Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock]

7: Clause 1, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(2A) The levelling-up missions must include missions which relate to—(a) pay, employment and productivity;(b) research and development;(c) public transport connectivity;(d) broadband and 4G and 5G coverage;(e) primary school attainment;(f) skills and training;(g) life expectancy;(h) wellbeing;(i) pride in place;(j) home ownership;(k) violent crime;(l) devolution.”Member's explanatory statement
This inserts the Government’s levelling-up missions into the Bill.

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[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 7 would insert levelling-up missions into the Bill. I will also support and come to a number of other amendments in this group, and I have tabled Amendment 59 on health outcomes, which I will discuss in due course.

On Monday, we heard much about the fact that, in February of last year, the Government announced their levelling up White Paper with much fanfare. I start by reminding noble Lords of what was in that White Paper and what it proposed. It set out the 12 medium-term levelling-up missions, which we will debate in this group. They look to do things such as increase pay, employment and productivity and boost well-being across the UK, all by the challenging target of 2030. Also, sitting behind those missions are what the White Paper called the “six capitals”, which were identified as

“the factors that will help drive”

the levelling-up missions. We have not really debated those, but it is important that we remind ourselves of what the White Paper proposed. These capitals are:

“Physical capital—infrastructure, machines and housing … Human capital—the skills, health and experience of the workforce … Intangible capital—innovation, ideas and patents … Financial capital—resources supporting the financing of companies … Social capital—the strength of communities, relationships and trust … Institutional capital—local leadership, capacity and capability.”


The White Paper goes on to say:

“Levelling up is about aspiring for every place … to have a rich endowment of all six capitals, so that people do not have to leave their community to live a good life.”


I am sure that every Member of this House would support that ambition and those principles.

This all underpins the new policy regime, which is based on five mutually reinforcing pillars: establishing the 12 missions; reorientating government decision-making; empowering decision-makers in local areas; transforming the government approach to data and evaluation; and creating the new Levelling Up Advisory Council. I draw your Lordships’ attention to this, because we need to remember the huge ambition contained in the White Paper and how that has been translated into the Bill we are debating in Committee. That is why we are disappointed that the measures in the Bill are not enough to meet the Government’s 12 missions for reducing regional inequality by the proposed date of 2030. For example, the Bill provides a new source of funding for councils, which will be given a fixed share of the new infrastructure levy on local developments, which we will discuss later. However, the money involved is likely to be very small as a share of overall council budget, falling far short of the Government’s ambition in the White Paper to simplify local government funding. That is why we are disappointed that the proposals, including the missions themselves, are not clearly spelled out in the Bill.

While I am discussing the subject of funding, the Government have been criticised for allocating more funds to the south than to parts of the Midlands and the north in round 2 of the £4.8 billion levelling-up fund. Projects in London and the south-east received £360 million, which is three times more than schemes in Yorkshire and the Humber. One reason is that competitive bidding remains a stumbling block, and we should remind ourselves that the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, described the process as a “begging bowl culture”. It pits communities against each other, discourages co-operation between areas and leads to authorities submitting bids based on government criteria rather than on genuine local needs.

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Given the extent of the Government’s actions on what are really important priorities, I hope that this provides the noble Baroness with sufficient assurance to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a really important discussion, not just more broadly around the missions and the metrics and whether they should be in the Bill, but the debate we have had about health and health inequalities—that has been extremely important. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for introducing the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London’s amendment. It is a very important amendment on the issues of health inequalities getting worse. The noble Lord talked about the 19-year gap between the wealthiest and poorest communities, and I think that is very shocking. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds picked this up and talked about the serious inequalities in Yorkshire and the importance of long-term solutions and also referenced the importance of social prescribing. I absolutely agree with him that this is something that needs to be taken more seriously and more into account.

What really concerns me are the health ambitions in the White Paper. If we are to tackle what we have just been debating, they really will not cut it—they will not meet this huge challenge. We have talked about metrics, but I want to talk about metrics in the health section. One of the key metrics is that the “ambitious set of proposals” will

“go further on reducing disparities in health … in the forthcoming Health Disparities White Paper”,

but where is it? It has gone; it has been ditched. How can we have a metric on one of the most important things we need to tackle to achieve levelling up when one of the major parts of the metric is no longer in existence? I would be grateful if the Minister could address that point.

There was also a debate on housing. The important connection between quality housing and health and well-being was made very clearly and well by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, talked about the importance of increasing the supply of housing. That is absolutely right, we need to do that, but I also stress that there has been almost no social housing built in this country in the last 30 years. That is partly why we have such a problem.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about the importance of both Houses of Parliament debating any further proposed missions. We need to make sure that we have oversight of what is being proposed. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, asked a very important question about the means by which the Government are intending to do anything about health and life expectancies. What will actually be happening? What will be the causations to make the difference going forward? This is why, as I say, I am so concerned about the accompanying metrics not being fit for purpose.

On metrics, the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, introduced her amendment to put the metrics in the Bill. We have heard in this debate and through other organisations that many people do not have any confidence that the metrics as currently set out—I have just talked about health, and I talked about transport on Monday—will actually achieve the ambitions that the missions want, or come close to it, to be honest. We talked on Monday about a number of areas that really ought to be part of the missions but are not included at all, such as the environment or child poverty. These will also be critical.

I thank the Minister for her detailed response. She says that we cannot put the missions in the Bill because it would make it unacceptably inflexible. Would it be unacceptably inflexible if we had the headline issues—the issues that need to be tackled—so that we knew what we had to deal with to meet levelling up? Perhaps this could be accompanied by something along the lines of the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on any further detail being debated across both Houses. Could we not also have this being the case with the metrics, so we can ensure that everything that the Government want to bring forward to tackle levelling up is fit for purpose and will make a difference?

The Minister talked about allocation of funds; that was something I raised. She said there is not a problem with allocation because everyone can submit bids, but that is the fundamental problem. I reiterate what I said: competitive bidding remains a stumbling block. I remind her that the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, described the process as a “begging bowl culture”. This is the not the way to do allocation.

If you pit communities against each other, that does not just necessarily mean that the right community does not get the funding it needs—you stop co-operation. If we are going to succeed in this, we need areas to work closely together and support each other. So I find the Government’s continued belief that competitive bidding is the way forward very disappointing.

Finally, can I ask the Minister, having listened to today’s and Monday’s debates, whether the Government will consider revisiting the missions and metrics as they stand, with a view to coming back to the House with an improved offer? In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 7 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

That is really important but I should like clarification on who is collecting the data, how it is analysed and what the timescales are. That would be really helpful.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

There may be more questions but I am coming on to some of that.

That is why my department has established a new spatial data unit, transforming the way in which the UK Government gather, store and manipulate subnational data so that it underpins transparent and open policy-making and delivers decisions. This will include improving how we collate and report on UK Government spend and outcomes, including building strong capabilities on data visualisation and insights. Working closely with other departments, the unit will consider differences between geographical areas, such as regions, counties, councils, council wards and so on, according to the needs and objectives of specific missions or policy areas. I am more than happy to have a teach-in about this, as it is important.

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[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark for introducing his ever-helpful amendments. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that he should be congratulated on his tenacity in continuing to pursue these matters. It is also good to see the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, in his place, clearly still enjoying my noble friend’s speeches; he cannot keep away and it is good to have his support. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for his support for my noble friend’s amendments, and again for his continued pursuit, as the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, said, of these matters. I thank him also for reminding us of something that is very close to my heart, which is the importance of pre-legislative scrutiny. This seems to have completely gone by-the-by now and it is important that we remember that it makes good legislation.