George Osborne claimed in his budget speech that his government was a better friend to the North of England than Labour, and cited as evidence that growth in the North West was faster than any other region.
As ever with claims made in a highly charged political environment, it’s always worth checking the facts before making judgement.
In this case the Chancellor was using the data rather selectively. His claim of the North West growing faster than elsewhere is only true if you look at the change from 2012 to 2013. (In the chart you can see the slope for the North West for that one-year period is slightly steeper than for other regions).
Extend the series only two years further back and the North West saw slower growth than almost every other region. They key driver was 2010 to 2011 when the North West slumped relative to the rest of the country and has not even nearly recovered its relative position.
Needless to say, it is a source of deep frustration that regional economic data for 2014 isn’t likely to be available until the end of 2015 (are you listening Office for National Statistics?). So we can’t at this stage know whether the North West’s relative recovery will gather pace or stall. All we can say is that, on the basis of the 2010 to 2013 data that we have available, it is rather premature to laud the performance of the North West as some kind of economic powerhouse.
As ever with claims made in a highly charged political environment, it’s always worth checking the facts before making judgement.
In this case the Chancellor was using the data rather selectively. His claim of the North West growing faster than elsewhere is only true if you look at the change from 2012 to 2013. (In the chart you can see the slope for the North West for that one-year period is slightly steeper than for other regions).
Extend the series only two years further back and the North West saw slower growth than almost every other region. They key driver was 2010 to 2011 when the North West slumped relative to the rest of the country and has not even nearly recovered its relative position.
Needless to say, it is a source of deep frustration that regional economic data for 2014 isn’t likely to be available until the end of 2015 (are you listening Office for National Statistics?). So we can’t at this stage know whether the North West’s relative recovery will gather pace or stall. All we can say is that, on the basis of the 2010 to 2013 data that we have available, it is rather premature to laud the performance of the North West as some kind of economic powerhouse.
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