PEOPLE who strive to do their best should not have their "ambitions crushed" by a lack of opportunity, Bradford Council leader Susan Hinchcliffe said today.

Cllr Hinchcliffe gave the opening speech at a conference held by the RSA Inclusive Growth Commission, which is looking into how to prevent people getting left behind as the UK's economy grows.

Here is her speech in full:

Can I first of all say welcome to Bradford.

It’s a pleasure to welcome the Minister, the RSA and honoured guests from all over the country to Bradford today for the launch of the Inclusive Growth Commission’s Putting Principles into Practice.

Bradford is a fast growing city, in fact the youngest city in the country with nearly 25 per cent of its population under the age of 16.

There are 102,000 children in school in Bradford and for the sake of Bradford, Leeds City Region and indeed the North, we need them to be connected to growth and opportunity.

Bradford is right in the heart of the north of England. Blessed with great architecture, a strong industrial heritage, and a young workforce, we should be prosperous.

We have some of the right ingredients to be prosperous but we’re not yet where we need to be. The growth models of yesteryear under successive Governments have not served us well. We have a low wage economy - £474 per week as opposed to £545 per week nationally.

Life expectancy in some parts of the district is nearly 10 years less than in more affluent parts of the district. That’s not just inequitable, it’s morally wrong.

Which is why for us, and for places like Bradford the work of the Inclusive Growth Commission is so significant. It’s no coincidence that nationally the Key Cities group, the Core Cities Group and the LGA Cities Board have all contributed to the work.

What we shouldn’t expect the work to do is to provide an ABC of how to deliver Inclusive Growth in any city in the UK.

All cities are different and therefore solutions will be place-specfic. However it does challenge us about how we need to lead our places in the future.

For me as a city leader it urges me to be entrepreneurial, to be collaborative, to lead, not just the council, but Bradford, the place and bring other institutions who influence growth along with us. For example by 2020 as Bradford Council we will be spending £331 million a year. It’s half the size we were in 2010 but we need to make the most of every penny of our spend. We are now embarking on a Procurement review to make sure the Bradford Pound provides as much benefit to the local economy as possible.

For growth to benefit people in Bradford, I’m clear that we have to deliver two significant investments: excellent education and better transport connectivity.

To reap the benefits of growth, our young people need to get a great education. Some people might insist that given that local authorities don’t control all the schools anymore, that’s no longer the job of a council.

But here in Bradford the increased fragmentation is no reason to step back. On the contrary, it’s all the more reason for us to lead and bring institutions together locally. That’s at the root of the Bradford Education Covenant which sets out in clear language what the five things are which each of us can do to improve education in this city.

We’ve set out a series of asks for schools, Government, businesses, Governors, young people, parents and communities to make sure we all work on improving Education outcomes together.

On Transport, Government also has a significant role to play in helping us future proof our economy. We are the largest city in the country on a branch line. 530,000 people and we are gridlocked. Leeds is only 9 miles away yet it’s rare to get above 30mph on the train journey there.

The commuter flow between the two cities is the highest flow between any two cities anywhere in the country but understandably 75 per cent of these journeys happen in the car.

Manchester is just 28 miles away but takes over an hour to get there on the train. The North needs Bradford to be on the Northern Powerhouse Rail mainline.

Centralised government delivery models have not served us well in the past. Too often national Government institutions can stand in the way of good local partnerships trying to deliver local solutions which work for local people.

Bradford is increasingly working with local authorities across the Leeds City Region to deliver more jobs and indeed better jobs. The Government has demonstrated their commitment to the Leeds City Region partnership by giving us one of the largest Growth deals in the country. And we’re glad of that.

The City Region has the biggest economy outside London, worth over £62 billion. We realise that by working together our positive impact on the places we represent will inevitably be much greater than if we worked on our own.

The focus of our Strategic Economic Plan is not just growth for growth’s sake. Our ambition is greater than that, we want to create growth which delivers enhanced skills and better opportunities for career progression.

We know that if we don’t collectively deliver on this goal then the Leeds City Region will not reach its potential. I’m pleased that my colleagues, the leaders of Leeds and Wakefield, are here to speak today. We speak with one voice on this issue.

Finally, I’d like to take on the challenge to democratise prosperity, growth should not be an exclusive pastime.

Those people who strive to do their best, who are good neighbours, who want their children to do well – should not have their hopes washed away and their ambitions crushed by lack of opportunity. They need to see rewards for doing the right thing.

Bradford is full of people who fit that description and I think we all owe them a debt of delayed delivery. I feel the weight of that responsibility on my shoulders as I know do other leaders in the room for their cities. We are at a crucial point in our nation’s history.

I want to make sure we heed the lessons in this report and forge an economy that works for the many and not just for the few. Thank you.