Is the Northern Powerhouse a Casualty of Brexit?

Author Cnbrb Licence  CCO 1.0 Source Wikimedia Commons

Jane Lambert

The announcements in the Department for Transport's Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands of the cancellation of HS3 and the spur of the HS2 to Leeds and Sheffield were as predictable as they were regrettable. It would appear from Helen Pidd's article Government planning ‘to put HS2 on stilts through Manchester’ in The Guardian on 19 Nov 2021 that even the western spur is to be constructed on the cheap. The reason for the announcements is that the current government regards the Northern Powerhouse project as an exercise in regional development, not unlike similar projects of the last 100 years, rather than the construction of a conurbation of 6 million people to serve as a vibrant industrial, commercial and cultural counterweight to London.

As I said in Northern Powerhouse in 2017:

"The Northern Powerhouse was conceived in the days of the Coalition by the former Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, and the former Chancellor, George Osborne, as a strategy to stimulate economic growth in the North of England by developing the principal cities of the North of England into a counterweight to London through improving transport links and investing heavily in science, technology, the arts and education (see the speech by the Rt Hon George Osborne “We need a Northern powerhouse” 23 June 2014)."

I added:

"Sadly, the present Chancellor, Philip Hammond, lacked his predecessor’s vision. His Northern Powerhouse Strategy has diluted and downgraded the idea of an integrated Liverpool to Leeds conurbation as a viable counterweight to London to a general regional development programme like many others before it for the area north of the Humber and Mersey to the Scottish border."

Hammond has been replaced by Sunak but his vision appears to be just as limited. 

In more than one sense, the Northern Powerhouse is a casualty of Brexit.   Osborne literally as he was removed from his post by May. Clegg lost his seat the year before the referendum but it was pressure for a referendum that swept the Tories back to power with a sufficient majority to govern alone.  However, maybe the idea of a mega-city in the North of England makes less sense when the domestic market suddenly shrinks from 510 million to 67 million.

Before Brexit maps of Britain showed the spurs of HS2 extending from Manchester to Glasgow in the west and from Leeds to Newcastle and Edinburgh in the east but what is the point if Scotland secedes?  The thought that the future boundaries of the state will run from Berwick to Carlisle may well have coloured the decision to abandon a tunnel to Piccadilly and run the new trains into the centre of Manchester on stilts,

Anyone wishing to discuss this article can call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.

Nesta's Inventor Prize

Jane Lambert

In "Harnessing the Potential of the UK's Home Grown Inventors" - The Government's Proposed Industrial Strategy 24 Jan 2017 Inventors Club, I mentioned the government's commitment to:

"....... seek to harness the potential of the UK’s home-grown inventors and stimulate user led innovation by launching a challenge prize programme. This prize, which will be piloted through the NESTA Challenge Prize Centre, will help inform our support to the ‘everyday entrepreneurs’ operating in companies and at home – such as through supporting enabling environments, incubators and maker spaces."

To my great joy and surprise, the  government has already started to implement its commitment by advertising for new IP policy advisors for the North and Midlands (see Implementing the Industrial Strategy: IPO seeks new Business Support Policy Adviser 25 Jan 2017 IP North West) and by collaborating with Nesta to "pilot an ‘inventor’ prize that will inspire and harness the potential of the UK’s home-grown inventors and stimulate user-led innovation" (see Announcing the Inventor Prize 24 Jan 2017).

I was even more delighted by the compliment that Nesta paid to two Yorkshire inventors in that announcement:

"But we are also looking for everyday inventors that see a problem in their daily lives and have an idea for a way of solving it in a way that improves people’s lives. This is a search for a modern day Percy Shaw - a Yorkshireman who repaired roads in the 1930s and whose light bulb moment was the invention of the ‘cat’s eye’ that helps prevent car accidents at night. Or more recently Emily Cummins, who at 19 years old invented an award-winning solar evaporation refrigerator."

 Yorkshire may trail London, South East England, the South West, East of England, West Midlands, North West and Scotland in the number of patent applications but there is no denying the quality of inventions that emanate from this county.

I will do everything I can to support this initiative. One of the ways in which I can do that is through the Inventors Club, Through that website I shall try to offer a wide range of services. I can help with advice on intellectual property ("IP") and, in particular, with patents (see also my Patents FAQ and IP Glossary). To help inventors, entrepreneurs, their investors and professional advisors throughout the North West and the rest of the country I have expanded and improved my IP service (see Immediate IP First Aid Nationwide 25 Jan 2017.

If you have a new product and are wondering how best to protect it, if you are thinking of launching a new business and are thinking of registering a trade mark, if you have received a solicitor's letter accusing you of infringing someone's copyright, design, patent or trade mark, if you think someone is infringing one of your IP rights or you have any legal question relating to branding, design, technology or creative works, call me on 020 7404 5252 or send me a message through my contact form.