Levelling Up

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my relevant interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a member of Kirklees Council. I read the Statement on levelling up with great interest. My own area of West Yorkshire includes towns and cities that, by any fair measure, will qualify for focused help to support their residents. I am therefore particularly keen to understand what it is all about.

“Levelling up” is a rather nebulous phrase. I want to understand precisely what it means and, more importantly, what is hoped to be achieved by it. Perhaps the Minister can help, as I have not been able to find anywhere either a definition or an explanation of how improvements will be measured. Can the Minister please provide a definition of levelling up and the metrics that will be used to determine whether the funding allocated has been a success? I appreciate that sharing metrics data orally is not easy, so will the Minister provide that information and make it available to all colleagues through the House of Lords Library?

The tools that the Government are proposing and which are outlined in this Statement are resonant of previous attempts to improve the lives of parts of our country that do not enjoy the same level of well-being as the more affluent one. Previous Governments have used similar funding packages. There was City Challenge, the Single Regeneration Budget and then SRB2. This was followed by investments through the regional development agencies. The common feature was infra-structure investment, although some aspects of SRB had elements of support for jobs and skills. Will the Minister provide the data that demonstrates that the areas that benefited from the funding packages I just listed have prospered as a result—or, better still, data that explains the reasons why some of the same places are still suffering from multiple deprivations? I can name them if the Minister is not sure which places they are. I ask these questions because the Government are in danger of repeating some of the less successful aspects of past attempts at regeneration. They need to explain whether providing shiny new roads and revamped town centres is the way to improve lives and level up.

The Covid pandemic has shone a bright light on the areas of our country that suffer from considerable deprivation. There is a strong link between deaths from Covid and living in deprived parts of our country. Can the Minister explain why some of these areas will not benefit from any of the funding packages outlined in the Statement? Are these places just going to be ignored? What plans do the Government have for providing support for them? Does the Minister agree that reviving local government by enabling local authorities to provide self-help may well be the best way forward? Of course, that depends on adequately funding local government and devolving to councils the right to bring in local knowledge and talent to take responsibility for making the towns that they represent proud places once again. Does the Minister agree?

What we do know is that people who live in areas of multiple deprivation have lives that are literally limited. They die younger; they live in poor-quality housing; their access to healthcare, training and well-paid jobs is limited. Does the Minister, with his wealth of local government experience, agree with this? If he does, can he also explain the reason for these measures not being the main ones used to determine which places will benefit from the funding packages outlined in the Statement?

This brings me to the selection of the places that are due to benefit from those funding packages. Of course, metrics can be carefully selected to ensure that the towns that the Government wish to benefit from additional funding come out top of the pile. That is clearly what has happened in these instances. Using the metric of distance to travel to work will target those places that are of a more rural nature. If that is the aim, the Government should be honest about it and focus on improving public transport in rural areas. If the heart of so-called levelling up is providing focused support to places suffering from multiple deprivations, the Government should use the metrics that enable that to happen. If they do not, they are being hypocritical and make those of us looking on regard what they are doing with some cynicism.

Much of the content of this Statement is of packages that are being announced as new yet again. The miserable levels of funding to mayoral combined authorities of £30 million or so a year in areas that serve, say, 2 million people, is just another example of re-announcing old packages of funding. The support for the well-to-do areas that can raise £250,000 as matched funding to buy and run a community asset has been re-announced. These packages are not new and not aimed at poorer parts of our country.

I want those post-industrial towns that have experienced considerable decline—economically and socially—to benefit from long-term and sustained support that will revive their communities, improve the health and well-being of their residents, enable training and skills that lead to well-paid jobs, and bring hope for the future. Unfortunately, the package of funding announced does none of that. I look forward to answers to my questions when the Minister replies.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, the Front-Bench speakers have taken most of the 20 minutes allowable, but I can confirm that the Minister has plenty of time to reply and that the Bank-Benchers will still get their 20 minutes.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

My Lords, I point out that, in order to assess the efficacy of something like the levelling-up fund, we need to recognise the overall policy objective, which is to deal with the long-standing variation in economic performance between different areas and within areas.

The Government have set out their approach to the wider levelling-up agenda through a number of critical documents, such as the National Infrastructure Strategy, which focuses on energy, digital and transport, and the recent spending review, which announced £27 billion for those areas. There is also Build Back Better: Our Plan for Growth, published by Her Majesty’s Treasury, and the capital spending plan, which will be £100 billion— £30 billion more than in 2019-20. So, the overall package of funding around capital and infrastructure projects is at unprecedented levels.

The approach to levelling up needs to be seen as a package of measures. The levelling-up fund is more capital-focused and follows on from the £3.6 billion towns fund, while the community renewal fund—the precursor to the UK shared prosperity fund—is more revenue-focused. Alongside that, we have the increasing devolution of funding, which amounts to around £7.49 billion over 30 years for the nine currently agreed devolution deals.

The approach to the levelling-up fund has focused on making it very clear how we allocate funding. The index and the methodology used to develop it have been published. It focuses on areas that need economic recovery and growth, improved transport connectivity and regeneration. I am absolutely clear that Ministers did not see a list of specific places before agreeing the metrics; no changes to the index’s weightings or metrics were made as a result of Ministers having sight of the list of places.

We are also clear that this needs to be seen as a package of measures and that the levelling-up fund focuses on productivity, unemployment, skills and transport. Richmond scored low on productivity, which is one of the reasons why it is a category 1 area. Newark, which was also mentioned, scored “average to low” on productivity, skills and the unemployment rate. The approach we have taken has yielded those areas that are highest on the index. However, I repeat: all areas, in all categories, can apply to the fund and should be encouraged to do so.

With regard to the devolved Administrations, let me make it absolutely clear that we are seeking advice from them as part of this fund, and they will be consulted at the shortlisting stage. At least £800 million is being set aside for the devolved nations. On regions such as the north and north-west, a significant amount of funding, beyond the levelling-up fund, has been committed to the north to help level up, such as the £319.7 million from the Getting Building Fund. I point out that the UK infrastructure bank will be headquartered in Leeds and will play a key role in the levelling-up agenda.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

We now come to the 20 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. I ask that questions and answers be brief so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I know that my noble friend will be delighted that Eastbourne is within category 1 in terms of being prioritised within the index of places. That means that Eastbourne and its council can draw on support, where there is an absence of capacity or perhaps not enough funding available, of up to £125,000 for the preparation of the bid. I point out that councils are merely encouraged to put some of their own resources towards the bid funding; it is not necessarily a prerequisite. In the case of Eastbourne, the Government are providing that funding to make sure that there is the best possible opportunity for the council to be successful in its bid for the fund.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked and answered. Congratulations to the Minister and congratulations to the Back-Benchers.