Today Greater Manchester sets out on what is arguably the most ambitious trade mission undertaken by a UK city-region outside London.
We are heading first to North Carolina, in partnership with the Government, and will become the first place to carry out an official visit there since the signing of a new trade agreement.
From there it’s onto Texas, where Manchester will attempt a one-day take-over of Austin’s world-famous South By South West conference with none other than New Order leading the charge for us, supported by upcoming bands Loose Articles, Ist Ist and The Orielles.
Audacious perhaps — but then we do have history with South By. In the early 2000s, its founders were close to Tony Wilson of Factory Records fame.
It will be a poignant moment for us in Austin when Tony’s son Oli launches our new international music conference — Beyond The Music — with the help of Bernard, Stephen, Gillian, Tom and Phil from New Order. True to our city’s disruptive roots, Beyond The Music will be run by a co-operative organisation and will challenge the music industry to promote real change.
We will also be telling the world about two world-class venues coming soon to Manchester: Factory International and Co-op Live, the second-largest indoor music arena in Europe. If all this weren’t enough, we end the trip in New York where we hope to clinch a major investment. Does this sound ambitious? I hope so. It’s meant to make a statement and, yes, raise eyebrows in London.
The simple fact that Manchester has the confidence to mount a mission on this scale says something about the way our city, and the country, is changing.
It asserts that, for all of our ongoing concerns about transport in the North, levelling-up is in fact starting to happen.
When George Osborne first proposed a Northern Powerhouse, Greater Manchester was given £300 million to create new homes and jobs. It worked spectacularly well. A decade on the Manchester skyline has changed dramatically — “Manc-hattan”. This caught the attention of investors and is a reason why we became the fastest-growing digital and tech hub in Europe.
How many people in the US, with images of old industrial Manchester in mind, are aware of that change? Too few, which explains why we’re targeting cities experiencing similar growth like Charlotte and Austin. More uncomfortably, how many people in London, know about it? Sadly not enough — and that means we’ve all got some reflecting to do on the stage we’ve reached on the UK’s levelling-up journey. For our part, while we will continue to campaign for better transport, we have to be careful that it doesn’t create too much negative noise that puts investors off. We must celebrate the fact that a London-style integrated transport system for Manchester is now less than two years away.
For the country’s part, we need to start sending a new message: the UK is more than London. I say this not as provocation towards Londoners but because it’s a message the country needs to land with the rest of the world if it’s to prosper in the post-Brexit era.
For too long globally the UK has been less than the sum of its parts. We need to make it more. That’s in London’s interests too if it is to stop over-heating and ever-increasing property inflation.
There is a simple reason why we can be confident that the change we’re seeing in cities like Manchester and Birmingham is sustainable: devolution is working and, I hope, about to deepen.
The backdrop to our US visit is a Budget which will be heavily focused on the need for regional growth. It will be a real mid-trip boost for our mission if the Government confirms a positive outcome from the “Trailblazer” devolution talks with ourselves and the West Midlands. We have both asked for more regional control of the post-16 skills system. This would allow us to give better answers to potential investors who cite talent supply as their priority.
We also want more influence over overseas trade promotion, so that we can show that modern Britain is more than Beefeaters and Big Ben. If we can land a new devolution deal along these lines, you would hope that the same powers would be extended to all cities in time, including London, and that perhaps brings forward the day when Manchester and London will be carrying out joint-trade missions around the world. What a double act that would be!
For the avoidance of doubt, our message is not an aggressive “move over London”. It’s more a friendly Northern “budge up and give us a bit of space”.
