Northern Tories are warning Boris Johnson that his promise to ‘level up’ the country will fail without proper funding and radical new tax powers.
The prime minister is expected to attend the first ever Northern Research Group conference in Doncaster, where he will face calls for dramatic devolution – and to cut taxes.
Jake Berry, the group’s chair, said its “big push” is for spending in the North to match much higher levels in London and for its cities to be able to vary corporation tax.
A “levelling up formula” was needed now to put money behind Michael Gove’s 12 “missions” to tackle the country’s vast inequalities, which have been widely criticised for lacking beef.
“You can’t have radical missions without having a radical funding formula,” Mr Berry warned Mr Johnson.
“Public spending in London is 15 per cent higher than the UK average. We want to see that level out across the country,” he told BBC Radio 4.
The group is also on a collision course with the government over a wider call for taxes to be cut immediately, as “a great way of putting money back in people’s pockets”.
Mr Gove, the levelling up secretary, has echoed the chancellor Rishi Sunak by ruling out tax cuts until inflation – now heading for 11 per cent this year – is brought under control.
But Mr Berry said: “We are the only country in the G7 that is reacting to the cost of living crisis by putting taxes up and we have the slowest growing economy. I think those two things are connected.”
And he added: “We want to see a right to devolution – with all areas, not just cities’ having the ability to have a devolution deal that suits them.”
However, he insisted Mr Johnson will receive a warm welcome in Doncaster from the 50-strong group, formed after the prime minister conquered Labour’s ‘Red Wall’ at the 2019 general election.
“He is embracing the Northern Research Group and the northern agenda and levelling up and we’re in support of everything he’s doing,” Mr Berry said.
In Doncaster, the group will push for a “devomax government”, which would let local areas take on powers to lower taxes, dictate housing requirements and set stamp duty rates.
It is certain to be opposed fiercely by the Treasury, which traditional guards tax-and-spending powers.
Mr Berry will say: “We need wide-ranging fiscal freedoms – Conservative freedoms, and the freedom to lower taxes.
“There are almost as many people living in Greater Manchester as in Wales – yet Wales has power over tax, while Greater Manchester does not.”
