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It's the economy debate, stupid

Richard Moss | 13:32 UK time, Friday, 30 April 2010

Wallet with coinsWe're following the example of the third Prime Ministerial debate by focusing the attention on jobs and the economy for our last pre-election programme.

Once again we're going to be bringing the voters face-to-face with the politicians to try and get answers.

And although there are other issues that have been crucial in this campaign - expenses, immigration - you still suspect a lot of people will be voting for who they think might be better for their wallet, and job prospects.

Before the Recession, Labour could point to some real progress in the region's economy.

Unemployment had fallen significantly, and there were some impressive examples of regeneration.

Manufacturing had continued in a decline that began in the 1980s, but it seemed the service sector could easily take up the slack.

Not all of that has unravelled, but the economic downturn has reversed some of the progress.

The jobless rate is now up to where it was before Labour took power in 1997.

There's the persistence of the North-South divide.

And the region has suffered big job losses at high profile employers like Northern Rock, Nissan and Corus.

The future may also be difficult.

There is investment going in to secure new jobs producing electric cars at Nissan and offshore wind turbines on the Tyne.

But the region's dependence on public sector jobs could make it more vulnerable than other parts of the country to government cuts.

And the future of the regional development agencies is also uncertain.

Labour would definitely keep them, the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives say they could remain in a reduced form if any region decides it still wants one.

But it's unclear how big the agencies' budgets would be under any of the parties.

We have a number of voters then who want to press our politicians.

Amongst them the unemployed, business owners worried about the future, and union officials concerned about public sector cuts.

The panel is Iain Wright for Labour, James Wharton for the Conservatives and Carol Woods for the Liberal Democrats.

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