The Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, has announced plans to revitalise the economic and social make-up of England's regions.

The White Paper revealed in the House of Commons proposes creating nine Regional Development Agencies to coordinate policy in different areas.

The Government intends the agencies to combat hardship in economic blackspots throughout the country.

But the Shadow Environment Secretary, Norman Fowler, said the proposals would merely dump another layer of bureaucracy on England.

Mr Prescott said the Government wanted "to achieve sustainable growth and to bridge the economic and democratic deficit which bedevils all the English regions."

These have been "neglected for far too long" and lagged behind other parts of Europe, he said.

• The nine Regional Development Agencies are:

• North East, including the counties of Northumberland and Durham
• North West, including the counties of Cumbria, Lancashire and Cheshire
• Yorkshire and Humber, including the counties of North Yorkshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire
• West Midlands, including the counties of Shropshire, Hereford and Worcester, Warwickshire and Staffordshire
• East Midlands, including the counties of Northamptonshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and Lincolnshire, Rutland
• Eastern Regions, including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Essex
• South East, including the counties of Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire
• South West: including the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, and Gloucestershire, the Isles of Scilly
• London, including the 32 boroughs and the City of London.

The role of the agencies will be to gather ideas from prominent people in the local community and develop the region.

In the introduction to the White Paper, Mr Prescott writes: "Throughout my political career I have argued that the English regions are crucial to this inclusive approach.

Many of England's regions suffer economic deprivation

"We believe that these tasks cannot all be directed from London. Decisions must be taken in the regions."

Regional chambers will be set up on a voluntary basis alongside the agencies and work with them.

The Government says it will implement elected regional government in the English regions if there is a demand for it. But it does not advocate such a change, along the lines of Scottish and Welsh devolution.

"There is a lot we believe we can do within the present democratic structure to build up the voice of the regions," Mr Prescott writes.

Yet the Conservatives have seized on the fact that agency leaders will not be directly accountable to their region.

Mr Fowler said: "They will be the most powerful quangos this country has ever seen. Not one of the board members will be elected directly. They will be appointed by Government ministers."

He told Parliament: "All these proposals amount to is just more bureaucracy, less accountability and duplication of effort without any benefit for the regions."
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