Labour leader Ed Miliband will herald the biggest devolution of power to England's great towns and cities in a hundred years as the next stage of One Nation Labour's plan to tackle the 'cost-of-living crisis'. In a speech in Birmingham, he will set out the interim conclusions of Andrew Adonis's Growth Review recommending the end of a century of centralisation by at least doubling the level of devolved funding - handing control of the equivalent of more than £20 billion to City and County Regions over the course of a parliament.
He will say these measures will be included in Labour's election manifesto as another key component of his One Nation plan to halt the race to the bottom - in wages, skills, prospects and productivity - which has left millions of families in the grip of the cost-of-living crisis. Mr Miliband will announce that the process of devolution has already begun with he and Ed Balls writing to the leaders of every council, university and Local Enterprise Partnership asking them to draw up joint plans to boost growth and private sector jobs in their regions.
Those regions that meet strict tests established by the Adonis Review, will be given new powers over transport and housing infrastructure funding, as well as for the Work Programme and skills, he will say. He will underline his message in today's Independent that the central mission of the next Labour government will be to restore the link between the wealth of our nation and family finances. He will counter Tory claims that the structural weaknesses of the economy have been fixed or that the 'cost-of-living crisis' has been solved as he highlights official figures showing how, on current projections, middle-income salaries will continue to lag behind growth for years to come.
Building on policy announcements, made by Labour, on wages and prices over the last six months to tackle the 'cost-of-living crisis;, the main focus of Mr Miliband's speech is on jobs. And he say that, in an era of tough fiscal constraint when Labour will balance the books in the next Parliament, new middle income quality private sector jobs will be crucial to restoring the link between growth and living standards.
In addition to the devolution policy, Mr Miliband will highlight five other key planks in the economic agenda has already set out: greater competition in the banking sector to improve lending to business; revolutionising skills and vocational education; removing some of the predatory short-term pressures afflicting great British companies; supporting small firms by cutting business rates; and protecting British exports by staying in the European Union. Taken together, Labour say, this will help halt the hollowing-out of the middle class and create the conditions in which hundreds of thousands of high skill, high wage, high-tech, high productivity private sector jobs can flourish.
