Unlevelling-Up

 

There are now four funds devoted to the government’s so called “levelling- up” policy.

They are

The Future High Streets Fund,

The Community Renewal Fund

The Towns Fund,

The Levelling Up Fund.

 

The funds of the first three have already been allocated, as has £1.4bn of the Levelling-Up fund, with a further £1.8bn to be announced

Here, according to a Guardian article published 2^nd February, are details of how some of the funds, totalling £4.7bn, have so far been allocated..

 

Bromsgrove (Worcs)         £15m (c£148 per head)    Sajid  Javid's patch     

Central Bedfordshire         £26.7m (£91 per head)     Nadine Dorries’s  “

Richmond (Yorkshire)         Done very nicely               Rishi sundak’s" 

Eight of poorest areas       

In England, including                  

Tendring, Swale, Barking

and    Dagenham .             Less than £10/head.

North generally                  £32 per head.     c/f £413/ head lost in cuts                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     in austerity decade.

 

Had the date of the publication been 1st April I'd have thought these figures were rather clumsy attempts at satire.

 

Yesterday’s announcement  about the rest of the  levelling up fund has two major flaws.

1.     1.There is no extra money.

2.     2. Depressed areas are to have executive  mayors elected by First Past the Post (the second preference vote to ensure a majority rather than a plurality is to be abolished.)  This is to tilt the odds in favour of electing Tories.

What  areas laid waste by de-industrialisation and public sector austerity really need are:

1.   Much more  money: a guaranteed  equalisation grant from the central government.

2.    . Elected  regional authorities with properly representative views on the needs of the area.  You might call it regional assembly democracy