PARTS of the North West hit hardest by public spending cuts will receive emergency help from the Coalition Government, Lib Dem Nick Clegg has promised.
The Deputy Prime Minister insisted that regions which are heavily dependent on public service jobs would not be “left high and dry” as the public purse is slashed.
In an interview with The Independent, Mr Clegg said special measures are being prepared to ease the impact on parts of the North West, and in the North East, South Yorkshire and London.
Initiatives could include job creation schemes, though the emphasis would be on encouraging private companies to expand in the hope they will take on redundant public sector workers, he said.
Its not clear how the private sector, which depends to a large extent on public service contracts, will be able to help provide jobs when its own sources of funding have been axed.
“I am as aware as anyone else of the dangers of the disproportionate impact on those areas of the country which are very dependent on public sector employment,” Clegg said.
“What you will see over the next few weeks and months is a series of measures that we are taking to ensure that, as the black hole is addressed, it’s done in a way which is sensitive – much more sensitive than in previous recessions – to the particular need of those parts of the country that are very dependent on the public purse.”
Mr Clegg described former Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws’s sudden departure over his expenses claims as “a tragedy”.
Millionaire Mr Laws, who announced £6billion worth of cuts to public services, had pocketed £40,000 of taxpayers money for renting a room in his partner’s £500,000 home.
But Mr Clegg insisted that the crisis in the first three week’s of the Government had made the coalition stronger.
“The key thing is the Government remains absolutely on track in what we set out to do in our coalition agreement and that is unaffected by the weekend’s events.
“If anything, in a strange kind of way, the internal cohesion of a government – of any government, never mind a coalition – is often strengthened by how it reacts to unexpected setbacks and I think that is probably true in this case as well.”
Discussing his own relationship with Prime Minister David Cameron, he said: “We speak every day, if not several times a day – it’s a very strong working partnership.”
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