Boris Johnson will fail to level up the country as the Government’s 12 missions are “unambitious” and lack detail, a damning report has revealed.
The 332-page levelling up White Paper set out a number of aims officials believed would reduce regional inequality across the UK.
They include “improving well-being in every area” of the UK, a devolution deal for every part of England that wants one, and brining public transport connectivity across the country “significantly closer to the standards of London”.
But five missions have been deemed not ambitious enough, as they will not require the Government to change its current policy in order to achieve them, whilst three missions are said to be unrealistic, the Institute for Government says.
In a fresh report titled ‘Will the levelling up missions help reduce regional inequality?’, the esteemed right-leaning think-tank says targets to level up research and development and to increase pay do not go far enough.
The White Paper vows to “increase pay, employment and productivity in every part of the UK” by 2030 but this would be expected to happen anyway - without Government intervention.
A specific target of getting 200,000 more people in England completing training each year by 2030 was set in the PM’s levelling up plans, with 80,000 of those in the lowest skilled areas.
But this is not an ambitious target compared to historic trends, according to the IfG, as the number of people completing skills qualifications in England has been declining since at least 2014/15.
A target of 200,000 people completing training would not even restore numbers back to where they were then.
Experts have said the PM and a number of senior Tory MPs could lose their seats at the next election if they fail to level up Britain.
Research from Onward think tank suggests the Conservatives could lose 12 of their battleground seats in the south of England, including Mr Duncan Smith’s Chingford and Wood Green seat - to the Labour Party.
But if the government wants to avoid levelling down it should therefore also set out what success looks like for top-performing areas, based on their historic performance, the report says.
Shadow Levelling up Secretary, Lisa Nandy told the Mirror: “This report lays bare the sheer lack of ambition the Government has for this country.
"Far from levelling up, ministers are content to tinker around the edges of a system that has failed people for decades.
"People are struggling to keep their heads above water in a cost of living crisis. We need good jobs, decent wages, and genuinely affordable housing.
"When people have money back in their pockets to spend, high streets will thrive because the local economy is thriving.
"We've had enough tinkering and we deserve far more ambition than this.”
Eleanor Shearer, author of the IfG report, said: “It is good that the government has defined what success in levelling up looks like, but if these missions are not designed appropriately they will not drive the kind of ambitious change that is needed across government, the private sector and civil society.
"The missions and metrics need to be revisited and recalibrated to ensure that they set clear, ambitious and measurable targets, and the government needs a proper independent body to scrutinise progress.
"Without this, levelling up will be at risk of joining the long list of other past efforts to tackle regional inequality that failed to deliver change on the scale that is needed.”
Levelling up was missing from Chancellor Rishi Sunak's statement.
Neil O'Brian, Minister for Levelling Up up told the IfG on Tuesday: "Levelling up is not just about some fund that is called levelling up.
"It’s about the totality of what you do with the tax and benefits system. And total public spending. So, for example, I would say that the changes to the UC taper rate which will leave something like two million people £1,000 better off with full-time workers, that is a huge piece of levelling up.
"Or the national living wage which is obviously just about to go up, will be one of the highest national minimum wages anywhere in the world. Again, making a full-time worker about 1000 times better off.
"That although that’s not traditionally been thought of as regional policy. Some of those tools are our most powerful tools for levelling up. They’re just not called a levelling up fund. It’s about changing the way government does business or as Andy Haldane puts it, changing the wire of Whitehall in a fundamental way."
But he failed to mention that the Tories axed the £20 weekly uplift brought in during the pandemic, which amounts to a £1,040-a-year cut for struggling Brits.
