Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Lord Stunell

Committee stage
Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

My Lords, I too will speak in support of Amendment 4. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for tabling this amendment. I am very aware that my right reverend friend the Bishop of Durham is a co-signatory and is unable to be here today to speak.

Levelling up, as the Government’s White Paper initially outlined, is about equally spreading opportunity across our country. It is about challenging unfairness and allowing people to live more fulfilling lives—I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for his inspiring speech. These are aims that surely all of us welcome, but I cannot see how this will ever be achieved unless the Bill includes reducing child poverty.

This is about the present and the long-term future. As has already been said, the latest statistics are that there are 3.9 million children living in poverty in this country; that is more than one in four. With more and more families turning to food banks and the experience of persistent poverty tripling a child’s likelihood of having mental health problems, this cannot continue.

What does it mean for years to come, when these children and young people are adults? Even if you are lukewarm regarding care and flourishment, none of this makes long-term financial sense, and it certainly will not lead to long-term levelling up. Child poverty has been calculated to be costing the Government £38 billion per year. That does not fully take into account the financial impact of needs and services which can then become necessary in later life, whether that be health costs, various support services or criminal justice services. We know that children who are not invested in to give them the best start in life are more at risk of failing to flourish as young people and adults.

Poverty limits a child’s future opportunities and employment prospects, largely due to the impact it has on education. If levelling up is about equally spreading opportunity across the country, it is essential to ensure that children are receiving quality education. Yet how can we expect them to receive quality education when so many are facing the realities of poverty? The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has already spoken about the Child of the North APPG report. One youth ambassador expressed how poverty was impacting their life:

“The main impacts are education. No matter where you are, school is difficult … It isn’t just hunger. The worry is still there. That feeling of worry never leaves. How your sister’s trip to the zoo is going to be paid. How you’ve not seen your mam eat. All going through your head in a chemistry lesson.”


The impact of poverty on a child’s life and future should not be underestimated. It impacts education, physical and mental health, relationships and access to opportunities. It is therefore impossible to achieve levelling up without putting the mission of reducing child poverty at its heart.

Furthermore, as has been said, child poverty is an inequality that people face throughout the country. I know that if my right reverend friend the Bishop of Durham was here, he would highlight the stark inequality in the north-east of England. Absolute child poverty may have fallen marginally across the UK since 2015, but it has risen in every local authority area of the north-east since 2017. This makes the gap between the north-east and the UK average poverty rate the greatest it has ever been.

Ending geographical inequality, which this Bill strives to accomplish, means ending the inequality of child poverty equally across the UK. Prioritising a strategy around reducing child poverty will improve not only the well-being of millions of children throughout the country, allowing them to flourish, but employment prospects and earnings, increasing economic growth and benefitting the country overall.

Childhood may not be permanent, but the experiences we have in our childhood shape the rest of our lives. Reducing child poverty in every local authority, and across the country, must be a priority now, because without doing so levelling up will be nothing more than a distant fantasy.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments in my name, but I could not begin without commenting on the three very powerful speeches which have just been made. I hope very much that the Minister is listening and will be able to give something better than a formulaic response to the pleas that have been made.

In the amendments standing in my name and the name of my noble friend Lady Parminter, there are references to two other missing links in the metrics which are in front of us via these 12 missions—missing in both the Bill, where there are no links at all, and in the White Paper that preceded it. There are 12 missions set out in the White Paper and none of them references the need for future investment to achieve net-zero emissions as the fundamental basis of levelling up. I find that, frankly, astonishing. It is all the more surprising because the White Paper itself takes space in section 1.4.1 to explain that the risks and opportunities that the transition to net zero raises are greatest in exactly those parts of the country that most seriously need levelling up.

The White Paper points out that to achieve a just transition, the most challenging area is in those places where levelling up is most needed:

“Parts of the UK that need to undergo the largest transition”


to net zero

“lie outside the South East, often in some of the least well-performing areas of the UK.”

The White Paper recognises that there is a correlation between the intensity of the impact of the intended transition to net zero and areas that need levelling up. In other words, you need more of it in the places where levelling up is needed the most. It clearly identifies that but then proposes no action to respond to that impact.

Our amendment does not propose an additional mission to remedy this oversight, because, quite apart from the spurious precision of a particular number of missions in the first place, the transition to net zero needs to be at the heart of all of the missions in the White Paper. There is a powerful read-across to living standards, transport, skills, health and well-being—to mention the scope of just five of the missions on the Minister’s list. Amendment 18 is framed in terms of requiring pervasive action within all 12 missions to enhance their success in delivering meaningful and enduring levelling up, and seeks to avoid the temptation of short-term, quick fixes that build in carbon emissions and make matters worse or undermine the UK target of net zero by 2050.

Those risks are real. For instance, for a Minister anxious to achieve a particular mission target by 2030—on, say, living standards, which is mission 1 in the White Paper—it might be very tempting to prioritise investment in an oven-ready, carbon-intensive employment prospect, rather than in a longer-term plan that would aid transition and boost jobs far more, but not until after 2030, when the Minister’s accounting period had ended.

However, an even bigger risk is emerging, which is that new green jobs are not preferentially going to those areas that need levelling up. In fact, they are not even being sprinkled equally across every part of the country. The new green jobs and investment are following the money and not the need, with London and the south-east picking up those jobs much more quickly than the north-east or north-west of England.