Chancellor Rachel Reeves to visit Sunderland today

Rachel Reeves will visit Darlington and Sunderland today (December 12) and is due to chair the Growth Mission Board as well as a Mayoral roundtable at the Darlington Economic Campus.

The Chancellor is also set to join Science and Technology Minister Peter Kyle in Sunderland City Centre to hear how technology is being used to improve efficiency.

Speaking ahead of her visit to the region, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “We need to make the most of the vast potential that exists right across our country.

“To do that, to deliver the Plan for Change and improve living standards with more money in people’s pockets, we need a serious plan for regional economic growth, not more empty slogans.

 “That is what we will be discussing today with ministers and with mayors: plans to back local leadership, and to change how government works to better align the investment and policy that supports them.”

During the Growth Mission Board, she is expected to set out how “levelling up had the right diagnosis but did not follow through to delivery”.

This comes shortly after the Prime Minister set out the Government’s ‘Plan for Change’ – focusing on living standards, waiting lists and building homes to name a few.

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However, this latest visit comes just over a month after the Chancellor’s first budget – which garnered mixed reaction across the region, particularly from small businesses in relation to national insurance rises.

Multiple small business owners in Darlington told The Northern Echo on October 30 they believe they will be negatively affected by hikes in national minimum wage and national insurance which were unveiled by the government today.

In the first Labour budget in 14 years, Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed that the rate of employers’ national insurance (NI) will rise by 1.2 percentage points, from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent from April next year.