THERE was standing room only at Newcastle’s Centre for Life last Friday as business and council leaders gathered to hear an update on the Lord Andrew Adonis Report.

The former transport minister is a willowy figure who admits his Adonis moniker contravenes the Trade Descriptions Act. His blueprint for the North-East economy certainly struggled to stir the passions of delegates.

All the speakers I heard – I will admit I did not stick around for the whole seven-hour session – received gentle applause, while questions from the floor were disappointingly tame. You would be forgiven for thinking that everyone agreed with everything being proposed.

Urgent action is needed to support young jobseekers in our region who face significantly bleaker prospects than their counterparts in Southern shires.

“Who is responsible for taking a lead on improving skills?” Answer, “We all are” was a typically vapid exchange at Friday’s event that veered dangerously close to looking like a talking shop for the well heeled.

It is hard to disagree with the broad aims of the report, commissioned by the North-East LEP, that wants to create more and better jobs, double apprenticeships and make the region an innovation hotbed.

Away from the conference floor people were more forthcoming – voicing concerns that the report failed to fully take account of challenges faced by small firms or the unemployed and that little tangible progress had been made since Adonis’ review got its first public airing in April. These types of matters would have been better debated in public.

The risk of the kind of gentle consensus I saw on Friday is that no one takes responsibility for driving change and nothing improves in the short-term.

IS the region’s special relationship with the US on the rocks? The latest trade figures show that France is now the second biggest importer of our products behind the Netherlands, with the US, where North-East exports fell by 54.9 per cent, slipping to third place – after relinquishing top spot earlier this year.

The French, who outlawed UK beef during the mad cow crisis, buy about £1bn of North-East exports every year, including nearly £12m worth of livestock and food.

It is the latest reminder of the region’s heavy reliance on trade with Europe and the huge penalty we would pay – in jobs and investment – if the UK pulled out of the EU, an economic bloc larger than that of the US and Japan combined, with 500 million people and total GDP of about £11 trillion.

Nearly half of the region’s export business is done with members of the EU, supporting an estimated 170,000 North-East jobs. If the North-East is to maintain its positive balance of trade it needs to forge even closer links with key trading partners.

IN the run-up to party conference season, it is no surprise to hear George Osborne declare victory in his battle over austerity.

North-East unemployment rose by 4,000 to 134,000 – 10.4 per cent – in the quarter to May, whereas, unemployment nationally fell by 57,000 to 2.51 million – 7.8 per cent – during the same period. There is a danger that any recovery taking place in the South is leaving regions like ours lagging behind.

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