Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Fifth sitting)

Alex Norris Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Before we begin, I have a couple of reminders. Colleagues should switch off telephones, or at least switch them to silent. No food is allowed, although Members are allowed liquid refreshments. Our Hansard colleagues would be delighted if Members emailed their speaking notes to [e-mail].

We are about to begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill. The selection list for today’s sitting is available in the room, here in front of me. The selection list shows how the selected amendments have been grouped for debate. Grouped amendments are generally on the same or a similar issue. Please note that decisions on amendments are taken not in the order in which the amendments are debated, but in the order in which they appear on the amendment paper.

The selection list shows the order of debates. A decision on each amendment will be taken when we come to the clause to which the amendment relates. Decisions on new clauses will be taken once we have completed consideration of the existing clauses of the Bill. I hope that is clear.

Members wishing to press a grouped amendment or new clause to a Division should indicate when speaking that they wish to do so.

Clause 1

Statement of levelling-up missions

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move amendment 3, in clause 1, page 1, line 14, at end insert—

“(c) the independent body that Her Majesty’s Government proposes to use to evaluate progress in delivering those levelling-up missions (“the independent evaluating body”).”

This amendment would require the Government to commission an independent body to scrutinise their progress against levelling-up missions.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 5, in clause 2, page 2, line 37, at end insert—

“(aa) include the independent evaluating body’s assessment of the progress that has been made, in that period, by Her Majesty’s Government to deliver each of the levelling-up missions.”

This amendment would require annual reports on the delivery of levelling-up missions to include the evaluation that the independent evaluating body has made of the Government’s progress in delivering each of the missions.

Amendment 10, in clause 5, page 5, line 18, at end insert—

“(ca) state whether the independent evaluating body considers that pursuing the levelling-up missions in that statement is effectively contributing to the reduction of geographical disparities in the United Kingdom,”

This amendment would require the report on a review of statements of levelling-up missions to include the assessment of the independent evaluating body.

Amendment 12, in clause 5, page 5, line 31, at end insert—

“(iii) so that it includes the guidance from the independent evaluating body on this decision”

This amendment would require the Government to publish the guidance from the independent evaluating body on this decision.

New clause 1—Independent body to monitor levelling up missions—

“(1) The Secretary of State must assign an independent body to assess the Government’s progress on levelling-up missions and make recommendations for improvements to delivery of them.

(2) The body must prepare parallel independent reports for each period to which a report under section 2 applies.

(3) Each parallel independent report must—

(a) assess the progress that has been made in the relevant period in delivering each of the levelling-up missions in the current statement levelling-up missions, as it has effect at the end of the period, and

(b) make recommendations for what the Government should do to deliver each levelling-up mission in the following period.

(4) The Secretary of State must lay each report under this section before Parliament on the same day as the report under section 2 which applies to the relevant period.”

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to establish an independent body that can provide reports on the Government’s progress on levelling-up missions and outline recommendations for their future delivery.

[Alex Norris]

It is a pleasure to begin our line-by-line consideration with you in the Chair, Mr Paisley.

The first two parts of the Bill deal with levelling up. I think it is safe to say that levelling up is an area in which there is considerable public interest. It has been at the core of the Prime Minister’s agenda and was at the heart of the 2019 Conservative manifesto, but, many years on, there remains considerable interest in what it really means. In February, we received the White Paper, “Levelling Up the United Kingdom”, which has 297 glossy pages comprised of broad missions that all of us could support, such as addressing inequalities in health and life expectancy, and in pay and productivity, and boosting local pride and more. I think there would be broad political consensus on those things.

The White Paper was heavy on narrative—lots of history, although some of it seemed to be directly from Wikipedia—but there was little clarity on how those worthy goals would be met. That was set against the frequent negative briefing we have seen in the media by ever-present Government sources about levelling up, as well as a clear reduction in commitment from the Treasury with little or no new money being made available to power the programme. We meet at an important point at which there is a lot of public interest in what levelling up is going to mean, but no little cynicism about whether anything is really going to change.

The Bill was supposed to represent the moment when that cynicism would be arrested, and the Government would demonstrate beyond doubt that they really were committed to levelling up the United Kingdom and were going to deliver their promises. I fear that the Bill has not yet met that moment.

As I said on Second Reading, the levelling-up Bill is now the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. Essentially, the Bill has been bulked out with a planning Bill, which is a sign of what we are going to be doing here over the next three months. If that point is contested, the doubt could be erased by considering how much time the Minister for Levelling Up and I, as his shadow, have spent talking compared with the Minister for Housing and his shadow. Today, tomorrow and next week, I am afraid that we might hear more from me. However, we have a duty—we also have lots and lots of time—to make the Bill better, so that it might serve this important agenda. With that in mind, I have tabled amendment 3, which I shall turn to now.

The amendment is about independent scrutiny of this important agenda. We on the Labour Benches are concerned that the Government will seek to demonstrate levelling up not as hard-and-fast, real and meaningful change that unlocks the potential of the United Kingdom, across all the nations and regions, but in a political sense. We are concerned that they will seek to write up whatever happens as a huge political success, but nothing will really get better. We see that as a stock in trade for this Government; every Prime Minister’s Question Time is an exercise in hearing how well our economy has done and is doing, but we know the reality. We see in our communities anaemic growth, real-terms wages stagnating and rampant inflation. We are constantly told how great things are, but the reality is anything but. That cannot happen with levelling up, and the Government should be keen from the outset to show that they do not intend for it to. Our amendments would help them considerably in that.

Clause 1(2) requires the Government to establish levelling-up missions through a statement from a Minister of the Crown. It says that the statement must include the Government’s objectives in tackling geographical disparities and the metrics they intend to use to measure progress. That leaves the Government to mark their own homework—they can say what they are trying to do and how well they are doing it. Amendment 3 would improve that by requiring the statement also to detail an independent body to evaluate whether the Government are achieving what they say they will.

Independent oversight is a cornerstone of good governance. Clear, trusted and impartial analysis makes better policy, delivers better outcomes and is a good thing for democracy. An independent body that can sit alongside the programme could be a real anchor for the development and progress of the agenda. Such a body is not a particularly unimaginable prospect, as we already have good examples of such independent oversight. I will draw briefly on two of those examples: the Office for Budget Responsibility; and the Select Committees in this place.

In different ways, but with similar impacts, the OBR and the Select Committee system have been vital in holding the Government of the day to account by providing analysis and reports on issues such as the state of public finances in the case of the OBR, and for various policy matters across every Government Department in the case of Select Committees. They can act without fear or favour, and since their introduction they have significantly improved debate on policy, the development of good policy and the proper implementation of good policy.

Governments, as is their wont, seek to drive their agenda forward each day with announcements of different policies or achievements, but Select Committees in particular have been important forums for us to step back, assess the evidence, evaluate what has worked, take evidence from around the world or from different systems to see what has worked, and to reach informed conclusions about how to improve outcomes. The Government, with their legislative mandate, can then choose whether to accept those conclusions.

I am sure that the recent Public Accounts Committee report into levelling up so far will come up during the proceedings. It was made clear by the Minister for Local Government, Faith and Communities, the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch) in questions yesterday that the Government have no intention of taking that report on board. That is fine; there is independent scrutiny, and then the Government must make their decision, as they have a mandate to do. The scrutiny process also takes some of the partisanship out of situations, which is always a good thing.

During our final evidence session, Will Tanner, who on political matters would normally be closer to the Minister than to myself, said:

“The area where I think the Committee could make a real difference is around the levelling-up missions and the overarching framework around the Bill. I am not sure the Minister will necessarily thank me for saying this, but I think the reporting requirements and the architecture around the levelling-up missions could be strengthened considerably in two primary ways. First, we have seen through the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Climate Change Committee the importance and strength of an independent body to hold the Government to account for delivering against its own targets, and I think the levelling-up missions would benefit from that level of scrutiny and accountability. At the moment there is a bit of a risk of the Government setting out its own interpretation of progress rather than us having an independent view.”––[Official Report, Levelling-up and Regeneration Public Bill Committee, 23 June 2022; c. 144, Q179.]

That is the first of two points Will Tanner made; I will raise the second under the clause 2 stand part debate. That first point is right, and it is a view shared by the Local Government Association. We are keen to avoid the issue that Will Tanner finished with in that quotation: the risk of the Government setting out their own interpretation of progress. There is a risk of that in the Bill currently.

We know that the Government are in that space to an extent; they value external voices through the Levelling Up Advisory Council. I hope the Minister might make some references to its work and how he sees that following Royal Assent. The body brings together respected individuals from their fields to advise on levelling up. The Minister can tell us how useful that has been so far. I trust it has been very useful. The amendment gives the Government significant discretion. I have offered an OBR model and a Select Committee model. The advisory council itself could be a model, provided the Government could demonstrate suitable independence. I see no harm—only positives, in fact—in maximising the process of, say, the advisory council and building on its independence and distance from Government.

The timescale, size and importance of levelling up necessitates independent scrutiny. As we have heard from the various speeches from Ministers setting out to define levelling up, this is a vast project that cuts across various Departments. Policy in the White Paper concerned economy, crime, health, education, devolution, employment and much more. Indeed, the White Paper spoke of how Government decision making would have to be “fundamentally reoriented” and that wide-scale system change was required in Government for levelling up to succeed. It says:

“System change is not about a string of shiny, but ultimately short-lived, new policy initiatives. It is about root and branch reform of government and governance of the UK. It is about putting power in local hands, armed with the right information and embedded in strong civic institutions.”

That is a very noble pursuit—titanic, I might say. Clearly, purely in policy terms, it is going to be very big. Some independent support would be welcome. That quote from the White Paper recognises that levelling up is not a project for Government alone, neither in the execution nor the analysis. That is why we think the introduction of an independent voice would add to that.

It is not just about size. Levelling up will take some time to deliver. The Government’s levelling-up missions in the White Paper set targets for 2030. I do not want to open a political debate this morning—yet—but such a target is likely to outlive the Government. Having an independent and constant scrutineer, which would be part of the process, whether Ministers moved on and Governments changed, would help with the implementation of long-term policy objectives. It would provide a sustained focus, unencumbered by changes. We are well placed to do that, because the principles of levelling up happily enjoy cross-party support and are here to stay. Certainly, we will find much common ground in these sessions on the broad principles of what we are seeking to achieve. Why not embed those principles in an overarching independent body?

Amendment 5 mirrors amendment 3. We will have opportunities to debate clause 2 fully subsequently, but it requires annual statements on the Government’s progress towards the levelling-up missions. A Minister of the Crown has to make those statements each year. That is a very good thing. There is a danger with medium-term goals; I am always a bit sceptical about them. I remember that at the turn of the century, we always had to have 2020 visions. I was always quite sceptical of 20-year programmes. It is often the work that is done in the first years that is as important as the work done in the last years, and the last thing we want is to get to 2030 and realise we have not achieved what we have set out to do. Annual reporting is therefore a good thing to ensure that we are on track. If we are not, we can evaluate why and make some changes to get back on track. That will give us a good tool to hold Ministers to account.

Clause 2(2) says that the annual reports must include the Minister’s view of progress so far, description of actions taken so far and plans for the future. In short, the Government mark their own homework—getting the chance to trumpet the actions they have taken and herald the future actions they will take. If we judge the Government on their current standards, we are likely to see a cycle of subterfuge and self-congratulation. Amendment 5 would remove that risk by requiring annual reports on the delivery of levelling-up missions to include an independent evaluating body’s assessment of the Government’s progress. As I said, independent oversight is a really important factor in good governance, and clear and trusted analysis would lead to better policy and outcomes.

We should look to Budget day, and to the OBR, as a model. Why should a Minister’s annual reports on the progress of levelling up not be accompanied by a booklet featuring clear, factual information and independent analysis? That is what we get on Budget day from the OBR, so why not replicate it with levelling up? Levelling up is a transformative economic project that is supposedly at the centre of the Government’s domestic policy, so its profile could be seen as equal to that of major annual economic events. If we are to be transformative, let us try to raise the significance of levelling up.

We would all agree that debates on the Budget and financial events are enriched by the information provided by the OBR. In this case, the debate around levelling up—whether we are going in the right direction and whether we will get there in the time we have set for ourselves—would only be enriched by providing similar information. Again, it would give Members opportunities to scrutinise, to give real-time feedback on how things are feeling in their constituencies, and to create a conversation with the public. I think all hon. Members would agree that we do a better job—on making policies or scrutinising them—when we have a bit of independence supporting the system.

I dare say that a theme of these debates will be that levelling up will not be a success if it is something that central Government do to the nations and regions. There will have to be a partnership. Part 2 of the Bill seeks to establish sub-regional bodies. Again, that will be a partnership between the Government and the sub-regional bodies. Sub-regional bodies, their councils and communities—the whole family; all of us—all have a stake in things getting better. There therefore needs to be some impartial assessment in the Bill, certainly for the public—it is their money, after all—to be able to see the progress that is being made, so that there can be a conversation. Sometimes that conversation will be about holding central Government to account and saying, for example, “We don’t think you’re making the right resourcing decisions to drive changes in crime,” but it is also about saying to local communities, “What is your part in that?”

Impartial assessment is not just about having something with which to evaluate the Government, but about holding ourselves—mutually, in partnership—to account, but we cannot do that if the only assessment of progress and impact is made by the central player in the field. The Public Accounts Committee report commented on the wisdom or otherwise of, or the lack of criteria in, the way in which a significant sum of public money has been spent. Impartial analysis, including of the finances, would help us to build trust that levelling up is something that the Government want to do in and of itself, not for any other purposes.

I turn briefly to amendment 10. We are discomfited by clause 5, which allows Ministers to revise the levelling-up missions. If Ministers do not think the missions serve levelling up, they can be dispensed with. That offers a mechanism for the Government to dodge accountability when the reality of their lack of success fails to measure up to their press releases. That is a huge power for the Government to ask for. The White Paper is full of lofty rhetoric, and there is supposedly a stake in the ground about the centrality of the levelling-up missions, but we now see in the Bill that there is an asterisk saying that the Government might want to change the missions later. We are being asked to accept that, and we will probe that issue fully when we come to the clause 5 stand part debate.

The intention behind amendment 10 is to say that if the Government want to reserve a pretty significant power to diverge from what they have said they are planning to do—presumably, they built the missions based on the evidence, and on conversation and engagement with the public—an independent body should report on whether it thinks the Minister’s decision is sound.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Alex Norris]

Will the Minister give way one more time?

[Neil O'Brien]

We are going to have to make progress this morning, I am afraid, because we have a lot of clauses to get through. The Opposition amendments are well intentioned—given who the shadow Ministers are, it could not be otherwise—but they are unnecessary and that is why we must resist them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O'Brien]

indicated dissent.

[Alex Norris]

I start by saying—given that one of my Whips is in the room, I should not say this—that, for the reasons mentioned, I enjoy these Bill Committees. I am not sure whether I will enjoy them in a few weeks’ time, because we will have been at it for a long time.

[The Chair]

This is day one.

[Alex Norris]

Exactly, so I am very much enjoying it at the moment because we can fight these battles outside the rarefied atmosphere of the Chamber. However, one consequence of my liking these Committees is that I have frequently volunteered to take Bills on—something is not quite right with me, probably. The one thing I have learned from them, which is particularly interesting for a Bill with 200 clauses, is that a person can tell from the first amendment to the first clause how the rest of the discussions are going to go and how minded to take on change the Government are going to be. With that in mind, I am disappointed to hear that the Minister is not minded to accept the amendments.

Our discussion has been good. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central made excellent points about the impact of the Climate Change Committee and COP26. The points about arm’s length bodies and the broader partnership involved in levelling up are important. This legislation is not just about holding the Government to account, but holding to account all parties involved in levelling up, including all of us in this room, in whatever guise—be it as Members of Parliament, as volunteers in our communities, or in local government, as a number of us have been. We all have different stakes in and must hold each other to account on what is a shared endeavour rather than an endeavour of the Government of the day.

[Rachael Maskell]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. This is not just about Government, but about the whole of our society, across party lines, including mayoralties and local government. Does it not make sense therefore to have a framework that all partners can buy into and have confidence in when scrutinising their functions?

[Alex Norris]

That is very much the spirit in which I tabled the amendment, which is the first Opposition amendment to the Bill. That might be construed as the Opposition wanting to make life hard for the Government or wanting a stick with which to beat them, but far from it. The amendment would ensure that partners all have a mutual responsibility to each other, and that is partly about holding each other to account and having difficult and supportive conversations about why we have not been able to do things that we have sought to do.

The Minister made a point about unconscious bias being woven out with independence, and that is important. The listed regulators—Ofsted, Ofgem, Ofcom and so on—are good comparisons for this space. We have offered the Government a kind of menu of comparisons, and I am surprised that none of them is seen as the right one. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central finished her remarks by addressing the particularly pertinent point about inequalities. It is hard to understand why those inequalities are not considered to have same level of importance as the other agendas. That is disappointing.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale made an interesting point, which I hope will come up later in the debate. Part 1 of the Bill is a bit unusual. We have not yet had the clause 1 stand part debate, but I am not sure why those provisions have to be in the Bill. Usually, Ministers argue that things do not need to be in the Bill and the Opposition argue that they do. I will not argue against them, but it is unusual that the Government should have chosen to include the provisions.

I dare say that what is involved is the trick of planting a stake in the ground and saying, “We are going to deliver on these important things.” However, when we consider the point made by the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran, we see that there is an asterisk against this part of the Bill: the Government still want the flexibility to mark their own homework and change it if they want. Those two things are a little oddly juxtaposed. The Government want to put their head above the parapet and make the legislation central to what they want to do. That is quite a brave and risky thing to do, so I am surprised that they are not able to go a tiny bit further.

The Minister mentioned the Levelling Up Advisory Council and the esteemed people on it. We are lucky that they have chosen to take part in public life in that way, and we are grateful to them. I completely agree with all that has been said about their independent-mindedness and capability to speak for themselves, but I say gently to the Minister—this is not a point against him personally, but against the Government—that it is not those people who we do not trust. Of course we trust their independence, but how on earth can we know what they are saying and what their views are? That is the problem.

As we have seen before with various such advisory bodies, in reality the Government will sit on the difficult things and trumpet the good things. Perhaps there is an element of human nature in that—there is huge element of sadness in it—but that is what will happen. If the Government are really committed to delivering on this matter, why not go that little bit further?

I accept the point about the technical annex and, as the Minister put it, the unprecedented detail. This is a saddening thought in many ways, but I would probably go so far as to say that if I thought he was going to remain in his Department until 2030, a lot of my anxieties would disappear—although, I would have anxieties about how we had managed to lose another two elections. Putting that to one side, because I do not think it is likely to happen, I have no doubt about the Minister’s personal commitment to the agenda, his personal probity, and his willingness to have difficult conversations and to explain on the record where things have not gone as they ought to. However, I would argue strongly that that is not a characteristic that applies across Government—I do not think anybody could say that is really a feature of this Government. He says that I could go through and update each technical annex every year—I am surprised that I should have to do that on the Government’s behalf. The problem is that what we will see overtime is the booklet getting thinner, because the difficult ones will drop out or they will be replaced by another one—that is what we normally see. The Government will say, “We have got advanced metrics now that better understand the nature of life in the UK.”

[Matthew Pennycook]

Housing need.

[Alex Norris]

Housing need, as my hon. Friend says, is a good example. The metrics change to suit the outcome. The Minister knows that, which is why it needs to be in the Bill. He said that these sorts of things will accompany a statement from the Government, and that that will do in place of independent scrutiny. Those two things are not the same. There should not be the level of trust that means we would solely, on the word of Ministers, take what they say they have done as read. When our positions are swapped, I do not think the Minister would take that from us—and I do not think he should either. The need for a level of independence is obvious and clear.

I will not press the amendment to a Division, because I really want Ministers to think again about this. There will be other opportunities in this process to look for a proportionate level of independence. The Opposition have been non-prescriptive. I offered three different versions of independent scrutiny, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South offered a fourth—there may well be other versions. I hope that Ministers will reflect and come back, either at the next stage or in the other place, and put a provision in its place. The case for that is a very good one. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Alex Norris]

I beg to move amendment 13, clause 1, page 1, line 14, at end insert—

“(c) the resources made available by Her Majesty’s Government to nations, regions, sub regions and local areas in order to level-up.”

This amendment would place a responsibility on the Government to publish the resources made available to communities in order to level-up.

Clause 1 requires a Minister of the Crown to establish levelling-up missions for the Government. This amendment proposed a new paragraph that would require them to publish alongside those missions what resources are being made to the nations, regions, sub-regions and local areas in order for them to level up. The point that the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran made about the current trajectory of departmental resources, with those in 2025 being less that their 2010 levels, is a very good argument for the provision.

The work of levelling up will not be done alone—certainly not by central Government. From Whitehall, we cannot command and control our way to a more balanced country. Indeed, that model of development is a huge part of why we have such an imbalanced country. The proper allocation of money will have a large say—probably the largest say—on whether levelling up can be a success and be a truly transformative project for the whole country.

As the Government’s White Paper identified, the deep-rooted problems in the UK economy, which are holding back our regions, towns and villages, create greater imbalance than in most other comparable countries. Our country’s economic and social geography demonstrates that imbalance, and it can also be seen across multiple measures, whether pay, educational attainment or health—they light it up like a Christmas tree. As the White Paper outlines, our urban areas and coastal towns suffer disproportionately from crime, while former mining areas and areas with outlying urban estates, such as my constituency, are often communities of high deprivation, with poor opportunities for younger generations. The imbalances in our country are plain to see. The current economic settlement just does not work.

In order to rectify that, the devolution of power back to local communities will be vital, so that they have a proper say over decisions that affect their lives. In blunt terms, levelling up will have to be a targeted return of money, funding and resources back into the parts of the UK that need it. Without that investment, levelling up has no hope of succeeding. The stakes are really high. We need to get good jobs back into home towns, so that young people do not have to get out in order to get on. We need to have our high streets thriving, by kick-starting local economies with good local businesses and money back in people’s pockets. We need to better connect our towns and villages through good transport, digital infrastructure and affordable housing. All of that needs power to be taken out of Whitehall and put into the town hall, because local communities will make better decisions. All those things require significant resources alongside that hard, local graft.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

We are the Government who are creating—literally, through the Bill and the clauses we are debating this very morning—a mission to close the gap in healthy life expectancy between local areas, and between the highest and lowest areas, and to raise it by five years by 2035. These are the missions that the Bill will be getting us to report on every year to Parliament, so we are addressing the hon. Lady’s point. Through the health disparities White Paper and the other things the Government are doing, we are addressing as one of our central priorities the underlying causes of lower life expectancy and the inequalities she mentioned.

To summarise, while we are completely with the spirit of the Opposition’s amendments—we are trying to get better data and have processes in place that are generating better data, because we recognise its importance to the levelling-up agenda—there is, in truth, no hard and fast difference between levelling-up resources and the rest of Government resources. Indeed, philosophically, it is important to recognise that one should not think just about levelling-up funds. Much as one can rattle off an impressive list, one should think about how we reform the totality of Government spending.

That is one of the novel aspects of the White Paper’s approach. For a long time, people thought of science funding in a science policy silo, and thought that it should be allocated to science excellence, with no spatial dimension. We are the first Government to set regional targets for science spending, recognising its importance to potentially addressing some of the inequalities that the Opposition have mentioned this morning. We have changed the Treasury Green Book. We have started to allocate housing and regeneration spending differently so that we can get out of the cycles that Tom Forth and other regional economic policy experts have talked about: some bits of the country are overloaded and people cannot get on a train or buy a house, while other parts are crying out for investment and have lots of scope to take on growth.

I hope that I have given the Opposition at least an honest account of why we are resisting the amendment, even though we absolutely agree with its spirit.

[Alex Norris]

I am really grateful for the contributions to what has been a good debate. I will cover some of the points made by my Opposition colleagues and then move on to what the Minister said. Turning to my hon. Friend the Member for York Central, Great British Railways is a brilliant example of what we are talking about. We remember the press release on, I think, 5 February, which came shortly after the White Paper and was seen very much as an element of the levelling-up agenda—indeed, it says that on the Government’s website. The location of Great British Railways will be determined through an online public vote. It is like “Love Island”, Mr Paisley. Anyone watching this series knows that we badly need a vote to try to shake things up, but I do not think it is how we should determine the location of—

[The Chair]

The hon. Gentleman is going slightly off-piste here. [Laughter.]

[Alex Norris]

I apologise, Mr Paisley. I will get straight back to Great British Railways and levelling up. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central made a strong case for York and, if the hon. Member for Broxtowe promises not to tell my constituents, I might make a strong case for Derby. We are generally not allowed to do such things, but that is my one for the year—[Laughter.]

[Neil O’Brien]

There is some confusion on the Opposition Benches.

[Alex Norris]

Happily, it does not look like the hon. Member for Broxtowe is going to grass me up.

The whole process—we can already see this because people are being encouraged to use a hashtag—will involve TikTok videos and be nauseatingly modern. I know that the Minister does not like things as nauseatingly modern as that, so I cannot believe it for a second—he is sitting sphinx-like, which is of course fine. The constant beauty parade and artificial competition just take energy out of things. Of course, someone will win, and that will be wonderful news, and I will be very pleased for them, but multiple places will lose as a result. That cannot be the best way to level up. I know the Minister talked about a balanced diet, but I will cover that shortly.

My hon. Friend the Member for York Central spoke about where she sees the future for her community and her region, with an emphasis on biotech, rail and the creative sector, and that will be different in Nottingham, Leicestershire or West Yorkshire. That is a good thing. Part of levelling up will be about, as we understand it, sub-regions taking control of where they think their local economies are going to go and the skills they will need to ensure they get that. Getting the resources to make sure they can do that, which is what this amendment is about, is fundamental. This is about resource going to those communities so that they can make those decisions for themselves. I think that the people of York and the sub-region in which my hon. Friend works will have a better say about that than Ministers themselves.

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[Neil O’Brien]

The PAC reported on the levelling-up fund. Are there any particular levelling-up fund bids that we are funding that the hon. Gentleman would like to say represent bad value for money and should be withdrawn?

[Alex Norris]

The Minister knows that is unkind. I am not going to stand here and pick at one. We could go down the entire list of 157 local authorities, virtually all of which are significantly worse off, by tens of millions of pounds; I am not going to turn around and say that one of their projects should not happen. Please—of course I am not going to say that. The Minister says that the Public Accounts Committee picked up on the levelling-up fund, but that is not true: it has reported on the towns fund, too. This is a long-running issue and there are more than three years-worth of reports.

[Rachael Maskell]

It is not just about money that is coming from the centre into individual projects. The Government need to take note of the point that it is surely about enabling and empowering local authorities and bodies to make their own determinations about where the money is best prioritised. Whether it is from the shared prosperity fund, the levelling-up fund or the future high streets fund, a local authority might be in the best position to determine how the pot is spent in its local economy to drive up and level up, as opposed to the Government making a central determination about the governance of that funding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Norris]

That is exactly the argument we have been making. We want that to be locally determined. I would be surprised if the Government in general really want to defend what they see from the Public Accounts Committee. We of course await the Government’s response, and if the Minister wants to debate it, we would be very keen to—if he makes a statement, we will all be there—but I suspect that will not happen. The reality is that the basic checks have to be passed, and I am not sure we are fully assured of that yet.

In the spirit of what the Minister said and of ongoing co-operation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Miss Dines.)