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Northerners need to accept lower wages because ‘London is London’, according to top Rishi Sunak aide
Tim Leunig was once accused by Labour of seeing the North as a ‘lost cause’
Comments made by a top aide to Rishi Sunak have resurfaced today that claim Northerners should accept lower wages because the cost of living in the capital is more expensive.
According to a think tank report called Cities Unlimited, the Chancellor’s economic advisor Tim Leuing wrote in a 2008 paper: “The only way towns and cities that are less well connected… can compete to attract firms is to accept lower wages”.
The paper for the right-leaning Policy Exchange told ministers that they ‘need to accept above all that we cannot guarantee to regenerate every town and every city in Britain that has fallen behind’.
It reads: “We cannot, with the best will in the world, move JP Morgan to Blackburn, or Deutsche Bank to Sunderland.
“We may wish it otherwise, but we know that it will not happen. London is London.”
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The paper concluded there was ‘no realistic prospect’ that towns and cities ‘can converge with London and the South East’ as they ‘suffer from a much less attractive skills mix than London’.
Leunig, who was once accused by Labour of seeing the North as a ‘lost cause’, wrote: “The North, the power house of the industrial revolution, is now a less desirable location for business for reasons that are geographical and entirely outside its control or that of central and local government.
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Leunig went on to explain the benefits of expanding London, saying it was ‘below its optimal size’ and could continue to attract more workers from other parts of the UK.
He wrote: “We believe therefore that part of the solution to urban regeneration in areas far from London is to allow London to grow, so that some of the people living in those areas are able to migrate to London”.
According to The Mirror, Leunig was hired by Sajid Javid as economic advisor in 2019 and helps ministers with the Treasury’s long-term strategy.