New freeports, East Midlands investment zone funding coming in Budget – Starmer

Funding for five freeports across the UK and a new investment zone will be set out at the Budget, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

The Prime Minister said the plans would help to drive his Government’s growth agenda, delivering new jobs and investment across different regions of the UK.

The location of the five new freeports will be revealed by Rachel Reeves at the October 30 Budget, and it is understood they will be spread across the UK, not just in England.

Funding for the East Midlands investment zone announced by Sir Keir meanwhile builds on a programme of work started by the previous Tory government.

Speaking to broadcasters while attending a Commonwealth summit in Samoa, the Prime Minister said the East Midlands investment zone was “really important” to his drive for economic growth.

“These zones attract investment, and they’re measured in tens of thousands of well paid jobs. So this is really good news,” he said.

Investment zones use public cash to attract private investment to a region, and are focused on attracting specific industries to that area based on a UK-wide strategy.

Funding for two zones based in West Yorkshire and the West Midlands were confirmed by Angela Rayner at Labour’s party conference, after plans for a total of eight were laid out by the last government in the 2023 budget.

The new zone in the East Midlands is set to focus on high tech green industries, and if it follows the blueprints laid out by the Tories will be focussed on Derby, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire.

In total, investment zones in England are estimated to be worth some 89,000 additional jobs by 2033, and a total of £11 billion of private investment.

While the locations of the five new freeports announced by Sir Keir are as of yet unclear, he insisted his Government would not scrap the special economic zones because they were originally a Tory idea.

“I didn’t want to take the sort of ideological view that just because they’re introduced by the last government, we would sort of stand them down,” Sir Keir said.

Freeports have reportedly attracted £2.9 billion of investment, creating an estimated 6,000 jobs.

The Prime Minister did however say he wanted to “make some tweaks” to ensure freeports did bring new investment to UK regions, rather than just move existing money around.