Levelling Up

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interests as a member of Kirklees Council, a vice-president of the Local Government Association and someone who lives in a part of west Yorkshire where there are significant areas of deprivation; I see it every day.

Nearly three years have passed since the levelling up slogan was first used. It is good at last to read some definition of what it may mean. It is good that there is a recognition that deep-seated economic and social deprivation can be tackled successfully only through long-term sustained change. Batley in west Yorkshire, has, for example, been the recipient of City Challenge and Single Regeneration Budget funding—the earlier iterations of levelling up. Yet, sadly, Batley remains an area of considerable deprivation, partly because this earlier funding failed to deal with the basic issues of a lack of well-paid jobs, poor transport links and health inequalities. Therefore, a commitment to sustained and very long-term investment for change is welcome.

However, the challenge for the Government is that of investment—or, in this case, the lack of it. Fundamental and continual gradual change such as that described in the White Paper takes many years to achieve. Without substantial additional funding, change will be imperceptible to those who live in the towns and cities described. Further, any additional funding is on the back of huge cuts to the very local services in the so-called 12 missions.

Let us take public transport. We already know that HS2 to Leeds has been axed, HS3 is a pipe dream and even basic electrification of the trans-Pennine route is to be partial. What about bus investment? Even today, mayors and council leaders in the Midlands and the north have exposed a 50% cut to improving bus services. Access to jobs and opportunities are rightly emphasised in the White Paper. Will the Minister explain how mission 3, on public transport, can be realised when the starting point is even more cuts to services?

Then there is the issue of enabling all children to reach their potential, especially in the crucial areas of numeracy and literacy. It is a great metric to measure, but the widespread closure of Sure Start children’s centres due to major cuts in funding, combined with schools funding falling, is hardly the backdrop to enabling school improvement. At this point I ought to bring the House’s attention to my interest as a local school governor. Does the Minister agree, and will he point to an increase in funding that would enable the skills, literacy and numeracy targets to be reached?

A key metric, which I was genuinely pleased to see, is narrowing the gap in healthy life expectancy. This is such an important measure because it is linked to many key determinants of health: quality of housing, affordability of healthy food, access to skills providers and the quality of local health services and the environment. Perhaps the Minister can say how the Government will improve access to GPs for residents in my area, which has many fewer GPs per capita than the average.

Access to dental health is also vital. Yet Dentaid, a dental charity that operates in developing countries, also provides services in my area due to the lack of NHS dentists. It is shameful. Will I be able to assure those residents that the Government will provide easy access to NHS dental care for all who need it?

The creation of skilled, and thus better-paid, jobs is a basic requirement for improving the economic well-being of areas such as mine. Perhaps the Minister can explain how inward investment can be achieved and combined with providing local people with the skills to take up the higher-skilled jobs that are created. Seeing cities as the centre of development is insulting to the local towns that are supposed to be providing the jobs for these cities.

Finally, the governance issues are not highlighted but are slipped in almost under the radar. I have come to the conclusion that the Government despise local government. They want to abolish district councils and create more mayoral authorities without any evidence that reducing democratic representation and involvement leads to better decision-making and accountability.

Levelling up, however desirable, will not be effective without also levelling up funding. The shared prosperity fund, for example, shows the direction of travel the Government are going in. The north of England loses over 50% of that replacement funding for EU structural and regional funds. In total, it amounts to nearly £100 million lost money for the north. Will the Minister commit to levelling up funding through fair funding for councils, equivalent transport funding with the London area, and the shared prosperity funding for the north of England that fulfils the promises made during Brexit? Until any of that can be agreed to be a starting point, levelling up will remain a pipe dream for most of us.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

My Lords, it is difficult to follow those two speeches because we have had a speech that is more balanced from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and, I am afraid, quite a pointed speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock.

As a relatively new Minister, I understand that there are so many examples of government policy that never get published. Those who have served in government will know that there are very many areas where policy is discussed, debated and raised but never sees the light of day. The first thing I want to do is to pay tribute to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, as well as one of the most tireless, policy-heavy and thoughtful Ministers I have had the pleasure of working alongside: Neil O’Brien. Minister O’Brien has even signed my copy of the levelling-up White Paper, which, in decades to come, will be worth a lot of money.

I think it is a tremendous document with a very clear plan to level up this country. As someone who spent 20 years in local government, with some of the most deprived areas alongside some of the wealthiest, I believe in the mission to level up without levelling down. That is not to forget the technical annex of this plan, which, I have to say, I have not read yet but I am happy to say that I will be reading it, probably after this Statement.

There is no single policy or intervention that can achieve change on its own. This is a plan for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Levelling up across the United Kingdom does not mean levelling down, as I have said; it means boosting productivity, pay, jobs and living standards by growing the private sector. We on this side of the House recognise the importance of the private sector and spreading opportunities and public services, especially in those places where they are weakest, and restoring that sense of community.

I am very interested that both the Opposition and the Liberal Democrat Front Bench accuse this of being a White Paper without the necessary resources to level up. I did a word count of this document—that is the kind of thing I did. In first place, mentioned nearly 1,000 times—994 times—were “fund”, “funding pot” and “grant”: plenty of opportunities to channel the money that was committed in the spending review at the end of the last year into the means by which we will level up. In second place, with only 31 mentions, was “tax” or “taxation”. This is a plan with plenty of opportunities to channel that money precisely to ensure that we level up this country.

I want to deal with the two specific points around skills and an area I feel very strongly about—as a former deputy mayor for policing and crime at City Hall, serving the then mayor and our current Prime Minister—that is, ensuring that we reduce violent crime and that our cities are safe. It is fair to say that if we do not feel safe walking around and being part of our community then there is no chance for some forgotten areas to regenerate and to revive. I take very seriously that commitment around public safety.

Surely, if you have a clear mission around crime, which is safer streets by 2030—homicide, serious violence and neighbourhood crimes will have fallen—focused on the worst-affected areas and you back that up with money channelled into the safer streets fund, you are doing precisely that. You are ensuring that communities that are riven by crime and violent crime have the funding they deserve on top of their existing funds to tackle the very thing that has been raised.

There is a very clear mission on skills—how we can improve skills and therefore see the productivity improvement that this nation really yearns for. I discussed this today with Rob Halfon, who is very much a champion of skills in the other place. He said it was so great to see skills front and centre in an agenda and see it with its own mission statement. Interestingly enough, when we want specific examples about how skills will be improved, we should look at the plans in Blackpool and Walsall, two of the three pathfinder areas that bring employment and skills provision together. Bringing employment and skills provision together will enable people to get into work and to get on in their lives.

Frankly, it is quite hard to stomach the idea that this is an empty vessel when there is so much detail in here. I could spend the next 45 minutes—although time eludes me—explaining point by point what levelling up means and how we can deliver those 12 missions. This is a Government who want to deliver—not over a couple of years; these missions are set to 2030. This is clearly a Prime Minister who does not want to be elected again but again and again. That is why this levelling up is precisely what this Government will achieve. It will take time but here is the mission and we will deliver it in due course.