The fact that this article was set to be titled ‘Levelling up under Liz Truss’, illustrates the profound wisdom of Harold Wilson’s expression "a week is a long time in politics", or six of them in the case of this article’s gestation. There certainly has been as much chop as there has been change. Nearly all of Liz Truss’ key policies have been swept aside, across taxation, defence spending and, it appears, education. But what about levelling up?
The early signs were perhaps not promising. On the summer campaign trail during a visit to Tunbridge Wells, Rishi Sunak was recorded saying that as chancellor he had “started changing the funding formulas to make sure that areas like this are getting the funding that they deserve because we inherited a bunch of formulas from the Labour party that shoved funding into deprived urban areas.” One failed Truss premiership and a second, albeit truncated, leadership contest later, the troubling fiscal situation seems to have rendered government spending across the board ‘fair game’ for spending cuts, not excluding, it would seem, local government spending.
This is an area which at the dawn of the last fiscal tightening in 2010 had already experienced more real term cuts than any other area of public spending. Notwithstanding the above, levelling up seems to have maintained its place in the ministerial vernacular, with the prime minister himself confirming his “cast iron” commitment to the Levelling Up agenda in his first Prime Minister’s Questions and Michael Gove going to some trouble to restate the government’s commitment to the whole agenda at the LUHC Select Committee on November 21.
As for the detail, perhaps enough has emerged to tentatively address the question, what will levelling up under Rishi Sunak look like? Perhaps the first key bit of detail was the very reappointment of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities secretary Michael Gove, which has been broadly welcomed by local government leaders and whose use of the word “mission” in a levelling up context perhaps speaks to his commitment to this area.
This has clearly filtered down to his ministers, with Lee Rowley, parliamentary under-secretary of state in the Department. He emphasised at my recent All-Party Parliamentary Group for SME Housebuilders mini conference the centrality of the Levelling Up White Paper in “bringing opportunities to parts of the country that have not seen it”, improving the quality of housing and transport connections in more deprived parts of the country, as well as alluding to the possibilities in “broadening it out”.
What certainly is broadening out, however, is the extent of the challenge ahead for those involved in the delivery of levelling up. With inflation at a rampant 11.1 per cent and supply chains stretched, it is becoming increasingly difficult to complete projects previously provisioned for by the Levelling Up Fund. A good example being the rejuvenation of Halifax’s leisure centre which has hit the buffers due to an uptick of £4 million in costs causing the council to reluctantly pause the project.
The Autumn Statement has perhaps allayed some concerns, at least for those who are seeking "hard" infrastructure as a levelling up outcome, with the recommitment to Northern Powerhouse Rail. What perhaps poses questions about the government’s commitment to long termism in this area, however, is that the Levelling Up Fund is not set to be adjusted for inflation, in contrast to state benefits for instance.
What seems to have entered the vernacular in recent weeks is “fiscal event”, and we are set for another one of those in the Spring. Ahead of that, it will be important to keep up the pressure on government to deliver on levelling up, not least around education, especially regarding skills, training and apprenticeships.
Key Points:
• Levelling up has been subject to all the flux of the last months of British politics but seems to have maintained its place on the government agenda.
• Interest rate rises and inflation are posing challenges to the delivery of certain levelling up projects, with some even being mothballed.
• The Autumn Statement has allayed fears for some, but it remains important to keep up the pressure on government to deliver the Levelling Up agenda as we look ahead to the Spring Budget.
This article originally appeared in The Leaders Council’s special report on ‘The Levelling Up agenda’, published on November 30, 2022. Read the full special report here.
Image by Chris McAndrew on Wikimedia Commons
