© Elsam

Will Cameron help Clegg deliver jobs in the North?

Public spending cuts are hitting people hard across the country. But it's in the North where people are most vulnerable - many northern cities are heavily dependent on the jobs that the public sector provides, like Nick Clegg's own adopted Sheffield.

So it was good to hear Mr Clegg claim yesterday that "'never again' would whole swathes of the North be economically 'left for dead'". But how will he and his coalition partners ensure this? Particularly as Bank of England Governor Mervyn King piled on the gloom yesterday, with warnings of higher than hoped inflation and lower than expected growth.

One hope is from a burgeoning growth in green industry, particularly in the North. Yesterday, Tees Valley Unlimited published a new report showing just that - the huge, growing supply chain for businesses servicing and building the offshore-wind industry. Hundreds of businesses, connected together, creating jobs and wealth in the North East of England, with the potential for hundreds more. This area urgently needs strong industry - research for the BBC showed that Middlesborough was the most vulnerable place in England to cuts in public spending. Nearby Redcar was the 6^th in the list.  

But this boom is at risk - many investors are now waiting to see the outcome of the many government policy reviews on energy, which could yet be either very bad or very good for areas like Teesside.

The Government should be helping sectors like this grow more. Sadly, our dinosaur Treasury does not yet believe in "green growth", and if anything is out to stifle green industry. It's been lobbying for the Government not to adopt the Committee on Climate Change's targets for decarbonising our electricity sector, on outdated "it-will-damage-UK-competitiveness" grounds. In fact, progressive businesses are lobbying for the UK to adopt these targets. The Treasury has already put a huge spike in the wheel of the solar industry by hacking at feed-in-tariffs, and stopped the Green Investment Bank from borrowing for 5 years.

The next couple of months are the biggest test of whether David Cameron will pull rank on this dinosaur department. Decisions are pending on whether to accept the Committee on Climate Change's advice, on set-up of the Green Investment Bank, and the framework for Electricity Market Reform.

Help UK renewables grow, and it will generate jobs in the North for Nick Clegg, and growth for Vince Cable and George Osborne. Stifle it, and we lose economic opportunities and jobs to Germany and China, and remain ever more dependent on spiralling prices of imported oil, coal and gas.