The Levelling Up White Paper

12 missions by 2030. The government unveiled its Levelling Up White Paper last week, promising ‘to transform the UK by spreading opportunity and prosperity to all parts of it’.  The paper is centred around 12 quantified ‘missions': ‘cross-government, cross-society efforts’ to be achieved by 2030. Ambitions include raising pay and productivity in every region, narrowing the gap in Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE) between areas, and bringing the standard of local public transport connectivity across the country ‘significantly closer’ to that of London. (The full list of missions is here.) 

• On missions. The IPPR’s George Dibb wrote a useful thread on the value of missions in policy-making. Though some have criticised 2030 targets which the present government will not be around to see, he argues that it is ‘vital’ that targets outlive ministers. UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) summarises the case in ‘Missions: A Beginner’s Guide’. It has been particularly influential, on this government and others, in developing the idea of mission-oriented approach to investment and innovation. 
• New Labour influence? The Resolution Foundation’s Torsten Bell notes that the White Paper’s quantified goals and metrics are similar to those adopted by the Blair Government to achieve greater accountability for spending and policy.
• Conservative criticism. Writing for Conservative Home, co-author of the 2019 Conservative manifesto Rachel Wolf argued that few governments departments have committed to new policies, and the overall strategy is ‘far from uniform’. 
• An alternative approach. In advance of the White Paper the New Economics Foundation called for five major shifts in economic policy to achieve the government’s stated levelling up goals: a shift from central direction to local control; a shift from growth to living standards; a shift in focus on the every day economy; a shift to backing SMEs and a ‘shift to green’. (Full report here.)
• The market-led model. Analysing the White Paper in the Guardian, Christine Berry noted its focus on attracting inward investment by private capital in a ‘virtuous circle of agglomeration’. Although the White Paper acknowledges the failures of the market-led growth model, it ‘fails to pursue this reasoning to its logical conclusion, and is thus left trying to solve these problems using the same thinking that created them in the first place.’

Funding. A principal criticism of the White Paper has been the inadequate level of funding attached to its ambitious goals, and in particular the relatively small amounts of new funding announced. The New Statesman’s Anoosh Chakelian breaks down the sources of funds that Secretary of State Michael Gove has ‘begged, borrowed and stolen’ from other schemes. 

• Austerity context. Drawing on Institute for Government and IPPR North analysis, the FT’s Jim Pickard pointed out that funding to towns has been cut by £15 billion in the last decade. While the “levelling-up fund” will provide £32/head for people in northern England. the fall in annual local council service spending since 2010 in northern England is £413/head. 
• Far from enough. Former Director of the Royal Society of Arts Matthew Taylor noted the similarity between the Levelling Up White Paper and last year’s report of the government’s Industrial Strategy Council (a body which it then abolished). He pointed out that the scale of funding announced falls far short of that which has been provided to disadvantaged areas in France and Germany.
• How much would be enough? A number of commentators have compared the scale of funding allocated with the investment in ’levelling up’ post-unification Germany (nearly £2 trillion). Even this has not been enough, however, as Katja Hoyer observed in the Spectator: ‘despite all the spending, East Germans still feel left behind’. 

Devolution. The White Paper promised ‘the largest devolution of power from Whitehall to local leaders across England in modern times’, including new powers for metropolitan mayors, and new county devolution deals across England. It sets out a ‘menu of options’ through which local authorities can effectively opt for one of three types of devolution. Jack Shaw of Cambridge University’s Bennett Institute explains.

• Not far enough. IPPR North’s Arianna Giovannini welcomed the White Paper’s commitment to further devolution to city mayors, but criticised the continuing use of competitive bidding to access funds, and argued the government must truly let go of power to reduce inequalities. NEF’s Miatta Fahnbulleh warns that levelling up ‘simply won’t happen’ if devolution is ad hoc. She argues that we need a radical transfer of power to all parts of the UK, not centrally-controlled schemes. 
• Government must work with local organisations. Power to Change welcomed the devolution plans but warned that the government needed to ‘work with organisations with experience of delivering at a local level’ to meet their targets. 
• Fiscal devolution. Level 3 of the White Paper’s devolution framework would enable local authorities (subject to a ballot) to ‘introduce a supplement on business rates’. The Data City’s Tom Forth notes that a similar supplement in London (introduced by former mayor Boris Johnson) raises around £300m per year. The Mayor of Tees Valley, Ben Houchen, called business rate devolution ‘low hanging fruit’ and said that, given the power, he would ‘slash business rates across the board’ in the hope of stimulating ‘massive private sector investment’. 

Community covenants. On the same day as publishing the white paper, the Government responded to Danny Kruger MP’s report on the role of civil society. It committed to the idea of ‘community covenants’: pilot schemes in which councils, local groups and public bodies will enter into agreements in order ‘to harness the energy, know-how and assets of local communities’. 

• ‘Community power’. The White Paper adopts the language of ‘community power’, a term growing in popularity in conservative circles. Writing for the ‘We’re Right Here’ community power campaign, Locality’s Ed Wallis calls for a Community Power Act with three central elements: decisions to be made at the ‘most local level possible’; a designated range of ‘power partners’ for organisations such as neighbourhood forums, and the creation of a Community Power Commissioner.
• Criticism. CLES have warned that the ‘community power’ approach risks becoming a route to cuts and says that the community should never be a replacement for the local or national state. Meanwhile the High Pay Centre’s Luke Hildyard noted that levelling up is ‘about not just productivity, but participation and power’. Writing in the Yorkshire Post, he argues that elected mayors must focus on delivering ​​’higher wages, trade union rights and recognition and worker representation on company boards’. 

People, not places? The Equality Trust argued that the Levelling Up White Paper fails ‘to put people at the centre’. By focusing so heavily on places, the paper does not address inequalities within regions, such as the high levels of child poverty and inequality in London. 

• Inequality within regions. NEF noted that levelling up should be as much about inequality within regions as between them: ‘the challenge of levelling up is as real in Barking & Dagenham or Hackney as it is in Barrow, Darlington, or Barnsley’. Likewise, Inside Housing’s Peter Apps wrote in the Spectator that ‘London suffers from some of the most pressing housing need in the country’ and argued for more ‘tangible reforms’, such as a target for reducing the number of children in temporary accommodation. 
• Good jobs. Janet Williamson of the TUC summarises the levelling up paper as a bid to expand the private sector in the hope of creating more jobs. However, she argues that the paper falls short of ensuring that those jobs are well paid and secure. The TUC’s recommendations include raising the minimum wage, tackling zero hour contracts and embedding ‘decent jobs’ with high employment standards within government procurement rules. 
• Social infrastructure. The Women’s Budget Group argued that the White Paper is too geared towards physical rather than social infrastructure. By failing to sufficiently acknowledge the role of adult and child care, it does not provide adequate explanation for how women in particular can access job opportunities. 

Housing. The Levelling Up White Paper included some new announcements on renters’ rights, such as bringing forward a ban on section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and exploring the possibility of a National Landlord Register. Shelter called this a ‘crucial step forward’ but said that the Government needs to set out a plan for ‘significant investment in social housebuilding’. 

• Stability and affordability. The IPPR’s Luke Murphy highlights the need for further private rented sector (PRS) reform in order to provide tenants with more agency and control over their own home, such as limited rent increases and mandatory open-ended tenancies. 
• Brownfield development. The Campaign to Protect Rural England’s Paul Miner welcomed the commitment to brownfield development in the white paper, but warned that a lot of pressure will still be needed to make change happen, as ‘there are lots of people who are making quite a lot of money out of the current policies’. 

Net zero. The White Paper has been widely criticised for giving insufficient attention to the Government’s net zero ambitions. But the Conservative Environment Network’s Sam Hall argued that it demonstrates that levelling up and Net Zero are compatible, and that clean industries are critical for growth in industrial heartlands.