3. Law, Legislation and Rent-Seeking: The Role of the Treasury-Led Developmental State in the Competitive Advantage of the Southern Powerhouse

This chapter argues that the political economy of England’s ‘Northern Powerhouse’ cannot be understood in isolation from that of its ‘Southern Powerhouse’ neighbour. The UK’s relative decline, especially manufacturing in the North, is frequently allocated to the absence of a state-led technocratic industrial modernisation programme. This paper challenges that analysis, contending that public policy and governance arrangements in contemporary England are the outcome of the long-term strategic priorities of the English (latterly British) developmental state, fashioned by its pilot agency, the Treasury. George Osborne’s ‘Northern Powerhouse’ should therefore be understood not as something novel or a departure, but as simply the latest political narrative in a long-standing tradition of British statecraft which has subordinated the interests of development in the North of England to those of the global financial and commercial interests of the City of London.