Before the 2010 election, David Cameron announced he was going to target the North East, and the following facts shows he has been as good as his word:
1.  The government’s 2013 transport infrastructure plan scheduled £4,893 to be spent for each resident of London compared to £245 for each person in the North East. The Coalition Government will go into the next General Election with just one major North East road project under way.
2.  None of the extra £235m allocated to be spent on hospitals for last winter was allocated to the North East. The recent £2 billion funding to help the NHS cope with increased pressures for 2015-16 gave just 0.24% more to Trusts in the North East, while parts of London and the South East will get funding increases of more than 3.5%.
3.  Of the 44 planned new Pensionwise advice centres, there are just two in the whole of the North East.
4.  Government insistence that funding is directed through the non-elected LEPs is delaying £500m of EU funding to the North East.
5. The UK economy is growing, but for every 12 new jobs created in the South only one has been created elsewhere. The North East continues to bear the country’s highest unemployment with 13.6% of the working age population on out-of-work benefits.
6. Benefit reform has damaged the North East disproportionately. A 2013 study found County Durham to be the seventh-hardest-hit district in the country, with a loss equivalent to £560 per working age adult. The loss per adult for the south east was £370.
7.  Local government cuts have impacted disproportionately on our region, as the map of next year’s Local Government Settlement shows. The North East will see a 3.4% decrease in funding (equal to £78 less per household in spending power); but in the south east there will be a 0.5% increase, or £9 more per household.
John D Clare