WHEN we first encountered the Rt Rev Justin Welby as he took up his post as Bishop of Durham last year, he told us that one of his priorities was to place the Church at the heart of the regeneration of the North-East.

The Bishop has stayed true to that objective, taking every opportunity to promote the region’s qualities, opportunities and needs.

Yesterday, he made his maiden speech in the House of Lords and the regeneration of the North-East was his theme.

He praised the North-East’s sense of innovation but appealed for more to be done to boost business confidence in the region and to address skills gaps in engineering.

Bishop Welby told the Lords he was privileged to be patron of The Northern Echo’s Foundation for Jobs campaign, launched in association with Darlington Borough Council and Darlington Partnership.

The campaign aims to increase the number of jobs, apprenticeships and internships for young people, as well as building better links between employers and schools. It has made a highly promising start, but there is much still to do.

The fact that the Bishop’s maiden speech in the House of Lords coincided yesterday with a 6,000 rise in the number of North-East people who were unemployed in the first quarter of the year again underlines the importance of that campaign.

We too feel privileged to have the Bishop of Durham as our campaign patron as he bangs the drum so passionately for the North-East.