Ministers ‘wasting billions on levelling up’
AGROUP of cross-party MPs has accused ministers of squandering billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on illthought-out “levelling up” plans and through the unfair allocation of funding.
The Public Affairs Committee (PAC) has described the way in which the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has been allocating large sums of money as “unsatisfactory”.
In a report published today, the MPs are highlighting how the first round of the £1.7 billion Levelling Up Fund was only awarded after the department knew the identities of shortlisted bidders.
The fund – which will later total £4.8 billion – is being awarded to projects aiming to “improve everyday life across the UK”, including by “regenerating town centres and high streets, upgrading local transport, and investing in cultural and heritage assets”, according to the Government.
The PAC’s report said some bidders for the first round may only have been successful on the basis of unrealistic claims about their projects, at the expense of other more practical claims. It adds that “the DLUHC has past form with this”, such as the awarding of the £3.6 billion Towns Fund which also had “not been impartial”.
The PAC has also previously criticised the department for lacking “a strong understanding of what works” when planning for its £12 million Local Growth Fund.
Some 16 MPs sit on the committee. It is chaired by Labour’s Dame Meg Hillier, who said the Government was “gambling taxpayers’ money on policies” which are “little more than a slogan”. She said: “The PAC has reported too often on the problems the government has with delivery of its major projects, programmes and promises.
“Without clear parameters, plans or measures of success, it’s hard to avoid the appearance that government is just gambling taxpayers’ money on policies and programmes that are little more than a slogan, retrofitting the criteria for success and not even bothering to evaluate if it worked.
“The nation is being squeezed harder than it has for decades, there is no more to throw away like this. The Government must learn again to account to taxpayers for its use of their money.”
However, Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday said that focusing on his “levelling up” agenda – to address regional inequality, measures to help deal with the rising cost of living and improvements to public services – was a key goal in his refocused Government, following Monday’s bruising leadership confidence vote.
However, he asked ministers to “make sure that you’re thinking the whole time about cutting the costs of government, about cutting the costs that business has to face and of course cutting the costs that everybody else faces, families up and down the country”.
Meanwhile, rail industry bodies reacted with fury after the Government scrapped a “vital” planned £3 billion connection between HS2 and the West Coast Main Line. The decision to axe the 13-mile Golborne Link in Greater Manchester will lead to a “bottleneck”, and negatively impact passengers, decarbonisation and levelling up, said the Railway Industry Association, Rail Freight Group and High Speed Rail Group.