Oral question asked in the House of Commons, by Elliot Morley (Labour). It was answered on Thursday, 29 October 2009 on behalf of the Yorkshire and the Humber Regional Grand Committee.

Public Expenditure

Question: I am sure that my right hon. Friend would agree that the public sector has a crucial role to play in economic development, not only in what it does directly but also in partnership with the private sector. For example, the Minister will be aware of the announcement this week of a huge expansion of offshore wind off the Lincolnshire coast. Already, in Scunthorpe the steel plate is made for the towers of those turbines, there is another company in Scunthorpe that maintains the gearboxes for offshore wind turbines and there is real potential for Grimsby, Immingham and Hull and the Humber itself to become centres for green jobs, with new technology and, in particular, the offshore sector. My council of North Lincolnshire and the councils of North East Lincolnshire, Hull City and East Riding of Yorkshire strongly support that. What are the Government doing to work with those councils and the regional development agency to grab the opportunities for new jobs?

Answer: I have had meetings with the Humber Economic Partnership and North East Lincolnshire council about the huge potential for development of the offshore wind industry, not least because of the deep water of the Humber, the flat land around it and the fact that a lot of the turbines would be put down close to the Humber estuary. We have been engaged in a number of discussions through Government, facilitated by Yorkshire Forward, to try to ensure that we set up the infrastructure to enable that to happen. Obviously, some of the discussions have been commercially confidential, but I can assure my right hon. Friend that there is a lot of work going into how we can make it happen. It is crucial as well for the overall energy policy that we want to develop, not only in Yorkshire and the Humber but across the north in terms of clusters of energy industries that would make us world leaders.

Secondary information