BRITAIN’S economy would be partly run from Liverpool under radical Liberal Democrat plans to end London’s stranglehold on government.
The thousands of staff at the Treasury – Gordon Brown’s most important department – would be moved to the city in the most dramatic relocation of Civil Service jobs yet proposed.
In his first speech on the economy, new Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg accused the Prime Minister of failing “disgracefully” in his pledge to boost regional cities by shifting public sector employment.
The solution was to exploit modern technology by moving entire government departments – starting with the Treasury, which has been based in Whitehall for hundreds of years.
Only the few most senior Treasury staff, those who must report face-to-face to Chancellor Alistair Darling and other ministers, would remain in central London.
Mr Clegg said: “Disgracefully, the Lyons Review proposals to move Civil Servants from expensive central London locations have fallen pretty flat.
“I want to see radical proposals – like moving the Treasury out of London to a cheaper location, like Liverpool.
“There’s just no need for civil servants who don’t have contact with ministers to be based in one of the most expensive districts in the world.”
Mr Clegg’s aides said Liverpool had been picked as the Treasury’s new home because the city “was a great destination, has affordable costs, and is very well connected to the rest of the country”.
Part of the thinking was the long-running criticism that Britain’s economy – in particular, the strong pound – has been run for the benefit of the City of London, at the expense of manufacturing in the North.
The proposal goes much further than previous Lib-Dem suggestions to move an agency, such as the Charity Commission or the Food Standards Agency, to Liverpool, to spread the nation’s wealth.
However, no location in Liverpool has been identified and moving the Treasury has not been properly costed. It would meet with howls of protests from staff working in the capital.
Mr Brown, when Chancellor, announced as long ago as 2004 that around 20,000 Civil Service jobs would be relocated to the regions over 15 years.
Michael Lyons, now the chairman of the BBC, was appointed to identify which jobs could be moved most easily and to where. So far, fewer than half have been relocated.
Last year, the Daily Post uncovered that just under 1,000 posts were earmarked for Merseyside and Cheshire. The Department for Work and Pensions (466) accounted for around half.
But the Prime Minister’s most-trumpeted slimming down of the Civil Service means that, even with the transferred jobs, the Government will employ fewer people in the region than in 1997, when Labour came to power.
In the speech, Mr Clegg accused Mr Brown of leaving Britain’s finances “in such a mess” that any incoming government would struggle to boost spending.
Instead, he committed the Lib-Dems to finding £20bn of savings and to cutting four pence off the basic rate of income tax, to pay for harsher “green taxes” on pollution.
