She added: "Ministers must be careful not to create the impression that they are sitting in London taking casual decisions that will ruin the lives of people they have never met.

"We all have an obligation, particularly those in Government, to those people and I urge ministers to think again."

The Labour MP was speaking during a hearing of the committee looking at the Government's Public Bodies Bill, which will formally abolish RDAs when it becomes law.

At the same hearing, Durham City MP Roberta Blackman-Woods said: "It is widely acknowledged across the business and other sectors that One North East was an excellent RDA that levered in many thousands of jobs as well as additional funding.

"There are now real problems for the region with lack of growth that partly relate to the running down of the RDA.

"It was done so quickly and in such a cack-handed way that lots of problems are emerging."

But Mr Hurd said: "This is not a casual decision. How could it be a casual decision? We are talking about a significant amount of taxpayers' money and a significant number of people who work in these organisations.

"We are talking about a decision on how the Government support economic development at a time when economic development is absolutely at the top of the nation's agenda, because we know how difficult it is at the moment and how difficult it will stay for a while."

He added: "Abolishing the RDAs is a core element of the Government's reform of economic development.

"We believe that the RDAs were not based on a coherent economic geography, and that citizens did not really identify with them.

"Despite spending large amounts of money, they were not successful in narrowing the performance gap between the South East and the rest of England. Lastly and most pragmatically, the RDAs' budget was unsustainable.

"There is simply not enough money to continue funding them."

He said there was some ideology in the decision, claiming Labour supported regionalism while the Government favoured giving more power at a local community level with local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) - bringing together council and business leaders - helping boost the economy.