BorisLong-awaited 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.
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.
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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.
About Mr Gove’s plans
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 up 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, with Sheffield and Wolverhampton the first places selected.
The problem that the government seeks to solve with its ‘levelling up’ agenda is clear – the fact that the UK is one of the world’s most geographically unequal major economies – and that has worsened over the past three decades.
The pledges on spending in the White Paper are rather limited, reflecting the fiscal situation.
There are new commitments beyond the existing Spending Review, for what the PM describes as his “defining mission”.
But where a mission such as this has been achieved, for example in post-unification Germany, there have been massive fiscal transfers from rich regions to poor ones approaching one and a half trillion pounds, or £70bn a year.
The stark fact is that GDP per capita in some east German regions now exceeds that in some northern English regions.
The challenge is whether entrenched patterns of economic geography can really be changed without footing a very significant bill?
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.
Government Funding
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.
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.”
He said 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.