The Centre for Progressive Policy has today (Oct 05) released a report detailing the extra £242bn that could be generated if the Government’s “levelling up” agenda is fully realised.
The report deals with the various inequalities that are seen across the country, as a result of ageing workforces, lack of investment and also the lack of futureproof jobs in certain regions.
Within the report, it is detailed how inequality within regions is often disguised in statistics by particularly high productivity areas within the region. For example, rural Yorkshire suffers with an ageing workforce with low productivity jobs, whereas cities like Leeds have a young workforce with high productivity jobs.
The report offers several recommendations to Government, with 4 main categories: the opportunity of education, the opportunity of skills, the opportunity of good health, the opportunity of local institutions and leadership.
Director at the Centre for Progressive Policy, Charlotte Alldritt, said:
“The opportunity of the levelling up agenda is huge. As the pandemic continues to play out, it is also increasingly urgent. What began as a thinly veiled political project has the potential to redraw the map of opportunity, productivity and prosperity in the UK for generations.
But the UK’s long-standing regional economic and social inequalities are often characterised as a problem of ‘London vs The Rest’. CPP’s research shows that the reality is much more complex, with devastating differences within regions as well as between them.
The government must take these inequalities into account and channel investment now into skills, education and health where it is needed most. The government has made repeated promises on levelling up, but it’s time to see tangible action. The Centre for Progressive Policy will assess the governments’ progress on a quarterly basis.
Without real, rapid results, rather than building back better, we risk falling back further”.
