Ministers urged to ‘go big’ on levelling up regions

Ex-civil service chief in call to tackle inequalities

THE FORMER head of the civil service has said solving the country’s regional inequalities should take equal importance for politicians as tackling the climate crisis, with a similar approach.

Speaking ahead of a report to be published later this week by the UK2070 Commission, of which he is chair, Lord Kerslake said a cross-Government group led by the Prime Minister would be the only way to deliver on promises made during the election to “level up” the country.

And although he believed it was still possible to make the UK fairer, he said the Government had to “go big or go home” if the radical changes were to be achieved.

His intervention comes ahead of the commission’s final report, which will be released on Thursday following 18 months of work.

Lord Kerslake, a former Sheffield Council chief executive, said the UK was one of the most unequal countries in the developed world, and despite Government promises that gap had continued to grow.

“What I’ve said is the Government needs to go big or go home if they’re going to make a meaningful difference on this issue,” he said.

“If they are not serious in this sense then they are better off not starting.”

“Levelling up” the country was a key message of Boris Johnson’s election campaign and the phrase continues to be used by all Government members.

But between 2007 and 2017 GDP per capita grew – in real terms – by 6.74 per cent in London, compared to 0.72 per cent in the Northern Powerhouse, the UK2070 Commission report will reveal. This compared to a 3.53 per cent growth nationally.

The Commission’s experts found that the economic gap between different parts of the UK has widened to the point where London’s productivity growth over the last decade was nine times higher than that of the area covered by the whole of the Northern Powerhouse.

Regardless Lord Kerslake said he did not buy into accusations this was simply a marketing term. But he said: “We don’t have a plan for levelling up, really.”

He added: “I don’t want to say it’s marketing because we want to believe the Government wants to get behind this.”

Lord Kerslake saw closing the inequality gap as having the same importance as tackling climate change and addressing the health and social care crisis.

“And of course there is some overlap between the two,” he said. “There should be a

statement of intent and a crossGovernment plan and it’s critically important to the UK now it’s embarking on this exit from the EU.”

He said: “I think we would need to have a Prime Ministerial-led cross-Government committee for example, we would need to have a plan for levelling up, we don’t have a plan for levelling up really.”

But he acknowledged none of this would happen overnight.

Devolution was key to bridging the gap, he said, but there would come a time where the system of Government making deals with specific areas – as has recently been seen in South Yorkshire – would not be enough.

He said: “I think its a welcome first step and the deal-based approach [but] we need to look at being even more ambitious.”

He gave the example of Andy Burnham in Manchester, who he said would “want flexible revenue funding”. And he said leaders in Leeds would look for the same once a deal was signed. But he warned that a lack of action would foster a “sense of resentment” within the British people.

He said: “We know from recent surveys that London does not come out well in how the rest of the country sees it, and we know there’s some level of resentment between towns and cities too.”

The commission suggests a 10-point plan for Government including tripling the new Shared Prosperity Fund to £15bn a year.