Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the Living Standards Mission announced in the Levelling Up the United Kingdom White Paper, published on 2 February 2022, if he will publish the (a) metrics and (b) minimum thresholds by which he plans to determine what is a globally competitive city, broken down by (i) small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) finance, (ii) institutional investment, (iii) mobile investment and trade policy, (iv) adoption and diffusion and (v) manufacturing.

The preliminary list of metrics is published in the Technical Annex alongside the White Paper. Informal consultation and engagement will continue after publication to check the current suite of metrics is correct and identify additional metrics that can support implementation of the missions.

A globally competitive city is one that can compete with other major cities in attracting investment and talent from around the world. These cities typically excel across multiple measures of economic, social, and cultural performance - such as strong institutions, high productivity, good quality education, competitive tax regimes, and effective infrastructure - making them highly attractive to firms and individuals. To measure this, we will use a basket of metrics including, but not limited to, GVA per filled job, services trade balance, share of Knowledge Intensive Service sectors, percentage of 16-64 year olds with an NVQ4+ qualification and city density, all across City Regions.