Welcome to this meeting, welcome to Downing Street. I'm really
pleased and grateful to you for being here this morning. Having
this meeting four days after I was invited by the King to form a
government is a real statement of intent on my part, on our part.
Because as we have said over and over again, economy and growth
is the number one mission of this Labour government in 2024.
If it's going to be growth that is worth having, it's got to be
across the country and in every single place and raising
standards in every single place. And so, you are all absolutely
central to it.
I'm a great believer in devolution, I'm a great believer in the
idea that those with skin in the game – those that know their
communities – make much better decisions than people sitting in
Westminster and Whitehall.
I know you already have growth plans in place, some of you have
shared them already, and that is fantastic – what we want to do
is build on that with a real partnership where you feel the
government is alongside you, supporting you, and working with you
to achieve what you want to achieve.
And it's that partnership we talked about a number of times
before the election, but what I wanted to do today was to double
down on that commitment and to do it really early on into the
government, so it wasn't weeks or months down the line before we
had a chance to meet like today to get on with that discussion.
I think it is the first meeting like this in Downing Street, I
don't think all the metro mayors have come together in Downing
Street like this so this is a first and that's good, it's what we
want.
We will do regular meetings, probably around the country, because
I think it'd be good to do it in different areas in each of your
areas because there will be things that you will want to say this
is what we do here. And it's that cross collaboration and it's
about making sure that you are central to what we want to
achieve. We will work alongside you to achieve it. That growth is
so important – everything else hangs off it.
We've got quite a lot to get through today, we've got missions
and growth, deeper devolution and working together.
