BUSINESS Secretary Lord Mandelson will today accuse the Conservatives of threatening the North West’s chances of economic recovery.

He will claim that opposition plans to replace the regional development agency (RDA) with a “local enterprise partnership” made up of local authorities and business leaders are “senseless.”

In a speech in Manchester, he will say that Merseyside and its environs are in prime position to become a regional power house.

But the opposition blueprint will mean “lesser investment, higher unemployment and reversed regeneration.”

He will say: “The strength of RDA comes from insisting on the importance of local expertise and knowledge, but taking a regional rather than a parochial view so that you get the right economies of scale and so that you’re pulling smaller towns into the orbit of the big dynamic cities.

“I don’t want to get lynched for saying it, but it makes sense for Manchester and Liverpool, for example, to be collaborating rather than competing.

“Except on the football field, of course.”

But his Conservative Shadow, Ken Clarke, insisted that the aim was to reform the functions of RDAs.

He said: “Whilst we recognise the RDAs have had some local success, we believe the current arrangements can be improved.

“We want to strengthen local economic development.”