Former Government Minister Lord Mandelson has criticised the Government’s levelling up agenda for being “thin on new ideas and very short of money”.
In a speech in the North East - where Lord Mandelson was an MP for 12 years - Mr Mandelson said this year’s Levelling Up White Paper had “some good ideas” but said nothing about how the targets set out by Ministers could actually be met.
The White Paper released in February had 12 national ‘missions’ to improve areas such as jobs, training, training and health. Though praised for the wide-ranging nature of those missions, it has been criticised for having little new funding.
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Today, a group of cross-party MPs has accused ministers of squandering billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on ill-thought-out “levelling up” plans and through the unfair allocation of funding. And speaking at a meeting of the North East England Chamber of Commerce, former Hartlepool MP and Business Secretary Lord Mandelson added to the criticism of the flagship Government policy.
He said: “The whole levelling up agenda and White Paper is very, very long on analysis, very thin on new ideas and very short of money. Contained within that White Paper are some good ideas and it all points in the right direction.
"What it lacks in my view is delivery mechanisms. I don’t see how just by claiming an objective or a target without any change to the machinery of Government, you’re going to create the mechanisms whereby these changes can be rolled out.
“And contrary to what we were promised at the last election, which was that every last Euro of EU regional funding that would be taken away would be replaced in pounds, shillings and pence, that is not happening. We’ve lost somewhere in the region of a third of the regional spending here in the North East as a result of our departure from the European Union. So the promise hasn’t been kept and if you think of the cumulative cuts to services during the long years of austerity, they haven’t been restored or reversed.
“You can’t bring about transformations in schools and education, and bring about better skills training and all the other things we want to do in transport and housing and much else besides, without investing in it. When you’ve decided you want to invest in it, there’s no point the Government sitting there in the heart of Whitehall pulling levers and keeping the purse strings tight to their own chests.
"Devolution has taken too long to come about in the North East, we’ve now got a chance of real de-centralisation of decision making but money and resources have got to go with it.”
Elsewhere in his speech, Mr Mandelson criticised the Government’s approach to Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol, which he said “could lead to a trade war with Europe.” He also urged the current Labour leadership to develop new policies and “turn the intellectual tide” rather than hope to simply benefit from Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s current difficulties.
He said: “I am glad that Keir Starmer now wants to build on New Labour’s legacy but this requires thinking deeply about how the world has changed since then and the opportunities it offers as well as assessing realistically what we got right and where we could have done better.
“In retrospect, the Labour government could have done more to lay the foundations of the kind of economy Britain needs in order to prosper in this century and, central to its programme, I believe the next Labour government must give laser like attention to the new industrial and technology-empowered policies needed to spur growth and mitigate the effects of Brexit.”
A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: "We are taking decisive action to spread opportunity and investment across the country, boost local communities and create well-paid jobs.
“In the North East, £100 million from the Levelling Up Fund is being used to regenerate town centres, establish a construction skills academy and to build state-of-the-art sports facilities. We’ve also established a new government hub in Darlington and Teesside Freeport which are providing new quality jobs and prosperity in the region.
“Our UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) matches previous EU funding and gives local people control of how UK money is spent, removes unnecessary bureaucracy and enables local communities to invest in the priorities that matter to them.”
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