Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Committee (2nd Day)

Clause 1: Statement of levelling-up missions

Amendment 7

7: Clause 1, page 1, line 14, at end insert— “(2A) The levelling-up missions must include missions which relate to—(a) pay, employment and productivity;(b) research and development;(c) public transport connectivity;(d) broadband and 4G and 5G coverage;(e) primary school attainment;(f) skills and training;(g) life expectancy;(h) wellbeing;(i) pride in place;(j) home ownership;(k) violent crime;(l) devolution.”Member's explanatory statement This inserts the Government’s levelling-up missions into the Bill.

My Lords, my Amendment 7 would insert levelling-up missions into the Bill. I will also support and come to a number of other amendments in this group, and I have tabled Amendment 59 on health outcomes, which I will discuss in due course.

On Monday, we heard much about the fact that, in February of last year, the Government announced their levelling up White Paper with much fanfare. I start by reminding noble Lords of what was in that White Paper and what it proposed. It set out the 12 medium-term levelling-up missions, which we will debate in this group. They look to do things such as increase pay, employment and productivity and boost well-being across the UK, all by the challenging target of 2030. Also, sitting behind those missions are what the White Paper called the “six capitals”, which were identified as

“the factors that will help drive”

the levelling-up missions. We have not really debated those, but it is important that we remind ourselves of what the White Paper proposed. These capitals are:

“Physical capital—infrastructure, machines and housing … Human capital—the skills, health and experience of the workforce … Intangible capital—innovation, ideas and patents … Financial capital—resources supporting the financing of companies … Social capital—the strength of communities, relationships and trust … Institutional capital—local leadership, capacity and capability.”

The White Paper goes on to say:

“Levelling up is about aspiring for every place … to have a rich endowment of all six capitals, so that people do not have to leave their community to live a good life.”

I am sure that every Member of this House would support that ambition and those principles.

This all underpins the new policy regime, which is based on five mutually reinforcing pillars: establishing the 12 missions; reorientating government decision-making; empowering decision-makers in local areas; transforming the government approach to data and evaluation; and creating the new Levelling Up Advisory Council. I draw your Lordships’ attention to this, because we need to remember the huge ambition contained in the White Paper and how that has been translated into the Bill we are debating in Committee. That is why we are disappointed that the measures in the Bill are not enough to meet the Government’s 12 missions for reducing regional inequality by the proposed date of 2030. For example, the Bill provides a new source of funding for councils, which will be given a fixed share of the new infrastructure levy on local developments, which we will discuss later. However, the money involved is likely to be very small as a share of overall council budget, falling far short of the Government’s ambition in the White Paper to simplify local government funding. That is why we are disappointed that the proposals, including the missions themselves, are not clearly spelled out in the Bill.

If this is how the Government intend to approach levelling up, I fear that the already numerous challenges of addressing regional inequality will only continue to grow. The country is also sitting on the tipping edge of a recession, and this is very likely to impact areas such as rates of employment and productivity, housing, well-being and transport interconnectivity, and threatens the ability of the Government to make progress on these levelling-up missions.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, will shortly introduce her amendment on metrics. I drew the Committee’s attention to my concerns about metrics on transport in our last debate, but there are also wider concerns about the metrics that the Government have developed. For example, the Institution of Civil Engineers has said that the more detailed metrics for measuring progress on levelling up should be geared towards local outcomes in areas such as skills training, higher life expectancy and pride of place. These are central missions that will need to happen if they are to be achieved.

In general, more weight should be attached to the whole-life benefits of projects and programmes and the role of improved interconnectivity through enhanced infrastructure investment, instead of fixating on achieving the lowest capital cost in delivery. This is to ensure that there is sufficient value for money for households who are under significant pressure due to increasing inflation and living costs. It is imperative that any project scoping takes into account additional inflationary impacts in order to mitigate against any delivery problems. We know that this has already been affecting many projects that were granted funding from the first round of the levelling-up pot.

Furthermore, the Institute for Government found that only four of the 12 missions are clear, ambitious and have appropriate metrics—outcomes the Government will measure to demonstrate the progress towards their 2030 target. It says that the other eight all need to be recalibrated if they are to have any chance of delivering on the Government’s promises to level up the UK. It also calls on the Government to put the right systems in place to ensure that Ministers and civil servants are held accountable for progress on the levelling-up agenda. It believes the proposed levelling-up advisory council cannot provide rigorous expert advice and scrutiny when it operates only at the discretion of the Government and cannot perform independent analysis. We had some debate about this on Monday. If we have no idea which departments will be leading any co-ordination of policy relating to each mission, it will be even harder to hold the Government accountable if things start to go off track.

My amendment does not ask the Government to include the exact missions as printed in the White Paper, particularly as there is concern that some of them are potentially not good enough or achievable. What we are trying to do is build into the Bill the areas that we believe the missions should be compelled to cover and address.

I turn to my Amendment 59 on health. Other noble Lords have similar amendments that we are happy to support, and I look forward to hearing from them. My amendment looks to include health outcomes in geographical disparities. I assume someone else will be introducing the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London’s amendment that would require that at least one levelling-up mission introduced by the Government focuses on addressing health disparities. The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, seeks to put in a new clause inserting a health and well-being mission. We would fully support these amendments, because we are particularly worried about the geographical inequalities in health outcomes, not least because the health disparities White Paper has been scrapped. Perhaps the Minister can explain why.

We know that good health remains out of reach for far too many people in the UK. The deep inequalities in health between the poorest and the wealthiest are widening. Failing to address poor health and economic inactivity will slow the economic recovery that our nation so desperately needs. If we have poor planning—residential or economic—people’s health is impacted. If we have poor transport planning, if pollution reduces life expectancy, if someone has a cold, damp house or faces housing insecurity, they will have poor educational outcomes and are likely to have a poor job, poor pay and poor prospects and to get trapped in a cycle.

Surely, one aim of levelling up is to break this cycle. Although there is an existing legal duty on local authorities and the Secretary of State to improve public health in England, there are no corresponding legal duties on local authorities to reduce health inequalities and improve well-being, despite the fact that it is they that will need to deliver this agenda.

I shall give an example from where I live, in north-west Cumbria. Like many areas, we have a shortage of GP services and a lack of dentists—but I would like to look at cancer treatment. In the north of Cumbria, 59% of people with a cancer diagnosis are not seen within two months of their diagnosis and are not being treated for the first time for more than 62 days after diagnosis. This is simply not good enough, and we are not going to change this for the better unless the deep inequalities in health provision and outcomes are tackled head-on.

Finally, I offer our support for the remaining amendments in this group—on housing, from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and on education, from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. All these things are important and should be in the Bill. I beg to move.