Heseltine’s war on Whitehall and new growth agenda

LORD Heseltine says the country need to foster a wartime spirit to drag the economy out of the gloom.

Speaking in Manchester at the launch of a new network, The Business Growth Hub, which will help firms, large or small with potential to grow and create jobs, Lord Heseltine hit out at the ‘enemy within’ – Whitehall mandarins who slow progress and hamper the wheels of industry.

The veteran Conservative peer also renewed his call for elected city mayors, which he said were a “must” for the revival and growth of English regional cities.

He said: “Everyone knows who speaks for London – Boris Johnson. Everyone knows who speaks for Scotland – Alex Salmond. Manchester must take its place in that league.

“I believe that we need a rebirth of provincial power characteristic of the centuries when our cities first came to prominence… Dynamically led, properly incentivised  it is incalculable what the reborn economic powerhouses of our great cities  could contribute to the recovery.”

Elected mayors were one of 10 points he set out in a speech to more than 400 business people at the event at the Etihad Stadium.

Other elements of his manifesto for growth were to tackle failing schools, cut regulation; harness 10 major planning schemes – currently held up – and push them through Parliament.

Most radically he said Whitehall needs to be more accountable with government departments producing “management information” statistics, because: “No-one knows what Whitehall does.”

He said ministers had to get to grips with the “countless decisions not being taken” by bureaucrats in their departments.

“Officials are consulting, arguing, analysing, objecting but not deciding. There is no effective progress chasing, no means of costing the delays in terms of cash or jobs.

“Ministers should insist on knowing of any unmade decision that has been in their department for more than three months.”

He argued that his proposals would help re-balance the economy away from London to provincial England.

“We are all in this together and the Government needs to put its own house in order as it exhorts others to do the same.

“In war, the threat is posed by the enemy at the gate. Perhaps we need to recognise that today the enemy is within the fortress.”