A North East mayor has hit out at the Government over plans to heavily scale back one of Liz Truss’ flagship policies.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt confirmed in his Autumn Statement last week that he would “change” the Government’s approach to investment zones, proposed areas where businesses would have been given tax breaks under plans in his predecessor Kwasi Kwarteng’s infamous mini-budget in September. It had been claimed that bids to create two such zones, where planning rules would also have been relaxed, across Newcastle, Northumberland, and North Tyneside would create 23,000 new jobs and see 8,000 new homes built.
But with Rishi Sunak’s administration now seeming to backtrack on the idea, North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll has slammed the Government for performing such a quickfire U-turn after council officials across the country had scrambled to put bids together. The Labour mayor told a North of Tyne Combined Authority (NTCA) meeting on Tuesday that the rapid policy reversal was “no way to be treating hard working officers across the country".
