Eric Ollerenshaw MP: Tackling the North-South divide

Eric Ollerenshaw OBE MP, Member of Parliament for Lancaster and Fleetwood.

Last October, ConservativeHome covered the launch of Amber Rudd MP’s report on localism in the planning process. Amber’s report was the first in a series of papers being put together by some of the Forty Group of MPs.

Today I have published my contribution for the Forty Group’s on the North-South divide. This is a more in depth study of a subject on which I wrote a short article for ConservativeHome in June last year.

That there is a North-South divide is clear. And that divide grew under Labour.

Why does it matter? Firstly, that gap creates a sense of unfairness and disunity. But in more utilitarian terms it is a story of untapped economic potential. Plus, we must not rely on just one region or a very few sectors to drive our economy; the financial crash of 2008 has demonstrated the need for a rebalanced economy. Diversifying UK plc and doing more to spread growth more evenly around the country is important for future stability.

Labour failed to address the North-South divide for a number of reasons, namely:

1. They were too focussed on the City and the Financial Services sector;
2. Had redirected their political and campaigning priorities towards the South;
3. Failed to invest adequately in proper infrastructure when funds were available;
4. Failed to address training and skills needs, especially those of young people;
5. Wrongly focussed on public sector growth and employment;
6. And, crucially, because their regional approach was too top-down in nature.

The Conservative Party must learn from these mistakes if we are to make an impact on the North-South divide. As such we need to:

1. Rebalance the economy away from a fixation on financial services;
2. Ensure we invest adequately in our infrastructure so as to assist private enterprise growth;
3. Continue the investment in training and retraining, especially with an expansion of apprenticeship places, and by revolutionising our school system;
4. Be sparing in using the public sector as a tool for long term growth and instead use available public funds as a tool for leveraging in private sector investment and growth in the North;
5. Set out to achieve change through a bottom up, localist policy agenda;
6. Reassess and enhance our political priorities, messages and campaigning resources in the North.

The good news is that the Government is largely on the right track, for instance with a new localist approach and a strategy of infrastructure investment.

ConservativeHome readers might be most interested in the section of the report assessing how the Conservative Party still needs to do more to campaign competitively in the North. It is clear that in much the same way as Labour could not win an election without winning more seats in the South, so the Conservatives cannot win an election – at least not win with a working majority – without winning more seats in the North of England.

The table below shows the number of seats each Party won in the North, South and Midlands since 1979:

	1979	1983	1987	1992	1997	2001	2005	2010	2010 New Boundaries
North
Con	63	69	64	53	17	17	19	42	38
Lab	99	89	96	107	139	139	133	104	98
LD	2	6	4	3	5	6	10	11	8
Other	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0
Total	164	164	164	163	162	162	162	157	144
South
Con	206	224	228	209	120	120	141	191	191
Lab	51	29	26	45	116	113	89	48	42
LD	3	7	6	7	28	31	33	30	26
Other	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	1
Total	260	260	260	261	264	264	264	270	260
Midlands
Con	56	69	66	57	28	28	34	64	63
Lab	43	30	33	43	73	71	64	39	33
LD	0	0	0	0	1	3	4	2	2
Other	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	0	0
Total	99	99	99	100	103	103	103	105	98

The Party is still lagging behind its position in the North compared to 1992, the last time it won an overall majority. By comparison, the Conservative’s electoral position in the Midlands is back to 1987 levels. (The vast improvement in the Midlands can perhaps be put down to the lack of a Lib Dem presence in those regions.)

As recent articles on ConservativeHome have argued, we need to campaign better in the North. Part of it is about presentation – we need more MPs representing the Party on television and radio who look and sound different from the archetypal ‘Tory, public school educated white southerner.’ Tim has rightly made the case for more Northern candidates for Associations to choose from in future and Matthew Barrett has called for a 'Grit List' of MPs to get on TV more. However, we also need to think long-term and finally lay the ground work for winning some council wards in major Northern cities.

> The report will be uploaded here later this morning.