Levelling Up Plans for UK Unveiled.
Long-promised plans to close the gap between rich and poor parts of the country have been announced by the government. The strategy, unveiled by Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, will take until 2030 and aims to improve services such as education, broadband and transport.
Mr Gove said it would “shift both money and power into the hands of working people”. But Labour said the plans contained no new money and little fresh thinking. Mr Gove told the BBC the strategy was not aimed at providing new funding but ensuring it is spent effectively on local priorities.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson put “levelling up” at the heart of the Conservatives’ election-winning manifesto in 2019.
The launch of the strategy sees the government try to return to its key policy agenda after weeks of pressure on the prime minister over reports of parties held at Downing Street during lockdown restrictions.
The government has previously launched a number of schemes aimed at boosting regional development – but has faced claims the policy lacks definition.
At the heart of the strategy is a plan to create more regional mayors, such as existing posts like Labour’s Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester, or the Conservative’s Andy Street in the West Midlands and Ben Houchen in Tees Valley.
Every part of England would have access to “London-style” powers and a mayor if they want it, according to the levelling-up strategy, with the expectation that they would be able to target spending more effectively.
Mr Gove’s plans would bring all existing initiatives together into 12 “national missions” and set up a system for measuring progress.
Among the 12 missions are promises to refocus education spending on disadvantaged parts of the country and eliminate illiteracy and innumeracy; bring the rest of the country’s public transport closer to London standards, and provide access to 5G broadband for the “large majority” of households.
Derelict urban sites in 20 towns and cities will be targeted for redevelopment intended to create more high-quality jobs, with Sheffield and Wolverhampton the first places selected.
Many of Mr Gove’s missions are existing government policies, with funds already allocated to them, but he says they will be enshrined in law for the first time.
Most of the policies in the White Paper apply to England only, but the government insists levelling up is a UK-wide initiative and it wishes to work with the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to achieve this.
The plan includes £100m of new government funding for “innovation accelerators” to boost research and development in Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and Glasgow City-Region.
But in some areas the government has scaled back its ambitions. A pledge to provide broadband nationwide capable of gigabit speeds – more than ten times the average speed today – was originally due in 2025, but is now scheduled for 2030.
And in places such as Wakefield in West Yorkshire, people said bus routes were being cut rather than increased. Kath Lindley, who runs a local charity, said some services only run every two hours, creating social isolation and cutting off young people from opportunities.
Mr Gove told BBC Breakfast: “For far too long, the United Kingdom – England in particular – has had an economic powerhouse in London and the south east but not everyone has shared in that success.”
The Brexit referendum in 2016 had been “a wake-up call” from overlooked and undervalued communities to the Conservative government, giving a “clear instruction” to change the country’s economic model, he said.
One of the shifts in funding is in housing, where an existing rule that 80% of government funding for housing is spent on London and the south-east of England will be scrapped and spending allocated to the north of England and the Midlands.