It’s a conference about Manchester. It’s not often I come to place rather than sector or discipline-based conferences. First up, Sir Richard Leese to welcome us.

He tells us the vision for Manchester – its no different to most of the others I see (and believe me, in my job I see a lot).

But here’s something different, we are not going to be big anymore – we are going to be smart. As an analogy, Manchester is going to compete in the world beer market as a micro brewery.

So what’s smart. Invest in people. Build their skills and pay them a living wage.

38% of the Greater Manchester Area are graduates (or higher or equivalent). Putting that in some context – it’s about 50% more than Birmingham.

But there’s to do, especially in technical education and early years. Council employees are getting the living wage, but lots of…