“The Tory-led government came into office five years ago promising to rebalance Britain’s economy but instead we’ve seen things go into reverse. They abolished the Regional Development Agencies without a proper replacement – a decision which even the Business Secretary now admits caused chaos. Local Enterprise Partnerships have not been properly supported, coverage has been patchy and we’ve seen the government’s flagship scheme, the Regional Growth Fund, dogged by chaos and delay.

“This is little more than a re-announcement of existing spending allocations which were published in July last year for 2015-16.

“Ministers have opposed Labour’s ambitious plans to give local areas the powers and budgets they need to drive growth, devolving £30 billion of budgets away from Westminster and enabling combined authorities to retain more income from business rates. Where the Tory-led government has failed to support every part of Britain to succeed, it will be left to the next Labour government to act.”