We’ll make levelling up a reality, city tells PM
But Birmingham demands new powers – and a £1bn fund
BIRMINGHAM has offered to make “levelling up” a reality – if Boris Johnson’s government gives it the cash and tools needed to deal with its many problems.
Launching the city’s proposals in Parliament, Birmingham City Council leader Ian Ward said: “Our offer is to collaborate and work with Government to ensure that levelling-up is a success. A success for Birmingham and for the UK.”
He was speaking as the council published a 54-page levelling up strategy, highlighting the city’s “exceptional opportunities” while warning Birmingham currently “under-performs” compared to other cities and England as a whole.
The strategy said: “On a wide range of indicators of local conditions – capturing people, place, health, education and the local economy – Birmingham residents are amongst the least well off in the country.”
But it also highlighted opportunities such as the Commonwealth Games due to be held in Birmingham next year, and the HS2 high speed rail network coming to the region.
It said: “Birmingham has the potential for a golden decade of opportunity ahead.”
The council is calling on the government to support its plans to create more opportunities for Birmingham, and to cut inequality within the city, particularly in the east.
Proposals include refurbishing 61,000 homes to make them energy efficient, creating jobs in the process. The council is also asking for more autonomy, and access to a “single pot” of funding for up to £1 billion for levelling up projects.
This would allow the authority to decide how cash is spent, rather than forcing it to submit regular bids to national funding schemes overseen by Whitehall departments such as the Treasury.
At the same time, MPs are launching a new all-party Parliamentary group to fight for Birmingham in Parliament. It will be chaired by Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) and Labour MP Preet Kaur
Gill (Edgbaston).
The council
has worked with PwC to compare Birmingham’s needs to the England average. Their study found:
Over 40% of Birmingham’s children grow up in relative poverty.
It is the third most deprived “core” city.
Birmingham fares less well across many indicators such as education, skills, and the living environment.
90% of city wards are more deprived than the national average
The rate of unemployment is double the national average
There is a decade’s gap in life expectancy between the poorest areas, such as those in East Birmingham and the most affluent areas.
Local Government Secretary Michael Gove is expected to publish a Levelling Up White Paper before the end of the year.
He has said this is likely to include measures to devolve more powers from central government to a regional or local level, although so far the Government has tended to grant powers to regional bodies, such as the West Midlands Combined Authority, and not to local councils.
Birmingham is asking the Government
to devolve funding to the city, and the strategy suggested creating a a Community Wealth Fund, worth £1 billion over 10 years. It also asked the Government to give it more powers, for example to regulate private landlords.
The strategy called for support for plans to cut poverty in the east of Birmingham, and for “early intervention” measures to provide help for parents and children, including mental health provision.
It asked the Government to back efforts to improve digital infrastructure in the city, such as 5G full-fibre broadband, and a project to retrofit 61,000 council homes in Birmingham, to make them more energy efficient.
“This is expected to help manufacturing firms as well as local fitters and tradespeople.
Cllr Ward told the Westminster reception: “Ours is a city on the up. Prior to Covid, we were seeing growth at almost twice the rate of London, and four times the national average.”
But highlighting the city’s current problems, he said: “Too many people and too many communities are excluded from the benefits of our economy.”