Jake Berry, the third Northern Powerhouse Minister in less than 12 months, visited the region last week, having been tasked by Theresa May with re-invigorating it.

Mr Berry took over from Andrew Percy, who quit after the general election to “pursue other challenges” (Mr Percy in turn had replaced James Wharton last July).

It is reported that it was many months before Mr Percy paid his first visit to the North East, whereas it took Mr Berry a matter of days to come to the region.

He visited Newcastle University’s newly launched National Centre for Subsea and Offshore Engineering, as well as the university itself.

He was given a tour by Nick Wright, who is the university’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation and is in charge of the sub-sea facility.

The region is home to a ‘cluster’ of businesses that specialise in equipment, applications and operations based some distance offshore, in deep ocean waters, or on the sea-bed. Second only in size to the sub-sea business in Aberdeen, it employs around 5,000 people and includes Northumberland-based Osbit.

This company’s executive chairman, Tony Trapp, told the Minister that his firm frequently took on graduates from Newcastle University.

He said: “Mechanical engineering students used to go into finance after they graduated and move away. Now they are staying.”