I applaud the ambition but it needs cash

I BELIEVE Michael Gove genuinely wants to level up the UK. But unless the Chancellor backs it with long-term funding, his White Paper won’t achieve it.

The time for warm words is over, we need action. The North has suffered lower living standards, sluggish economic growth, poor public transport and lack of opportunity for decades.

Mayors and local leaders need enough money, more powers and more flexibility to immediately start improving the lives and livelihoods of their people.

To truly level up, like many other regions, West Yorkshire needs funding for a modern public transport system.

CHALLENGE

But the Government’s plans don’t address this challenge properly. We also need long-term funding to support new jobs, new homes and new infrastructure. And we need to ditch the system where regions are pitched against each other to bid for funding for vital regeneration projects.

So, it’s not enough for Mr Gove to be a one-man band, playing the levelling up tune. I will work with him to level up the North but we need to see every Cabinet member commit to this.

And most of all we need the Treasury to back this White Paper with a clear pledge to provide the funding the ambition requires.