The “12 missions” at the heart of the government’s levelling up strategy have been largely cut-and-pasted from Theresa May’s abandoned plans, it has emerged.
No fewer than eight of the 12 targets for reviving poorer areas have been rehashed from a 2017 Industrial Strategy which was shelved by Boris Johnson, a Labour MP is protesting.
“This is essentially the recently scrapped Industrial Strategy rebranded as Levelling Up,” said Darren Jones, the chair of the Commons business committee.
Branding the situation “ridiculous”, Mr Jones said his analysis suggested the only new targets are for improving school performance, cutting crime and to “restore local pride”.
“Government was failing at delivering the Industrial Strategy missions, so how will government now deliver this?” Mr Jones asked on Twitter.
The criticism comes after Michael Gove admitted he had lost a cabinet battle with Rishi Sunak for extra cash, which means the flagship strategy will receive no new funding.
Instead, it will signal a return to Labour-style target-setting – abolished by David Cameron in 2010 – with a warning it will take the rest of the 2020s to reap success.
Every area will be offered a directly-elected mayor, if it wants one – but Mr Gove has admitted it will be only a “starting gun fired on decade-long project to level up Britain”.
A damning report by the spending watchdog is warning billions of pounds currently being spent may be wasted because ministers are picking the wrong projects and failing to analyse “what works”.
Mr Jones’ analysis reveals that the levelling up plan pledges to:
* Boost “pay, employment and productivity” – but the industrial strategy vowed to ensure everyone “increases their earning power and gets access to jobs”.
* Increase research and development spending in poorer areas – but the old document did the same.
* Improve local public transport connectivity – a repeat of the earlier pledge of “improvements to road and rail”.
* Deliver “gigabit-capable broadband and 4G coverage, with 5G coverage for the majority of the population” – an apparent downgrade on the earlier pledge of “full-fibre broadband and 5G connectivity”.
Mr Gove has defended the lack of new money, saying: “What we’re doing is we’re taking numbers from a Treasury spreadsheet and transforming it into real change in people’s lives.
“The chancellor, in the spending review, outlined significant increases in public spending in a range of areas – in transport, in support for local government, in education, and health and social care.
“That was money put in, if you like, in departmental bank accounts – and now we are spending that money and it’s being allocated to the mayors and other local leaders who are best placed to drive change in their own communities.”
