Northern Powerhouse Tory minister refusing to speak to Northern Echo newspaper

James Wharton says he's tired of being 'attacked'

Drax power station in North Yorkshire (Getty)

The Conservative minister for George Osborne’s “Northern Powerhouse” project is refusing to speak to one of the region’s leading newspapers, it has emerged.

James Wharton, a minister at the communities department, “refuses point blank to have anything to do with” The Northern Echo, a well-established daily newspaper in the North East and North Yorkshire.

“He refuses to take our calls or provide us with answers to our questions and has told me to inform my reporters not to call him,” Peter Barron the newspaper’s longstanding editor, wrote in an editorial for the paper.

Mr Wharton is apparently angry that the newspaper printed criticisms of him for not attending a House of Commons debate on the steel crisis. He accused it of “weekly attacks” on him.

“What Mr Wharton fails to grasp is that criticism is part of being a politician,” Mr Barron wrote, adding that that organ had gone out of its way to give him the right of reply.

“It was opposition MPs who called him 'pathetic' over the emergency steel debate, not The Northern Echo, and the region’s other news organisations also published the criticism, not just us.”

Mr Wharton claimed he was out and about in the region "actually doing things" and claimed attending the debate would have been "showboating".

MP James Wharton, the Minister for the Northern Powerhouse (PA)

Mr Wharton was not impressed with the newspaper’s editorial. He took to Twitter after its publication, commenting: “The Echo doesn't even print my quote about why I don't give them quotes in full. A paper that has lost its way.”

He later added: "I gave up talking to them a while ago, but then they would print that I 'declined to comment'. As such I gave them a statement explaining my position and asking that any constituent with a concern contact my office directly and I would happily explain my view on whatever the subject of the article was.”

The Conservative MP, who represents Stockton South in the House of Commons, was appointed to his position in May 2015.

He is in charge of fostering economic links between northern cities that, according to the Chancellor George Osborne, would be “sufficiently close to each other that combined they can take on the world”.

The policy is aimed at addressing the north-south economic imbalance and includes measures such as the devolution of power to city regions and a proposed east-was high speed railway line.

The Independent contracted the Department for Communities and Local Government for a comment on this story and was directed to Mr Wharton’s tweet on the subject.