Economist says delivery project is still lacking on aspiration for levelling up

THE CHAIRMAN of an independent body that was set up to monitor the Government’s progress on its industrial strategy has said that the UK has an end objective and a plan, but no delivery project for levelling up.

Andy Haldane, who heads the Industrial Strategy Council, said that like the plan to slash emissions to net zero by the middle of the century the aspirations were correct, but action and funding is sometimes lacking.

“We have an end objective for 2050, we have a 10-point plan.

What we do not have currently is a delivery project for that that embraces public and private sectors with some clear staging posts, perhaps even some quantifiable metrics,” he told MPs on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee.

He added: “What’s true of net zero is no less true of levelling up – where we have the right aspiration it hasn’t yet translated into some quantifiable metrics, much less into a delivery plan. I hope that will come with the fullness of time.”

Mr Haldane, who grew up in Guiseley and is also the Bank of England’s chief economist, said that national Government sometimes struggles to bring together different actors, such as business, on the road to its targets. He said some of the best examples are often local, including in Manchester.

The Government set out an industrial strategy in 2017 in a bid to increase productivity and earnings in the UK. But last year the Industrial Strategy Council said most of the £45bn thrown at the strategy has been spent on a small number of policies.

Mr Haldane said: “It struck us even a year ago that the existing industrial strategy had spread itself a little too thinly with its 142 policies, a number of which actually had no monies assigned to them at all. And having tracked those for another year now, it looks that a good number of those, maybe a fifth or perhaps even a quarter, have sort of disappeared down rabbit holes.”