A No 10 in the North must not stop at Manchester

Britain has been run from too narrow a base for too long, and too many decisions about transport, skills, investment and growth are still made by people who don’t spend enough time out of the capital.

But if the answer to over-centralisation is to shift more attention from London to Manchester, we won’t have solved the problem; we’ll just have created a smaller version of it.

There is a well-established North-South divide in this country, but there’s also a divide within the North itself. From Newcastle, it can often feel as though national politics uses “the North” as shorthand for the North West, with Greater Manchester treated as the natural place to go when ministers, officials or national broadcasters want to prove they’re looking beyond the M25.

Manchester’s success should be universally welcomed; it’s built momentum and shown what can be achieved with devolution and sustained investment.

MediaCity changed the geography of broadcasting, while major government hubs and civil service relocations have added further weight to a city that already has enormous political pull. None of this is a criticism of Manchester, but it’s a warning about imbalance.

For decades, the North East has lived with some of the deepest economic and social  inequalities in England. It has the lowest disposable household income per head of  any English region, and communities in places such as Middlesbrough and Hartlepool  have been among the most deprived in the country for generations.

If the government wants to understand why regional inequality has proved so stubborn, it needs to be present in those places too, not just in the parts of the North that already have the strongest voice.

An occasional ministerial visit, a roundtable and a photograph before the train home doesn’t cut the mustard. It has to mean senior people, serious teams and real decision-making based in the region, learning from it over time and seeing the consequences  of policy at close quarters.

The North East isn’t some inaccessible hinterland; it’s on the East Coast Main Line, with direct links to London and Edinburgh, and Newcastle Airport connects the region to major hubs. Darlington has already shown, through the Economic Campus, that  important government functions can be based here successfully.

A No 10 in the North could send an important signal, but only if it reflects the whole North. If it becomes another way of concentrating influence in a place that already has  a strong claim on national attention, then the rest of us will be left looking at a familiar problem with a different postcode.

If power is going to leave Westminster, it mustn't stop at the first place that already knows how to be heard.

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Stephen Patterson is the chief executive of Newcastle’s business improvement district, NE1 Ltd.

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