Mark Andrews chats with Labour's Darren Jones at the Springfield campus , Wolverhampton University.
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00:00 Hello, I'm Mark Andrews. I am at the University of Wolverhampton's Springfield campus. I am
00:08 joined by Richard Parker, the Labour's candidate for the mayoral election in May, and by Darren
00:14 Jones MP, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Good morning, gentlemen. Good afternoon, gentlemen.
00:23 Well first of all, just turn to yourself. I bet you've been explaining the importance
00:26 of creating jobs and supporting industry in the Midlands. What policies would a Labour
00:33 government do that's different to what we have at the moment and what the present government
00:38 is doing? Well I think it's pretty obvious if you look at the track record of this government,
00:43 whether in Westminster or in the Mayor's office, that industrial policy has been failing here
00:50 in the region. What have we got to show for the last six to eight years? I'm not sure
00:54 there's anything big enough that people could be excited about. And that's why we've said
00:58 in the Labour Party that as part of our national mission to get the economy growing again,
01:03 working with Richard and the team is going to be a crucial part of getting our economy
01:07 back on track so that we can start to invest with the private sector and in this region
01:11 in particular really start to think about how we're making things again and getting
01:14 Britain building again. You talk about working with Richard, obviously it's still going to
01:19 be an election so the electorate might have something to do with that. I mean, could you
01:24 potentially see a Labour government working with, you know, if the election didn't go
01:27 the way you wanted it to, working with Si and his strategy with any other candidates?
01:31 Well of course Labour's in opposition nationally as well and so we're working together as
01:36 party colleagues and we hope to work together in government later this year, both here but
01:40 also in Westminster. Of course we've seen that levelling up has been a pretty hollow promise
01:46 from the Conservatives over these past few years and part of the evidence of that, which
01:52 I've heard here today, is that Conservative ministers in Westminster just don't really
01:56 have a working relationship with people, even including their own people a lot of the time,
02:00 around the country and that's a really important thing that we can change from the very get-go
02:04 as we work together to deliver the policies that we have for our country.
02:08 So how would you change that? Because obviously it's easy to say that things aren't working
02:12 but what would you do that would be different to make it work?
02:15 Well first of all we've got to get stability back into the economy, whether that's political
02:19 stability which we've not had and we don't continue to have under the Conservatives,
02:23 or economic stability which you'll absolutely get from Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves.
02:27 The second thing is we've got to unlock investment into the country, in every part of the country,
02:33 whether that's public sector or private sector investment and we know that money's there
02:37 and we know it can be made available but we've got work to do to secure it.
02:40 And the last thing is we need to reform the policies that allow us to
02:43 win those deals, whether that's on planning reform, skills and apprenticeship reform,
02:49 making sure that working people get the opportunities available to them
02:52 when the economy does get back on track into a period of growth.
02:56 We talk about planning reform, tell me a bit about that, what you'd like to see,
02:59 how you'd like to see the planning regime change?
03:01 So there's a number of things around planning reform that you will see from an incoming
03:04 Labour government if we win this year. The first is how you speed up decisions about big
03:09 national infrastructure. This is really important for our energy mission and other big infrastructure
03:13 priorities. We've already seen that the policy statements that underpin that are now nine years
03:19 out of date and we've promised to update those within the first six months in the Labour
03:23 government. But then when local decisions are made in local councils, we need the planning
03:28 officers to be there to be able to make those decisions quickly enough. So we've said that
03:33 there'll be an injection of cash and more planning officers hired into council so that
03:37 we can speed up planning decisions locally too.
03:39 Would you like to see a change to the actual regime for how the planning commission
03:46 is given national planning guidelines, national planning policy?
03:49 So for national policy decisions, so for the big infrastructure priorities, the first thing
03:54 we've got to do is update those policy statements which make it clear what we think the nation's
03:59 national infrastructure requirements are. As I say for energy for example, that's not
04:03 been updated for nine years, we need to do that. But yes we then also need to make sure
04:07 those decisions are being taken as quickly as possible so as to not hold back development
04:12 from taking place. But that's only the first part of the puzzle. Take again the energy
04:16 infrastructure example as one. We then need to work with regulators and others to make
04:20 sure that when you do build renewable energy, you can actually plug it into the grid and
04:24 that companies can build the grid requirements to be able to do that. That's why it's a
04:28 mission-led priority for us that will require different policies but also different partners
04:32 to work together.
04:33 In terms of the planning policy itself, one of the things that would happen, would be
04:39 concerned about would there be some relaxation on protection of things like environmental
04:45 greenbelt and things such as that. What's the standard? There's a balance to be struck
04:49 between getting development done and obviously protecting the natural environment as well.
04:54 So would there be a different emphasis on a labour government to what the present government
04:58 does?
04:59 So we still want to protect our natural environment. It's an important part of the
05:03 climate adaptation to do that. We've heard here today on the visit that there are hundreds
05:07 of brownbelt sites just in this region alone across the country that are perfectly capable
05:12 of being developed without touching greenbelt but are not being developed. That's partly
05:17 because of planning but it's also because of investment and it's also because of skills.
05:21 And those are the types of issues we think we can improve through policy changes.
05:24 On top of skill, what would you do with skills and what would be the impact?
05:29 Well at the moment we have the apprenticeship levy where big businesses pay a levy for
05:33 apprenticeships but it doesn't get used very well for all businesses. So people who
05:37 are currently in jobs don't get the training and skills opportunities to be able to develop
05:42 in their business or in their sector. So we've said we're going to turn the apprenticeship
05:46 levy into a growth of skills levy that allows more people to access more training as well
05:51 as continuing to support those apprenticeships. And crucially, because I met with some of
05:55 your further education college leaders here today, where any colleges are working with
06:00 businesses to deliver on national priorities, there'll be funding allocated to those
06:04 actual colleges in order to help them contribute to those missions.
06:06 Given that you've already said you will stay within the creation spending limit,
06:12 after you've talked about investment in a lot of things, where's that going to come from?
06:15 Well first thing, we've set out our fiscal rules, not that we're sticking to the conservative
06:20 spending plans because we're not. We've already announced some changes to raise some
06:24 additional revenue that will go directly into public services. But there are two issues
06:29 around investment. One, public sector investment at the moment is not being spent very well.
06:34 £1 in six goes unspent on average and the money that is being spent is often not done
06:39 in an effective way. HS2 is an example of that. But more importantly, there's huge amounts
06:44 of private sector capital that we have to unlock for businesses and investors to invest
06:49 in this country, which we know is available because they tell us it is, but they've also
06:52 told us why they can't currently make the investment decisions to do that. And that's
06:55 why we're working so closely with them to find the ways to best unlock that.
06:59 You say that the money's not being unlocked properly. What we say, this is explained well,
07:05 but why can't they? What are these issues?
07:07 Well there's a number of issues. I mean, the first one issue is the instability that I've
07:13 talked about that we have in our country right now. Investors look at the UK and they're not
07:17 sure whether a policy will last more than five minutes or whether a minister will last more
07:20 than five minutes. And so they're not willing to invest because it might get cancelled. So
07:25 we need stability back into our politics and our economy. And then the other issue, as I say,
07:30 is around planning decisions. If it takes too long to get a planning decision, that costs money.
07:34 If you can't get the contractors to do the work, that costs money. If you can't connect to the
07:38 grid or get the electricity you need, that costs money. So there's too much cost and risk in the
07:43 system that we think we can put some work in place to be able to de-risk and unlock that money.
07:48 What sectors do you see as being targets for growth in a region such as this?
07:55 Well, we've got a national mission on decarbonising the power sector, how we produce
07:59 electricity. That's a mission for the whole country. So that will be relevant to this region.
08:03 But our economic growth mission will want to build on the heritage and successes that we
08:08 have already across the country. And the heritage here of manufacturing and engineering is obvious.
08:13 But we've also seen the modern day application of that here today on our visit with digital
08:17 technologies and creating jobs for younger people coming into that sector. So there's
08:21 clearly huge amounts of opportunity here that we can unlock. We've just got to work with partners
08:26 and we hope the Labour Mayor to unlock it. In terms of, you mentioned about the advantages
08:30 if you want to, the difficulty is we can talk about things such as manufacturing and green
08:35 investment, but obviously it's very difficult to compete with somewhere such as China,
08:39 which makes most of the solar panels in the world. How can a country like this, with our
08:44 Labour laws here, compete with some of these countries which have more relaxed Labour laws,
08:49 lower wages and things such as that? Well, you might have seen my boss, Rachel Reeves,
08:53 the Chancellor, talk about Securonomics. And what underpins Securonomics is an understanding that
09:01 you need to make spending decisions and economic policy that builds resilience into your own
09:05 economy. So globalisation led to a lot of reliance on overseas economies in the way that you've just
09:11 described. And for some things that's fine. But for critical supplies for the UK economy,
09:16 we need to make sure we've got the capacity to produce them there. And also, I've been working
09:21 with a brilliant EV tech company. It wants to stay in the UK, it wants to stay in the West Midlands.
09:27 It can't access the skills it needs to grow and develop. And it can't currently access the site
09:34 it needs for induction facilities. Those issues are holding it back from committing a lot of
09:41 investment and there is a risk it could lead to a business. Those are things we can remedy
09:47 quite quickly here without government intervention. It's about focus, it's about moral priorities,
09:52 and it's about putting emphasis and supporting those businesses so we don't lose them.
09:56 We're going to identify this problem if you wish to. What line of work is that in there?
10:01 Yes, so it's a new green technology business.
10:04 Is it building cars?
10:07 It's developing the technology to be used for battery technology.
10:13 Battery technology. It's a manufacturer.
10:16 It is, indeed, yes.
10:17 I mean, do you envisage then, from what you've said, this is perfectly possible,
10:21 things such as batteries, solar panels, which have been imported from the far-off,
10:26 in-store from developing countries. Do you believe that could be built in overhanging
10:30 both the Warsaw Agreement?
10:32 I think it's perfectly possible, not least because if we're exporting cars into the
10:35 European Union, which is an important export destination, we've got to meet what we call
10:39 local rules of origin. So you're not going to get away with importing cheap alternatives
10:44 from China. You have to show that you've produced them here in the UK in order to be
10:48 able to export them into the EU.
10:49 When I talk to businesses, the biggest issue stopping growing, developing,
10:54 and investing is a lack of skills. We've got the workforce. The problem is we've got
10:58 a quarter of the workforce in the West Midlands with very low skills. Not only
11:05 does it mean that those people's investment of money is at no pay, but certainly it also
11:11 means that we're not providing the skills that businesses need if they're going to
11:15 grow and develop. Those issues can be remedied on the ground here. I'm going to give investing
11:19 skills a laser focus. I'm committed to creating 150,000 new jobs and apprenticeships
11:25 over my first term by doing exactly that.