JEREMY Hunt has denied the Conservatives are to blame for economic stagnation in the North East, after a report claimed the region has been “levelled down” since 2010.

Research published last month by the Centre for Cities thinktank revealed that, since the year that the Tories came to power under David Cameron, the average person in the North East is £11,500 poorer than they would have been if the economy had grown at the rate it previously had.

That study linked the fall in wealth to big increases in child poverty, with 12,900 more children on Tyneside alone living in relative poverty in 2021 than in 2014.

Speaking during a visit to semiconductor manufacturer Pragmatic’s new factory in Durham on Thursday to celebrate National Apprenticeship Week, Mr Hunt insisted that he wanted growth to “spread to every corner of the UK”.

Asked what responsibility the Government took for the region’s economic struggles and what would be done to resolve the situation, starting with next month’s Spring Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “Since 2010 we have been suffering big global shocks – we had the financial crisis, the energy crisis caused by the invasion of Ukraine, the pandemic.

"The UK as a whole has grown faster than countries like Germany and France and we are currently getting the second highest levels of greenfield investment, in brand new factories like this, anywhere in the world except the United States. 

“Because of the Levelling Up agenda, more than two-thirds of the jobs created in recent years have been outside London and the South East. Our mission is not just to unleash much stronger economic growth, we want to be the next Silicon Valley – and companies like Pragmatic, who are doing extraordinary semiconductor manufacturing, are part of that vision.

“But we want to make sure that growth is spread to every corner of the UK because we will not reach our potential if we continue to be an economy dominated by London and the South East.” 

His trip also came the day after the multi-billion pound North East devolution deal, which will see a new regional mayor elected in May, passed a key milestone as legislation to ratify it was laid in Parliament.

The Chancellor told the LDRS he was confident that the devolved funding and decision-making powers at the mayor’s disposal would help deliver a major uplift in jobs for the region, particularly in key sectors like renewable energy.

He added: “In 2010 we got about 2% of our electricity from renewable sources, now it is over 40 per cent. That is because we have the world’s four largest offshore wind farms off the coast here – it is an absolutely extraordinary transformation that is happening.

“What is significant is that to get there we have to upskill. Today I met apprentices who are getting the skills that are going to get them well-paid, highly-skilled jobs in the future. We are finally changing the age-old prejudice we used to have against technical skills where the only thing that people wanted was a university education.

“What we are seeing now as we are building these industries of the future is that apprenticeships, of which we have had 5.5 million since 2010,  have a really crucial role to play.”