LABOUR shadow chancellor John McDonnell unveiled plans yesterday to pump billions of pounds of investment into Britain’s regions to boost industry and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

He pledged radical changes, including giving workers the right to sit on company boards and funding for co-operative enterprises — proposals reminiscent of the 1975 Bullock Report commissioned by Harold Wilson’s Labour government.

Speaking at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland, Mr McDonnell said a Labour government would create a publicly controlled national investment bank and similar banks for Britain’s regions with access to £500 billion to boost industrial development and jobs.

Mr McDonnell said his investment plans would target communities “left behind” by George Osborne’s austerity campaign, which hit Britain’s worst-off areas hardest.

“So today I want to announce a major new commitment from Labour to the British people, a policy that will form the lynchpin of everything else we do to rescue Britain’s communities from decay and to rebuild Britain’s industries after years of neglect,” he said.

“George Osborne leaves behind a legacy of failure. We’ve got public services cut to the bone and, in some cases, beyond.

“We’ve got a million people using foodbanks in the sixth-richest economy in the world. And investment has fallen, dragging down productivity.

“Our economy has become far too dependent on low-paid, insecure work as a result.

“Worse yet, spending cuts have hit the places least able to cope with them the hardest. The UK has the worst regional inequalities of any current member of the European Union.

“Our country needs a programme of economic transformation.

“That must start with addressing the funding imbalance and delivering the investment needed to kick-start high-quality growth.”

Mr McDonnell pledged: “On coming to power, Labour will set up a National Investment Bank and a network of regional banks whose aim is to help mobilise £500bn into the economy and transform Britain.

“A national investment bank, managed independently of government, can raise the financing needed to deliver infrastructure on this scale.”

He said the plans would produce 100,000 new, well-paid jobs in the north-east alone.