As we approach the end of the Prime Minister’s first 100 days in office his position on levelling up is not much clearer.
However, while he may be reluctant to spend his limited political capital on levelling up at present, a bill is passing through Parliament that commits his and future governments to a mission based approach to addressing regional inequality. Taking these missions seriously will become the responsibility of government who will have to report back to Parliament on an annual basis on their progress. If there is to be any progress though in achieving these missions then this Government and his successors will have to be far more serious about addressing the cost of living crisis and its implications.
We spent some time recently examining the impact of the cost of living crisis on the 12 levelling up missions. These missions are medium term targets to 2030 designed to galvanise action across policy areas ranging from enhancing productivity and closing gaps in pupil achievement at age 11 to improving well-being and reducing crime rates. Alongside leaders from the business, charitable and educational sectors we contributed our analysis to a recent report from The Leaders Council entitled ‘The Levelling Up Agenda’. While the contributors welcomed the renewed focus on regional inequality that levelling up had brought, they were concerned as we are that the political focus isn’t there at present to address the problems faced by many communities in the UK today. Looking at over 100 pieces of evidence that examined the relationship between the missions and higher inflation; poverty and recession we found that two thirds were at high risk of failure; two more were at medium risk and only two at low risk. Those especially in danger were the missions included those related to improving productivity; increasing spending on research & development; closing gaps in Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE) and improving pride in place.
The Government is investing in levelling up though. We identified around £20bn of Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) funding from various pots that have been associated with levelling up as part of our submission to the recent enquiry into levelling up funding from the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill committee. These funds include the £4bn levelling up fund itself as well the Shared Prosperity Fund (which will replace European structural funds) and other funding streams related to towns and cities.
However, these funds are separate from each other and not being connected to the missions. Rather, they are focused on physical infrastructure projects across the country. Valuable and necessary as many of these projects are they will not meet the immediate risks that the cost of living crisis poses nor the deeper rooted issues that the missions are there to address. The first tranche of the flagship levelling up fund for example, has been spent predominantly on transport and infrastructure with only a small fraction on projects related to education or health. We would argue that whatever of this £20bn that remains to be allocated must be aligned far more with these missions and used to try and address the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on them. The missions are also the best way of levering in support from other departments for levelling up as they face their own budget cuts. The £20bn from DLUC will not be anywhere near enough to protect levelling up from the effect of the cost-of-living crisis.
Levelling up will remain on the political agenda up to and beyond the next election. But for it to actually act as a vehicle for meaningful improvements for those in this country facing the greatest social and economic challenges then both greater commitment and realism from policymakers is needed. The missions represented the basis for a radical new approach to addressing inequality and poverty but in order to realise their potential they have to be at the heart of what levelling up means, and not shunted to the periphery.
Professor Graeme Atherton is head of the Centre for Inequality and Levelling Up, University of West London
