Tory Government would scrap all RDAs except the one in London, says shadow minister

Oct 30 2009 by Tom Scotney, Birmingham Post

A member of the shadow cabinet yesterday stunned his Birmingham audience by confirming the Conservative party would abolish regional development agencies – except for the one in London.

The comments by Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the shadow minister for international trade and development, sparked incredulity among the 150-strong audience at the conference being held at Aston Business School. Business leaders in the audience described the comments as London-centric, and another blow to the West Midlands.

Mr Clifton-Brown emphasised that, should the Tories win the General Election RDAs would go.

“By and large they are going to be abolished,” he said. “It is quite unnecessary to have an RDA structure. It is a tier of government which is not needed.”

RDAs having offices around the world competing for inward investment was a “hugely wasteful” system; this role would be upscaled and handed to UK Trade & Investment, the government agency responsible for promoting international trade. The planning role of RDAs would be transferred to local councils.

He said Conservative plans meant some small teams would be left in the regions as a first point of contact for inward investors and exporters, but that would be it.

He then shocked his listeners by declaring that the London RDA would continue, producing a ripple of protest around the room at the Financing Recovery conference.

Afterwards, two leading industrialists condemned the apparent contradiction.