Levelling Up

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s commitment to levelling up those parts of the country that, by general consent, have been left behind. I also welcome the very substantial sums of money that the Minister has just referred to. Further to the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, when the Minister in another place was asked how we would know whether levelling up was achieving its objectives, he basically said that the next general election would provide the answer. Are the Government working on a measurement, or system of measurements, that would enable us to measure value for money for the levelling-up agenda in the meantime?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I reassure my noble friend that the Government have established a series of provisional priority outcomes and metrics, which has been published as part of the spending review. Table 2H is a particular example of an outcome that will help to measure the success of the fund.