North East economic hopes are 'fading away'
The chance to live a good life in the North East is fading away for too many people in the region, a leading economic think tank has warned.
The Institute of Public Policy North (IPPRN) says decent jobs, wages and opportunities are becoming increasingly unattainable across the region aftef the UK entered a global pandemic with a deep and growing divide between and within regions caused by decades of centralisation and 10 years of austerity.
Ac cording to the th e group’s annual State Of The North report the Covid-19 pandemic makes the challenge of reducing regional inequalities even greater and more urgent than before.
The report highlights the the region's fewer job opportunities, lower median wage levels and lower life expectancy.
Last month, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a £4bn ‘levelling up fund and reforms in the way the Treasury assesses the value for money of big infrastructure spending projects to remove a long-standing bias.
Director of IPPR North Sarah Longlands said successive governments of all colours have failed the North in the past.
She said: "If Governments want to help the North they need to start dealing with inequalities.
"This Government was elected on a promise to 'level up' places like the North but, one year on, they don't have a plan to reduce inequalities and the inadequate, centrally controlled, competitive 'levelling up fund' announced in the spending review simply won't cut it. We need to challenge old, reductive assumpt i o n s ab out ou r e c o n o my because they've failed to create the conditions for a good life for everyone in the North.”