Fears for public sector

ELECTION 2010

TORY plans to put private investment before the public sector will devastate the North-West, Labour has warned.

Health Minister Andy Burnham said with 673,000 employed in the public sector across the region, growth in the private investment across the country could not be at the expense of the public sector.

He said: “Public spending and levels of employment in the public sector are higher in the North-West than the average in England.

“We too want more private investment but you cannot get that by cutting public investment, or scrapping the North West Development Agency.

“We have to keep the regions strong, not more private investment by cutting public investment.

“The thing I am most proud of is the North has reinvented itself from what happened in the 1980s.”

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