An all-party group delegation of Birmingham politicians has issued a statement following talks with Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday.
Team Birmingham, comprising several of the city’s MPs together with council leader Sir Albert Bore, members of the Conservative and Liberal groups on the council and local business leaders, said, “We had a very positive meeting with the Prime Minister. He was interested in our ideas to encourage economic growth with the council, business and other partners continuing to work together.
We will now be deepening the dialogue with government around the proposals we’ve made, particularly with Greg Clark, Minister for Cities.
In particular we welcome the Prime Minister’s encouragement for an integrated transport plan for an area extending beyond the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership.
We have also had an extremely good response to our proposition that Birmingham is perfectly placed to pioneer radical new ways of delivering business support through new partnership arrangements. The Prime Minister has indicated that we should pursue this with Michael Heseltine who is conducting a review on business support services and is due to report in October.
In addition, the Prime Minister has indicated to us that there is a massive deal to be done around the Birmingham Energy Savers programme, which has the potential to deliver 8,000 new jobs by 2020.
We also had positive discussions around a number of other issues – Birmingham Airport where he confirmed that Birmingham will be part of the upcoming airports review; business led proposals in support of inward investment; and the continuing innovative approaches to education and skills.
Throughout, the Prime Minister stressed that it was our responsibility to make robust proposals but it is government’s responsibility to remove any obstacles.
Today the Prime Minister heard the voice of Birmingham, all three political parties and the business community. He expressed his eagerness to take forward an agenda that has the backing of the political parties, the business community and other agencies. This was and will remain a team Birmingham initiative.”