North Wales economy

Jack Sargeant MS

The question of the future of our economy is about what sort of our communities we want and what sort of lives our residents want to lead. I want to see a thriving economy in North Wales that delivers for residents, tackles inequality, and empowers communities. We need an economy which recognises that we face a threat in climate change that, if left unchecked, will be catastrophic. This will require listening to all our businesses and not just those with the resources to be heard.

I’ll start by saying we must learn lessons from the past and quite timely for writing this piece, P&O have presented us with a reminder of what we don’t want our future to be like. A low wage, deregulated economy might be attractive to some, but not to me. Those that shake their heads at P&O, but support deregulation and the disempowerment of workers have brought us here and should reflect on this. I want workers, communities, and business to all prosper and to achieve that we need to empower them all.

This is such a broad subject that someone could write a book on the topic. Instead, I am going to focus my remarks here on areas I have talked about before and I feel I can add some real value on.

The first is manufacturing, I am a trained engineer who worked in manufacturing in North Wales and understand first hand how important manufacturing is to our economy. This is particularly the case in my own constituency of Alyn and Deeside. I have written before about the need for us to adopt the Green New Deal model in Wales. The three pillars of any deal would be renewable energy infrastructure, sustainable transport and retrofitting houses for energy efficiency. The latter has the additional bonus of directly addressing fuel poverty, an issue at the forefront of all our minds as the cap lifts on energy prices.

Delivering a green new deal isn’t just about our local economy, it’s about averting climate disaster. We need to forge a sustainable future in a way that benefits communities and combats inequality. If we are to achieve that, we will need North Wales manufacturing to take the lead. This isn’t me being parochial, it is based in the reality that building such products requires skills; skills that are already available in North Wales.

This is a conversation I started last year. Holding an event with policy makers, business, and academia on the benefits of a green new deal. People in industry are best placed to set out where the present skill gaps are and how we address this. Skills is not a side issue. If we don’t keep training people to do the jobs of the future, we will be unable to progress.

You may also have seen me write about the importance of Banc Cambria and community banking. This development has the potential to be emblematic of the sort of economy we want to build. The high street banks have had ample time to demonstrate what immoral actors they often are. The financial crisis is the obvious example, but the difficulty many small and medium sized firms have has in accessing credit and financial products is holding back communities. Bank branch closures continue to damage our highstreets.

I am a huge supporter of Banc Cambria as a step towards the redirecting of our economic priorities towards developing an economy rooted in Wales which is both more sustainable, and has a clear sense of social purpose.

Banc Cambria will have a clear set of principles to guide its policies, and they will be most strikingly about supporting the local. Currently people and organisations cannot choose to invest in their local area; community banking makes this an option, capturing our own money to invest back into north Wales.

A community bank will provide Welsh Government, Local Authorities and the rest of the Welsh public sector with an excellent investment opportunity. It would also provide a reliable and sympathetic source of investment capital to Small and Medium Enterprises across Wales. With customers part of its ownership and governance, the bank will have an incentive to adapt to their needs rather than the needs of external shareholders.

This echoes the ethos of proponents of the foundational economy which you can read about elsewhere.

We cannot talk about the north Wales economy without talking about infrastructure. I have spent over a year now working with the 5G EDC project consortium led by Bangor University on a digital connectivity project. It is clear we have a fair way to go if we are to be where we should be.

This project is about looking to the future and developing the next generation of projects. Our connectivity goals can’t just be about making sure everyone has high speed broadband when the future might be based on 5G and its successors. I want North Wales to lead the way in developing the next generation of technology in this field.

As I said above, there are certain subjects that can’t be fully captured in a short piece and that is certainly the case for transport infrastructure in North Wales. Deregulation of the bus industry has left us with a fragmented network which doesn’t serve many communities and only really runs services on already popular routes.

We have got to be able to build a bus work that enables people to use public transport to get wherever they need to be, whether that be for work, accessing services or social interaction. I really welcome the Welsh Government’s commitment to reregulation and putting passenger before profit.

I am always happy to talk about the north east Wales metro as an example of Welsh Labour’s ambition to improve transport connectivity. We now need to see real progress.

Finally, the links between my community and the north west of England are crucial to the economy of north Wales. Go to any major employer in my area or over the border and you will meet people from Wales and England. I always say this but it is in South Wales that we are separated by a bridge, here in Alyn and Deeside its two sides of a road. We need to work together to plan transport connectivity and skills if the future of our economy is to be bright.

I want a fairer, greener more prosperous North Wales. I hope some of what I have written resonates with decision makers, and I will continue to push the case for North Wales.

Jack Sargeant is the Senedd member for Alyn and Deeside