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North East England: a brief economic history

North East England: a brief economic history. John Tomaney. History matters.

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North East England: a brief economic history

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  1. North East England: a brief economic history John Tomaney

  2. History matters Men make their own history but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living – Karl Marx.

  3. Northumbrians show the world

  4. The nature of growth Newcastle is a spacious, extended, infinitely populous place; ‘tis seated upon the River Tyne, which is here a noble, large and deep river, and ships of any reasonable burthen may come safely up to the very town. They build ships here to perfection, I mean as to strength, and firmness, and to bear the sea; and as the coal trade occasions a demand for such strong ships, a great many are built here. This gives an addition to the merchants business, in requiring a supply of all sorts of naval stores to fit out those ships. Daniel Defoe, A Tour through the whole island of Great Britain, 1724-6.

  5. A man’s world Will Lawther (1889-1976) Sir Charles Palmer (1822-1907)

  6. What kind of capitalism? • Paternalistic • Role of owner/manager as innovator • Role of landed aristocracy (esp. coal-mining) • Conflict → Accomodation (Labourism) • Extractive and manufacturing • Male dominated • Highly paid

  7. Interwar crisis

  8. Origins of regional policy • Inter-war crisis: uneven geography of growth and decline • Negative multipliers • Interventions • Industrial transference • Industrial reorganisation? • Special Areas Acts • Trading Estates (Team Valley) • Incentives and infrastructure approach

  9. Critiques • Colonel Methven: Team Valley created a ‘a heterogeneous mass of sundry and unrelated industries’ • Not a replacement for the cluster of C19th • Alternatives: Hugh Dalton (Labour) Eustace Percy (Conservative) • Royal Commission on local government

  10. State managed region? • Post war settlement: • 1944: White Paper on full employment (incl. ‘balanced distribution of industry and employment) • 1942: Beveridge Report: social insurance, NHS (1948), council housing (i.e. welfare state) • 1939: Barlow Report: territorial equity • 1947: Nationalisation (esp. coal)

  11. Post war regional policy

  12. 1950s: failure to act “… the old basic industries of iron and steel, shipbuilding and heavy engineering, which are now fully stretched by the defence programme, would be badly hit [by a future recession]. There is every likelihood that the Development Areas would then, as in the past, suffer severe localised unemployment, much greater than in the rest of the country.” — Board of Trade, 1951

  13. Hailsham and Beyond • Infrastructure and investment • Successful job creation? (FDI) • Modernisation • Limits • The missing growth pole? • Peterlee as ‘science city’? (Role of services?) • Land-use and economic planning • Northern Region Strategy Team (1977-79) • The emergence of the branch plant economy • Unstable institutions

  14. Research, analysis, action “We are concerned, however, not only with the extent but the quality of industrial growth. It is not enough that we should aim to have sufficient jobs to match the manpower available. We must aim at achieving a much larger share than in the past of modern-science based and capital intensive industries which show high productivity and provide well paid employment with a high skill content … We cannot be content that the region should become the home of factories engaged on assembly work. It must have its proper share of research and development units and of administration” ― Northern Economic Planning Council, 1966 (Challenge of the Changing North)

  15. Thatcherism → New Labour • Thatcherism • Reduced regional policy (but UDCs) • Deregulation (favoured services in south) • Openness to FDI (not strategy for indigenous development) • EU region policy • New Labour • New institutions • Commitment to reduce disparities? (PSA2)

  16. In search of an analysis • Many interventions, but enduring problems • Lessons: • Indigenous perspectives/insights overlooked • Lack of deeply founded and widely shared and analysis • Absence of strategic research capacity • Institutional discontinuity • Partial, poor interventions • New possibilities?

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