'Deeply disappointing': Michael Heseltine says Boris Johnson's economic recovery plan needs urgent rethink

Former Tory deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine has described Boris Johnson’s economic recovery speech as “deeply disappointing”, as he claimed there was a “glaring omission” to draw local leaders into talks over spending pledges.

Lord Heseltine’s scathing remarks follow the prime minister’s major address in Dudley earlier this week, where he outlined plans for £5 billion in accelerated spending, infrastructure investment and planning reform to try and fend off the severe effects of a looming recession.

Mr Johnson insisted he would not return to the austerity politics of recent Conservative governments and promised to “build, build, build”, as critics ridiculed his comparison of plans for the economy with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programme.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lord Heseltine said both the coronavirus crisis and Britain’s exit from the EU had “the most appalling effect on those who have to take decisions about employment and about investment”.

He added: “It’s a crisis of unprecedented scale and it’s going to get worse. So the question really is, how is the government responding, how should it respond? And I have to say I was deeply disappointed in the speech the prime minister made at Dudley.

“It was simply the sort of speech with a lot of proposals which were remarkably similar to what all governments have done faced with rising unemployment. They announce packets of money in housing and transport, and repairs for the health service… but they lack the one thing that is essential and that is the local enthusiasm, energy and enterprise based upon experiences of the opportunities that are local.”

Lord Heseltine said the “glaring omission” in the prime minister’s speech on Monday was “any attempt to draw the leaders of the local economies into the dialogue – and they are the elected mayors”.

“This extraordinary situation where in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland you have devolved society and yet in London, Manchester, Newcastle, Bristol, Cambridge, they are being told by the officials in London that money they can spend and the sort of projects they can spend it on – it’s so naive.”

The former deputy prime minister under John Major also urged Mr Johnson to make Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, responsible for coordinating the Whitehall response and should say to the local leaders “how best to spend” the money available.

Speaking in Dudley on Monday, the prime minister set out plans for £1.5bn spending on hospital maintenance in England this year, as well as £1bn for the first 50 projects in a 10-year wave of school rebuilding and refurbishment over the next decade.

He announced £900m for “shovel-ready” project in local areas, £760m for school and further education college repairs, £142m to upgrade courthouses and £100m for road improvements this year.