social housing giant Thirteen and extra measures have been taken in response to dust worries including debris netting, water machines to suppress dust, and pauses to high-rise machines when children are on breaks at the nearby school. Thirteen has offered a professional window clean for dust-bound homes but local councillor Ray Godwin is unhappy with the offer.
Sheffield Council’s director of finance warned it would be “impossible” to set the council’s next budget without significant cuts or closures to services. Ryan Keyworth spoke at the latest meeting of the strategy and resources committee which had been moved forward due to the dire situation the authority is in. He said: “We have prioritised investment in social care over many years now. It is now difficult if not impossible for us to continue that trend without significant cuts or curtailment and the stopping of existing services.”
Around 4,700 pensioners in Bury are to be given £100 as local measures are agreed to help residents cope with the cost of living crisis. The handout is set to be given to every pensioner in the borough who receives council tax benefit. Bury Council has announced a range of measures to help people through immediate hardship but also to help them meet financial challenges in the medium and long term. Last month the council provided school uniform vouchers of up to £50 per child to every family who qualifies for free school meals.
Steel shipping containers worth almost £1m are sitting in a Dewsbury car park ready to be used as part of the anticipated revamp of the town’s market . The containers were bought by Kirklees Council as temporary replacement stalls for traders set to be moved out of the market as it undergoes a massive £15m facelift. Moving stallholders was estimated to cost £2.3m. The council is re-evaluating the market project due to escalating construction costs.
A Salvador Dali masterpiece loaned to the Spanish Gallery in Bishop Auckland will help tell the story of the Spanish Golden Age during its five-month installation. The artwork titled Christ of St John of the Cross has been transported to its temporary home in County Durham and will be displayed alongside El Greco’s Christ on the Cross – uniting the two Spanish masterpieces. Founder of The Auckland Project Jonathan Ruffer thanked the “wonderfully generous” Glasgow Life Museum for loaning the painting, adding “mere words of thanks really are not enough”.
Controversial plans to put barbecue boats on The Groves in Chester have been thrown out by Cheshire West and Chester Council. A petition organised by local businesses and individuals and signed by thousands of people including Chester MP Chris Matheson called on the council to reconsider the plans. Concerns were expressed about the prospect of allowing the development to go ahead on the only public moorings on the River Dee in Chester.
