Government not 'made enough progress on defining levelling up' says head of committee of MPs

The head of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy select committee has warned Ministers that the term risks being “nothing more than a campaign slogan” if more work is not done to set out how the flagship policy will be achieved and measured across the country.

However, a Conservative Minister has said that the formation of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities shows that the Government is committed to making progress on the agenda.

Labour MP and chair of the Commons committee Darren Jones said: “Ministers still haven’t made enough progress on defining what levelling up will mean for people across the country.”

Commenting as the committee published the Government response to the committee’s levelling up report, which was published earlier this year, he added: “The Government must take the opportunity in the upcoming Levelling-Up White Paper to finally explain how people will experience a positive change in their lives and in their local communities.

“Failure to spell out how levelling-up will deliver meaningful change risks exposing the whole initiative as nothing more than a campaign slogan.”

The committees original report into Levelling Up and post-pandemic growth, released in July, said that “as it currently stands, levelling up risks becoming an everything and nothing policy, not owned by any particular Minister or Department, and without any means in place of evaluating or assessing its impact or efficacy as policy in ‘improving everyday life and life chances’”

In the Government response, made public yesterday, Industry Minister Lee Rowley said progress had been made since then, pointing to the newly named Department and adding that new Secretary of State Michael Gove “has a clear mandate to ensure progress is made on this agenda.”

He went on: “We hope that some of the Government’s recent remarks, and the announcements made in September, demonstrate a clear commitment to making progress on levelling up.

“Including, where we concur, starting to address some of the challenges the Committee rightly set out.

The news comes as the long-promised Levelling Up White Paper - expected to set out the parameters of how the policy will make meaningful change - is thought to be made public before the Christmas break.

Ministers are coming under increasing scrutiny over their levelling up agenda following a series of announcements which have appeared to impact the north more severely than other areas of the country.

The Integrated Rail Plan, released in November, detailed that the Eastern Leg of HS2 from the Midlands through to Leeds would be scrapped in its route to Yorkshire, and the long-promised Northern Powerhouse Rail project across the Pennines was also considerably scaled back in comparison to what northern figures had hoped for.

Meanwhile, the Government also faced a rebellion on its social care plans which are likely to see those with lower house values paying more before they hit the cap for social care costs.

Generally, house prices are greater in London and the South East than other regions of the country.