'They just need to get cracking' - Justine Greening calls on Government to publish full plan on levelling up agenda

Yorkshire-born Justine Greening, who was previously an Education Secretary and International Development Secretary, told the BBC’s Newscast podcast that Boris Johnson cannot waste any more time in delivering the agenda promised during the General Election to the North.

Ms Greening, who is being tipped by some as a contender for the Tory candidate for West Yorkshire mayor, told the podcast: “I think they've just got to get cracking. They have this golden opportunity, they won a mandate, they've got a majority, they now have the control to be able to genuinely make a difference in this country, at a time when we know that Covid has made the levelling up agenda even more important, and they really do need to get on with it and I think that these cultural-style battles on things like aid spending, just distract from that agenda, and the need to bring this country together even on levelling up.”

The Government has come under criticism for cutting the overseas aid budget from 0.7 per cent of gross national income to 0.5 per cent as it attempts to mitigate the economic impact of coronavirus.

And Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab yesterday denied the Government is “salami slicing” all parts of the UK’s overseas aid spending as he outlined the priorities for the slashed budget.

The Foreign Secretary said the long-term strategic aims of the country’s international work will be based on “our values and grounded in the British national interests”.

Ms Greening, who was born in Rotherham and was MP for Putney, in London, until December last year, also called for the publication of a levelling up plan, although she welcomed the £4bn levelling up fund announcement by the Chancellor in this week’s spending review.

“We're yet to see a levelling-up plan, and we need one,” she said.

“It is a complex policy agenda that requires long term action. I welcome the levelling-up fund, of course, that will be helpful, but levelling up is very much about removing the barriers that hold people back.

“Some of those may well be transport related, but a lot of them aren't. And I think we all know what the impact of schools being shut has been over recent months. And there is still, of course, many children out of school because of localised problems.

“And so eventually, the Government is going to have to set out a plan on how it closes those gaps on education inequalities that open up very early on, really from early years onwards, but also then how it connects those people up to the opportunities. And part of this, of course, is the net zero agenda, the new jobs that are coming through and making sure they're in parts of the country that can really benefit from those opportunities.”

She added: “Part of it’s the tech agenda, but it needs an overall strategy if you're really going to make sure that levelling up actually happens. This Spending Review we saw this week was really about getting through, but actually what people want to know fundamentally is how they're going to get on in their lives.”

Ms Greening said Mr Johnson had the “the right vision in relation to levelling-up” but that “he has to make that more tangible in terms of practically how he's going to deliver it”.

She said: “We still have a massive problem on inequality of opportunity. So he has to do something different and demonstrate how that's going to have impact. We're yet to see that plan.”

And she said the Prime Minister could not let the pandemic distract them.

She said: “I think we all accept it's been an almost impossible challenge with this one-off pandemic in a sense, that nobody really could have anticipated. But as I say, if you're a government that has a mission, then you can't be blown off course by anything, including a pandemic.”

She added: “He's got to crack on. It's nearly a year since he won the election.

“I just remember when I was in the DFE [Department for Education], I literally had in my mind that I didn't want to waste a moment on having an impact on a school system and state education system had completely transformed my own life chances and I think what I really want to see is that same level of urgency on levelling up.”