BUSINESS Secretary Vince Cable will today pledge to help get the North-East back to its “glory days as the workshop of Britain” during a visit to the North-East.

Mr Cable will be in Redcar for a tour of the Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) blast furnace, which was relit last month, two years after the plant was mothballed.

He will also announce the handover of a £1.4m grant to SSI from the Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF) for a staff training programme.

The money was promised last year, but due diligence has only just been completed, allowing the award to go ahead.

The grant is part of a £7.3m scheme to update the skills of longer-term employees and train new staff at the plant, which employs 1,800 people.

A £6.7m RGF grant for a new manufacturing plant at Lotte Chemical, based at the nearby Wilton International chemical complex, will also be confirmed today.

The plant will develop resins for use in the manufacture of bottles, containers and trays used in food packaging, creating 55 jobs and safeguarding 173.

Mr Cable’s visit to the North-East comes less than a week after figures showed a 4.5 per cent drop in the average wage for the region’s workers during the past year and a 6,000 rise in unemployment in the three months to the end of March.

Yesterday, details of the Government’s controversial plans for regional pay for civil servants were reported by a Sunday newspaper.

According to The Observer, four geographical pay zones would be created, with workers in the North-East on the lowest scale.

Earlier this year, Mr Cable said the North-East was the English region that had struggled the most after the economic crash.

He will tell workers at SSI today: “Boosting British manufacturing is central to this Government’s mission to create long-term growth that is balanced between sectors and regions of the UK.

“For too long, the British economy has relied exclusively on the City of London, ignoring places like Teesside.

“I want to see regions of the UK like the North-East, which were once the workshops of Britain, get back to their glory days.

“The restart of the plant is fantastic news for the region as it will have a major impact on local growth and prosperity, creating about 8,000 jobs.

“SSI and its workforce have done an incredible job over the past year to get the plant up and running again and to expand production capacity.”

SSI and Lotte Chemicals were awarded the RGF grants last year, but have only received the money today because of delays carrying out legal and financial checks.

SSI UK chief executive Phil Dryden said Mr Cable’s visit to the plant was welcome. He said: “SSI has spent about £1bn to bring the plant back into operation, which has secured 1,800 direct jobs.

“Part of that investment relates to the major training requirement, which was necessary to start up the plant.”

The SSI grant is one of the largest RGF payouts yet.