The first Labour budget in fourteen years has demonstrated that, once again, Labour has forgotten about our city. Not so many years ago, Stoke-on-Trent was a feature of Conservative budgets and statements read out by the Chancellor.
Whether that was over £50 million of Levelling-Up monies (with over £30 million still left unspent by the Labour-run City Council), funding to re-open the Leek-Stoke line and Meir Station, plus other funding commitments such as over £60 million to improve buses, roads and Stoke Railway Station.
Yet, Labour’s first budget since the election doesn't mention Stoke-on-Trent once. Labour is determined to stop our city from growing and succeeding. Labour does not want Stoke-on-Trent to be the best it can be. It doesn't want the city to achieve. Labour's increase in national insurance contributions by companies to 15% will mean fewer jobs in places like Stoke-on-Trent. We need government investment and help, not higher taxes and scrapped regeneration projects. Our previous Conservative MPs secured 500 Home Office jobs for the city. The plan was to construct a new purpose-built office in the city centre to anchor them into the city for over twenty-five years. The jobs came. But plans for the new building? Labour has scrapped them. The Home Office is just a tenant in a council building, and what do you think will happen when the lease is up? They'll most likely leave.
Another critical regeneration and infrastructure project scrapped is Meir Station. This station would have brought new jobs and education opportunities to Meir and the south of the city. The station would have connected Meir to Nottingham and Manchester via Crewe. Another scrapped project is any hope of a railway or other alternative to connect the city with Leek and the Moorlands. Other projects sitting on the shelf by the Labour Council and Labour government are Tunstall, Longton, Stoke and Hanley Levelling-Up projects — over £30 million of taxpayers' money sitting there at the City Council.
The only Levelling-Up project going is the Goods Yard by Stoke Station, and the only reason that is happening is because the Conservatives signed the contract before Labour took control of the City Council. Time ran out to sign the other agreements, and now the sites sit derelict as they have done for decades.
The Transport Plan, which the previously Conservative-run City Council developed for the next ten years, is another critical plan scrapped by Labour. A decision that delays work to improve our roads, junctions, pathways, bus routes, and canals. Labour's decision to scrap it prevents the city from looking to develop other zero-emission methods of transport, such as light rail, aka a tram network, by the end of the 2050s.
At every turn, the Labour Council and the Labour Government are stopping, scrapping or leaving critical projects that our city badly needs suspended in never-ending 'reviews'. Why? The answer is simple. Labour does not want Stoke-on-Trent to succeed.
The Labour Party believes that the city is best where it is, with no growth or new opportunities. Stopping government investment, whether through Levelling-Up money, transport improvements, or a permanent home for the Home Office, stops solid foundations for the private sector to offer better jobs and create wealth. The Labour government's tax on jobs – seeing companies now having to pay 15% National Insurance contributions – will hurt business in the city, whether that is local shops and cafes down our high streets or the remaining ceramic companies.
Jobs will be lost. But that won't concern Labour politicians in Stoke-on-Trent. They don't want you to have opportunities. They don't want private companies and enterprises to set up shop in our city. If they did, they'd have delivered the Levelling-Up projects, carried on re-opening local railway stations, secured new government office buildings and not put a tax on job creators and businesses.
