The Prime Minister is put to test

A We have made a decision to recommend a high-speed rail link to be a new link that will serve the country's regions and link them up more quickly to London and the proposal is that Leeds and Sheffield will be on that main line. The other proposals, the Conservative proposals in particular, do not bring that high-speed rail link into Leeds and Sheffield in the way we want it.

You will have far quicker travel not just to London of course but linked up to the continent and it is not just going to be to Paris and Brussels, it is going to be Nice, Cologne and Strasbourg.

We are trying to create a modern rail service for a modern society where people will use the railways both for freight and passenger travel and use the roads and the airlines less and there is a massive shift towards railways in our country .

It is a massive investment that will take place over the next 10 to 15 years and it is an important way of confirming that every part of Britain and particularly those great centres like Leeds should be linked to London and the economy in this way.

David Knaggs Irwin Mitchell Solicitors

Alan Bates Managing Director, Kilinger UK

Q With the proposal of a National Insurance rise, this will mean 45-50,000 extra cash to be found for next year from our business - this will obviously effect our business with employment and with investment.

A I have got make sure that we don't have the 10 per cent inflation, 15 per cent interest rates that we had in the past.

The first thing I have got to do coming out of this global recession is to make sure that we have a stable low-level of inflation and interest rates – that is vitally important for business.

The second thing we have got to do is ensure that we sustain the recovery. If we lose the recovery this year and suddenly plunge downwards that would be a major problem, not just for businesses like your own but for every company and in every occupation in this country.

If we have a recovery this year which is probably of 1.5 per cent then we expect there will be three per cent growth next year.

We do not want to undo the advances we have made in the past few years in health, education and policing.

If we do that we place at risk the cohesion of our society, but also our future educational achievements at risk. So that's why I am afraid there is a National Insurance rise in 2011. It is to pay for the maintenance and the improvements of our public services. And I believe it is a fairer way of dealing with the problem than a VAT rise which would affect pensioners and be unfair to lots of people who have major household bills to pay.

Halima Nadir Harrogate Ladies College

Q How will your policy of imposing a higher tax rate on earnings of more than 150,000 ensure a "future fair for all"?

A If you have come through a major financial crisis you have got to decide how we get our deficit down. It seems to me that if you have been earning over 150,000 that it is fair that the tax rate is higher than those under 150,000.

We didn't want to do it and we have taken these tough decisions that I am asking, you, the people of Yorkshire to understand have been made.

Look back two years and think what we feared and now see unemployment going down in the last few months. It may not continue to go down but it is going down in the last few months, then you will see we have come through this world recession.

People's standards of living have been affected but we have not seen the mortgage repossessions of the past and now we are taking these difficult decisions which I think are balanced judgements about the right way forward.

Nigel Foster Leeds Chamber of Commerce

Q How can we get Government better integrated between its departments and how can we make the departments more accountable to the politicians?

A I want to see more devolution to a local level, but I want to see the departments at a regional level working more closely together. There is a programme called "Total Place" which tries to bring together the different agencies that work in the regions so it is far better coordinated with far better direction for the activities. I take that very seriously indeed.

Howard Kew Financial Leeds

Q As the economy recovers how can we ensure that the growth rate in northern cities like Leeds is actually greater than in London and the South East because if it is not then the North/South divide is actually going to widen even further?

A Yorkshire and Humberside is pretty well placed because of what you are doing here in certain areas on renewable energies and on wind power. I think low-carbon industries can develop well here – they certainly are not going to be focused on the South as much as on the North.

I think on digital, the cities which lead on digital and the areas which get the high-speed broadband faster will have an advantage and we will want to make sure that the cities and also the rural areas of Yorkshire and Humber are fitted up to digital.

Then if you look at pharmaceuticals and look at biotechnologies some of the universities here are really ahead on these issues. I do believe you have got unique attributes here in Yorkshire which you can exploit to get many of the new jobs of the future.

If you have high-speed links that are so fast that people can move very quickly around the country, if you have digital so that everyone has got the advantages, not just the businesses that are based in London, then you have got a big chance of making the North/South divide very different from what it has been in the past.

SKILLS

Barry Dodd GSM Group

Q What encouragement could you give me to keep my plants in the UK?

A The problem we have got as you are probably finding is that growth in Europe is so low and we need to have something that will stimulate more growth in the rest of Europe to enable us to benefit from increased exports to the European Union and I am determined to work with our European colleagues to make sure that we can get Europe growing a bit faster than it has.

YOUNG PEOPLE

Alison Puente senior media relations manage

Q One of the challenges that business in Leeds face is a lack of employability skills – literacy and numeracy, but also what to wear and how to behave in a workplace. What are you going to do about this?

A There are new jobs that are going to be available in the future. You have got to get a skill to get these jobs. You have got to therefore train and go to college or get an apprenticeship or go to university to benefit from the jobs. They will not be unskilled jobs, they will be semi-skilled but mainly skilled jobs in the future.

The Future Jobs Fund is being set up specifically to help young people without these skills to get jobs in the future. Eight thousand in Yorkshire and 100,000 throughout the country. We are determined never to return to a 1980s position when we had a generation of young people on the dole. We had a wasted generation as a result of that and the social problems which have emerged from that have taken us years and years to cope with.

Every young person has got the choice now. If you have been unemployed for six months then you have to take the job that is on offer but you will be offered a job or training.

SCHOOLS

Thomas Hughes Roundhay School sixth former

Q In September, when I go to university, I will be taking on debt and following university I will be faced with higher taxes across the board to service the growing national debt and an aging population. How do you plan to improve the situation for the UK's young generation?

A There are more students going to university this year than ever at any time in our history.

We have increased the number by 20,000. We increased the number last year by 10,000. Leeds is one of the great university cities of our country and benefits from having universities and colleges here.

There are more students receiving grants this year than at any time in our history and while, yes there are tuition fees that you have to pay back when you get your job, I think it is fair because in the generation when I went to university only five per cent went into higher education.

It is now 40 per cent and it is going to rise to 50 per cent. There has got to be a form of sharing. If you are going to get twice the income from doing a university-qualified job later in life then it is fair to say that, in addition to the parent and in addition to the Government paying money toward the cost of your university education, when you start to earn money you should pay something yourself.