‘DON’T LET US DOWN’: MAYOR PRESSES MINISTERS TO LEVEL UP AT THE SPENDING REVIEW

Published 11 November 2020 at 12:00am

Mayor of the Sheffield City Region, Dan Jarvis, has pressed the Government to deliver a fairer share of economic support and powers for the North at the Spending Review.

Leading a debate in Parliament today (November 11), the Mayor said the Chancellor’s Spending Review – which will set Government department’s spending priorities for the next year – must not ‘tinker at the margins’. Instead, a ‘full-scale transformation’ is needed if the Government is to deliver on its levelling up agenda for South Yorkshire and North of England.

Mayor Jarvis was joined in the debate by MPs from across the North, including former Northern Powerhouse Minister Jake Berry, Tracy Brabin, Holly Lynch, Stephanie Peacock, Miriam Cates and Nick Fletcher.

Mr Berry backed Mayor Jarvis’ call to level up the North and called for a Northern Economic Recovery Plan and Funding.

Concluding the debate, Mayor Jarvis said: “For all our sakes, we must make levelling up part of a more ambitious vision for reform – one that lets people feel they are taking back control, and that they have a country they can believe in.

“There was a clear consensus during the debate to level up the North and not just to invest in our infrastructure, but more importantly, to invest in our people. I urge the Government, at the forthcoming Spending Review, to stop tinkering and start transforming. The time is now, and we stand ready to level up: please don’t let us down.”

The Mayor called for three actions to begin levelling up and deliver a New Deal for the North, by:

1. Extending the Local Growth Fund, which expires in just five months’ time (March 2021), to support the recovery from Covid and continue investment in jobs, investment and regeneration. This must be backed up by the Government delivering the Shared Prosperity Fund and tripling it to £15 billion a year for 20 years – a total of £200 billion of new funding.
2. Investing and delivering better transport infrastructure for the North. Northern Powerhouse Rail is presented as the infrastructure at the heart of levelling up, but there are growing fears critical parts of it could be delayed, along with the north-east leg of HS2 between Sheffield and Leeds.
3. Making structural changes to how Government works: by following through on proposals to move significant parts of the civil service to the North of England and delivering reform to the Green book, to reduce the bias towards affluent areas in government investment decisions.

The Mayor said the need to level up was even more urgent as Covid causes damage to the North’s economy.

He added: “This debate takes place amid an unprecedented economic crisis affecting the whole country. But Covid has only reinforced an argument that was already undeniable. In the five years following the launch of the Northern Powerhouse in 2014, the number of children living in poverty in the North increased by a third, to 800,000. Under austerity, public spending fell by £3.6 billion in the North even as it rose by £4.7 billion in the South East and the South West.

“Covid has hit the North hard, we’ve a disproportionate number of cases and hospitalisations. Our economy has been equally exposed, in South Yorkshire the number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits is now higher than at any time since the dark days of post pit closure unemployment in the 1990s.

“We’ve undone a quarter of a century of painful progress – the brutal reality is that the North is now on course for levelling down and not levelling up. However, we can create a better economy, not just for our region, but for the whole of the UK.”