Levelling up ‘is not just about the North’

LEVELLING UP “cannot just be about the North”, peers have heard, as an inquiry into what the phrase actually means got under way.

The House of Lords Public Services Committee has taken evidence in a session designed to define levelling up.

And Jonathan Webb, a Senior Research Fellow at the IPPR North think-tank, said: “It can’t just be about the North.”

Levelling up has been touted by the Government as a way of improving the lives of people in traditionally “left behind” areas and has been come to be understood in terms of the North/ South divide and tackling regional inequalities.

But Mr Webb said: “I think the levelling up debate has often been defined in relation to the North, and the North matters when you look at a lot of the things which we want to fix, through levelling up around regional productivity, around education provision, life outcomes, all those things, but I don’t think it has to be confined to the North.”

Former Education Secretary Justine Greening told peers “this is the moment for change” in the context of levelling up.

But she said there must be metrics by which progress could be tracked.

Ms Greening added: “I think a wider public really wants to see change on the ground and they want to see a political system that’s prepared to work more collaboratively on a common agenda

if that’s what it takes to actually change things.

“And just in terms of the Government, I think there is a genuine interest in defining levelling up.”

She said: “I think the British public took a decision at the last election that levelling up matters.

“I think they do have a clear sense that it means equality of opportunity and doing what it takes to deliver that.

“And I think they now expect the collective political system actually, whether in Westminster or at a more local level, to get on and deliver it and I think that’s what now needs to happen.”