Levelling-up Agenda

Kemi Badenoch Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Kemi Badenoch)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on securing this debate on a topic about which he has been very vocal. We both care very deeply about it, and I hope he understands that the Government feel the same way.

In a speech on this issue delivered exactly two months ago today, the Prime Minister said:

“it is the mission of this government to unite and level up across the whole of the UK, not just because that is morally right, but because if we fail we are simply squandering vast reserves of human capital and we are failing to allow people to fulfil their potential and we are holding our country back.”

Changing a situation in which for too many people geography turns out to be destiny is this Government’s defining goal. That is what levelling up means: opportunity for all, wherever and whoever.

Hon. Members raised a number of important points, and I will try to address as many of them as I can in the time allowed. Bids are being assessed by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department for Transport and other relevant Departments. I cannot discuss them here, but successful bids will be announced this autumn. I wish all constituencies and local authorities that have put forward bids to the Government the very best of luck. We want to do as much as we can for everybody. Resources are not infinite, but we will do the very best we can.

The hon. Member for Barnsley Central said that it is about not words, but action, so I hope he will be happy for me to summarise briefly what the Government have done and what we intend to do. Opposition Members complain that we are not investing enough, but the fact is that last year’s spending review announced record investment in infrastructure with all the benefits that will bring. This year’s review, which will conclude on 27 October, will build on that progress. It will focus on strong, innovative public services, a transition to net zero and delivering our plan for growth. To emphasise the quantum of money, core departmental spending is set to grow in real terms at nearly 4% per year on average over this Parliament. That means, in 2024-25, £140 billion more per year in cash terms than at the start of the Parliament, so it simply is not true that we are not investing.

One of our more exciting policies that the Treasury has really been promoting is freeports, which create good-quality jobs. We think they will do so much. They will become magnets for dynamic, fast-growing businesses, generating prosperity in areas where people may sometimes feel that they have been forgotten. At the Budget, we announced eight new freeports, one of which is in Felixstowe. I know it is not Lowestoft, but it will have positive benefits for Norfolk and Suffolk, and will benefit areas such as Lowestoft.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) asked about coastal communities. He said a lot that I will address further in my remarks, but at Budget the Government invested quite a lot in policies that will benefit coastal communities—not just the levelling-up fund but the £5.2 billion flood and coastal defence programme, which starts this month. We are also allocating £1.2 billion over the years to support the roll-out of gigabit-capable broadband in hard-to-reach areas. I know he will appreciate that.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I want to quickly mention the fact that in Stoke-on-Trent, we have £9.2 million to install gigabit broadband, making us the first gigabit city in the country. That has been done with Government funding and VX Fiber. We brought that project in under budget and saved the Treasury £600,000. I thought this was a great opportunity for the Minister to congratulate the city of Stoke-on-Trent on delivering once again.

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. I have been really bowled over by how the Stoke mafia have been such champions for their area, never talking it down. I thank him for reminding me about the amount we have given to Stoke. I believe we have also given Lowestoft about £24.9 million within the towns fund, so money is going to all the right places—the places that need this cash.

Building infrastructure is also essential, and we have launched a number of schemes, such as the towns fund. The hon. Member for Barnsley Central mentioned the UK Infrastructure Bank and said that it is all very well that we have it, but it is a critical thing. It is up and running and planning its first investment. Crucially, it will partner with the private sector and local government to kick-start major infrastructure projects, contributing not just to levelling up but to achieving net zero. A third of its initial £12 billion in funding is specifically earmarked for local and mayoral authorities, just like his. The expectation is that these investments will also spark a crowd-in effect, with private backers keen, themselves, to invest in the kind of infrastructure we need. The Government cannot do everything. We need the private sector to take part in this. I did not hear the hon. Member for Barnsley Central mention the private sector in his speech, and I hope that he might do so in his closing remarks. The private sector is crucial in delivering levelling up, and I am very happy to meet him and speak to him about what it can do. It cannot be just Government.

Hon. Members also talked about skills and education. Absolutely—I completely agree with them. Skills and education will be the cornerstone of our future economic success. Here, too, we are working hard to change lives, whether through the £95 million lifetime skills guarantee, the £43 million we have provided to expand employer-led skills retraining boot camps across England this year, or the £3,000 we have been giving employers for every apprentice they take on before the end of this month.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) talked about health inequalities and her bid, which I wish her every success with. We very much recognise this; I am also the Minister for Equalities, and the Government have been doing quite a lot within this space. However, I remind all Members that funding is very tight. Last week, when we did vote for additional health funding, Opposition Members did not walk through the Lobby with us to vote for extra money for the NHS.

Returning to the point about what the Government are doing, local authorities have a part to play, as the hon. Member for Barnsley Central and others said. We are not into top-down politics, or Government imposing solutions by decree, whatever it is they say. We think national, but we do act local. That is why we have given local authorities the power to drive forward funding applications. We have given lots of powers to local authorities, and I would be very keen to hear what our mayors and local authorities are doing with those powers.

We are also trying to avoid what has historically been a siloed approach. The levelling-up fund, which is run by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Transport, was designed together with the Treasury. That is an example of how we are doing better working together, and it is why I am very happy to respond in this debate, even though many of the issues that hon. Members have raised are managed and administered by other Departments.

We have also talked about taking a more flexible approach to devolution in England. I know that the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) is requesting far, far more, but I am afraid that is not something we will grant at this time. We do want to do devolution better, rewriting the rulebook and giving new deals for counties, so that the people who know their communities best can do the best for them. Through the devolution deals, we have already committed £7.5 billion of unringfenced gainshare investment for nine mayoral combined authorities over 30 years, to be spent on local priorities.

I will also mention, specifically for the hon. Member for Barnsley Central, that through the city region sustainable transport settlements, eight MCAs are set to receive £4.2 billion over the next five years. Through the transforming cities fund, Sheffield city region—soon to be the South Yorkshire mayoral combined authority—has itself received a total of £171 million to fund local transport projects, including a new bus rapid transit link in Barnsley. That is just part of the investment that the Government are making across the country.

The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) asked what exactly it means to level up. I hear that again and again. I feel that we repeat ourselves, but people still do not take it in. Levelling up is the chance for the Government to improve life chances and everyday life for people in underperforming places. Those places have not been underperforming since 2010—they have been underperforming for decades, under successive Governments.

We acknowledge the gains we have made and that there is still work to do, but structural issues are geographic for some places, and we believe that we have the right policies to tackle those. Many of the examples that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) gave show how we can deliver that.

There were lots of accusations about the levelling-up fund being pork barrel politics for Conservative constituencies. I utterly reject that. It is absolutely untrue. It is also untrue nonsense that the Chief Whip is deciding which MPs will get funding. Those are just nonsensical media speculations. We, on this side of the House, know that we are doing right for the people of this country. That is why we have more Conservative seats than ever, and many, like Stoke, used to be Labour.

For those who are unsure, the levelling-up fund is intended to invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK. We recognise that it does not always go to the most deprived places. It is a formula that takes many things into account, and it will prioritise those bids, as has been said, from places in highest need.