Economists are warning that Boris Johnson’s much-heralded “levelling up” agenda must amount to more than quick-fix improvements to disadvantaged areas of the Midlands and north of England if it is to make an impression on the UK’s entrenched social inequalities.
The prime minister will on Thursday attempt to put some flesh on the bones of his oft-repeated slogan, using a speech in the West Midlands to say that he aims to restore a sense of “pride in their community” among residents of areas that have felt left-behind for decades.
But with MP Neil O’Brien appointed to advise Mr Johnson on the strategy only 10 weeks ago and firm proposals not not expected until a white paper in the autumn, the speech is expected to be light on firm announcements and heavy on rhetoric.
Extracts released by Downing Street ahead of the speech said that Mr Johnson will say that the drive to boost “left-behind” areas will also relieve pressure on parts of the UK where an “over-heating” economy has delivered sky-high housing costs, overcrowding and congested transport systems.
But he will also insist that levelling up the Midlands and north will not mean “levelling down” in the south of England. And, following the by-election loss of Chesham & Amersham driven in part by a voter revolt against planning reforms, he will promise that the agenda will not mean leafy suburbs and villages being “engulfed by new housing development”.
“We don’t want to decapitate the tall poppies,” Mr Johnson will say. “We don’t think you can make the poor parts of the country richer by making the rich parts poorer.
“Levelling up is not a jam-spreading operation. It’s not robbing Peter to pay Paul. It’s not zero-sum, it’s win-win.”
Mr Johnson will argue that previous governments have “turbo-charged” London and the southeast by concentrating investment in areas which were already doing well economically.
“By turbo-charging those areas – especially in London and the southeast – you drive prices even higher and you force more and more people to move to the same expensive areas,” he will say.
“And the result is that their commutes are longer, their trains are more crowded, they have less time with their kids. They worry at the same time that the younger generation won’t be able to get a home and that their leafy suburb or village will be engulfed by new housing development but without the infrastructure to go with it.”
Setting out the metric by which he wants his agenda to be judged, he will say: “We will have made progress in levelling up when we have begun to raise living standards, spread opportunity, improved our public services and restored people’s sense of pride in their community.”
But research economist Ben Zaranko, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, told The Independent that change on this scale could take decades to materialise.
“The UK is one of the more regionally unequal countries in the industrial world, perhaps the most unequal,” he said. “The scale of the challenge is huge and it is not something you can just make a big speech on, throw some money around and expect change overnight.
“There are things the prime minister can do in the short term to make places nicer to live in – renovating high streets, building facilities and so on. That can be achieved relatively quickly with centralised pots of money like the Towns Fund.
“But that stuff isn’t going to deal with the deeper, more structural inequalities that are driving differential living standards across the country. Those are things that I don’t think you can make much progress on in the course of a parliament. It’s deep-seated economic changes in areas like education, skills training, transport connectivity and so on which could take decades to complete.”
Research suggested that the perception that certain areas had been “left behind” was driven in part by austerity imposed over the past decade of Tory-led governments, he said.
“The prime minister’s talk about levelling up does jar a little in that context,” he said.
“Spending by local authorities on cultural facilities has fallen by about 50 per cent in real terms since 2010, spending on planning by 60 per cent. It’s all very well him saying that he’s going to turn the taps on, but part of the reason why these things are an issue is because they have been squeezed for the last decade.”
The director of the Centre for Progressive Policy, Charlotte Alldritt, said that recent policy decisions – like the allocation of just £1.4bn to an educational catch-up programme costed at £15bn by the man appointed to devise it – cast doubt on whether Mr Johnson was committed to the “long haul” of spreading equality.
“The scale of the challenge is vast,” Ms Alldritt told The Independent. “This has been decades in the making. We have very deep and entrenched health, wealth, income and education inequalities in our society which hold back the economy and hold back people’s life chances.
“The prime minister could start looking at the foundations for addressing this, but I don’t think he will. I think the government is very much motivated by generating clear tangible results over the next 18 months before a spring 2023 election, which means ‘quick wins’ on things like high streets and leisure facilities.
“Tackling the fundamental issues on a scale which people would actually notice would be a very, very difficult task which would take much longer. I’m expecting to see a fragmented approach that doesn’t live up to the scale of the challenge. The levelling up agenda does have potential, but unless it is really gripped more strategically, it will fall short.”
