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Local Growth White Paper

As far as the north-east—in particular the Northumberland and Tyneside area—is concerned, we were disappointed that we got a very fragmented set of proposals. What has been agreed is that Teesside will go ahead; it is in the first list. Those behind four other LEP proposals that cover almost the whole region have now agreed to work together on a north-east basis. We think that that has great promise. We said that it needed a small additional amount of work and then it would get the go-ahead, and the kind of structure that my right hon. Friend wants will proceed. As far as the assets are concerned, my Department has set up a working group that will help to manage the RDA asset disposal issue. As I said, we will try to manage this in a careful way, with assets and liabilities together. Some will be transferred, where appropriate, to local communities, councils or the LEP, but the criterion will be getting good value for money for the taxpayer. After all, this is taxpayers' money and that is our primary requirement. There will not be gifts to local communities, but, in terms of maintaining the coherence and integrity of those developments, we will endeavour to keep them together.