Leading Bradford businesswoman Judith Donovan has urged the Government to listen to the needs of manufacturers as a report shows the north-south divide is widening.

Mrs Donovan, chairman of direct-marketing firm JDA and president of Bradford Chamber of Commerce, said: "The Government should listen to those in the front line. The Chamber has been saying for some time that more attention needs to be paid to the divide.

"More initiatives to support deprived and under-funded areas are needed. Our recent quarterly economic survey found that manufacturers and exporters are more adversely affected than firms in the service sector. With the north having a higher number of these types of companies, the suffering is more pronounced."

And MPs said more needed to be done to help the northern economy as a report predicted that the already-prosperous south-east would outstrip the north in economic performance this year.

Mrs Donovan was speaking after the report from the Oxford Economic Forecasting Unit said the north-south divide would get wider as the south east experienced economic growth of 3.7 per cent compared with a 2.7 per cent growth rate for the north east.

The report blames the slump in manufacturing on the poor performance of many northern regions -- in particular the north east and the Midlands. Ronnie Campbell, the Blyth Valley Labour MP who chairs the Northern Group of Labour MPs, called on Prime Minister Tony Blair to examine the plight of the less well-off regions as a matter of urgency.

Bradford North MP Gerry Sutcliffe, vice chairman of the Yorkshire Group of MPs, said: "Everything has gravitated to the south-east but we support regional government and have doubled the budgets of the regional development agencies. We need to do more to generate support for business in the north.

"The places worst hit are the former steel and mining communities, which need massive investment. There are pockets like that in Bradford -- but not on the same sort of scale."

He was backed by Shipley and Ilkley MP Chris Leslie who said the Government had given regional development agencies in deprived areas more cash than in more prosperous parts of the country.