Senior Tory MPs have warned Liz Truss not to abandon the “levelling up” agenda, as new research reveals towns and cities in the Midlands and North continue to lag behind those in the South.
Ms Truss did not mention Boris Johnson’s project to address inequality between regions during her first speech as PM, sparking fears she may ignore so-called “red wall” seats – crucial to the Tory 2019 election victory.
Tory MPs in the Northern Research Group (NRG) warned that the current economic crisis “risks further increasing the North-South divide” – urging Ms Truss to commit to the levelling up agenda.
On the eve of the Tory conference, a new report found that 74 per cent of constituencies most in need of levelling up are in the North, Midlands, and Wales.
And 33 per cent of the constituencies – 62 areas in total – most in need of levelling up are Tory-held seats, the majority of which represented by the party’s 2019 intake.
Tory MP for Carlisle John Stevenson – the new chair of the NRG – said the Truss government needed to “double down on levelling up”.
Mr Stevenson added: “That requires both short-term action in the form of tax cuts and investment in public services, and in the long-term finding ways to boost the productivity of towns and cities that have struggled for decades to retain talent and attract private investment.”
The new levelling up secretary Simon Clarke’s Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland seat is one of those most in need of the scheme, according to the report produced by WPI Strategy for the Retail Jobs Alliance.
Ms Truss and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng have launched plans for new “investment zones”, where billions will be handed to businesses in tax breaks to encourage them to invest.
But Labour has warned that the plan could hand lucrative tax breaks to already “affluent” Tory areas, swiping badly needed funds from places in greater need.
There is also concern that investment zones are a reheating of ex-Tory chancellor George Osborne’s “enterprise zones”, a policy that created few new jobs.
Analysis by the Centre for Cities think tank found that the Osborne-era zones created fewer than 14,000 jobs – not the 54,000 forecast – of which more than a third had been displaced from elsewhere.
Kevin Hollinrake, Tory MP for Thirsk and Malton, said more widespread help for business was needed and warned that the economic crisis “risks further increasing the North-South divide”.
Suggesting that reform of business rates could “breathe new life” into deprived towns, he added: “Urgent action is needed to help encourage private sector investment into our northern towns and cities.”
Tory MPs in red wall seats are worried about being able to show voters – before the next general election – that policies to improve economic opportunities are having an impact.
“If the Conservatives abandon levelling up, they will not only be letting down millions of voters who believed that promise; they will be forfeiting their chances of a majority,” said Will Tanner, director of the Onward think tank.
Some Tory MPs have told The Independent they had already written-off general election chances following the market turmoil sparked by the mini-Budget. “The mood now is that the next general election cannot be won,” said one senior figure.
The Resolution Foundation think tank said households in London and the South East could receive an average of £1,600 next year from the tax-cutting statement – three times as much as those in Wales, Yorkshire and the North East, set to gain an average of £500.
