Cameron aims to reassure voters in North

David Cameron will today seek to reassure voters in the North that they would not be “singled out” for spending cuts under a Conservative-led British government.

The Conservative Party leader's first election campaign visit to the North visit was put in doubt after Irish airspace was closed.

He said the visit would go ahead however, declaring: “We are battling through everything to make this happen.”

Mr Cameron will promise that the North would continue to be funded “according to its needs”.

He caused alarm earlier in the campaign when he said the public sector in the North – along with the north east of England – had grown too large and would have to be cut back.

It prompted a warning from Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward that he would be running a “massive risk” if police numbers had to be cut back at a time when dissident republicans continued to pose a threat.

According to advance extracts of his speech, Mr Cameron will stress his commitment to protecting frontline public services in the North, while at the same time spelling out the need to “grow” the public sector.

“The country faces some difficult decisions ahead on how we will tackle the deficit. I want people to know that if elected I will make these decisions with compassion, reasonableness and a concern for the most disadvantaged,” he is expected to say.

“So we will continue to fund Northern Ireland according to its needs, and we will tackle the deficit while protecting the essential frontline public services that we all rely on.

“There is no way Northern Ireland will be singled out over and above any other part of the UK.”

He will say that a Conservative government would look at ways of turning the North into an enterprise zone – including changing the corporation tax rate to encourage more inward investment.

“We want to grow the size of the private sector in Northern Ireland to create new jobs and investment,” he is expected to say.

He will also defend the Tories’ decision to field joint candidates with the Ulster Unionist Party, in the face of Government claims that they are “playing politics” with the peace process for their own electoral ends.

“I know that for many years people in Northern Ireland felt cut off from the rest of the United Kingdom, including from the government. I want to end that sense of isolation,” he is expected to say.

“I want to give voters in Northern Ireland the right – for the first time in generations – to vote for a party capable of forming the government of our United Kingdom, to enable people in Northern Ireland to play their full part in the affairs of the country as a whole, and to realise at long last the basic democratic right to equal citizenship within the United Kingdom.”