Levelling up plans must be about people as well as buildings says Wolverhampton MP

Government chiefs published their long-promised plans on Wednesday to close the gap between the richer and poorer parts of the country.

The strategy, unveiled by Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, will take until 2030 and aims to improve services such as education, broadband and transport.

Pat McFadden, Labour MP for Wolverhampton South East, said there needed to be "genuine additional investment over a sustained period of time" to make a real difference.

He said: “I welcome any new investment or jobs for Wolverhampton.

"Both are sorely needed after more than a decade of cuts in spending from central Government, cuts in our police numbers and declining spending per head on education.

"Wolverhampton is a fantastic city with great strengths and great possibilities for the future, but it is in need of major investment to develop sites still affected by industrial closures in the past and to reduce unemployment which has remained much higher than the national average for a long time.

"Tackling regional inequality and giving people a better chance in life are good aims and I strongly support them.

"For that to happen we need not only investment in buildings and physical infrastructure but also education to make sure young people in the city are equipped for the jobs of the future in a fast changing world.

"If levelling up is to work it must be about people as well as buildings."

Wolverhampton Council leader Ian Brookfield said he also welcomed any investment that comes into the city. "I'm hoping it will be major investment that will deliver a lot of infrastructure projects around the city that will benefit people," he said.

"My only slight issue is I think it should have been a lot more about levelling up people in communities.

"Some people over the next few years will be in a desperate place with increases in bills and taxes. We need to level up spending on infrastructure and people who need it."

He also said it made "perfect sense" to provide more power to local regions, adding: "For too long we have had to sit around and wait while we sent off submissions, bids and requests down to London.

"Devolving those decision making powers is the easiest and most effective way of doing things."

The promise to “level up” forgotten and deprived communities was a key theme of Boris Johnson's 2019 general election campaign which saw the Tories make huge gains in Labour’s previously impregnable “red wall” heartlands.

In all, the White Paper includes 12 national “missions” to be achieved by 2030 to be enshrined in a a flagship Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.

The first is to improve pay, employment, and productivity across the board while narrowing the disparities between the best and worst performing areas.

A research and development mission promises to increase public R&D investment outside the Greater South East by at least 40 per cent by 2030.

Others include bringing the rest of the country’s local public transport systems much closer to London standards and ensuring the large majority of the country has access to 5G broadband.

There is a mission to effectively eliminate illiteracy and innumeracy among primary school leavers with the Government’s educational efforts focussed on the most disadvantaged parts of the country.

As part of this, Sandwell, Dudley and Walsall have been identified as education "cold spots" where poorly-performing schools could be forced to join stronger academy trusts.

There are also commitments to ensure hundreds of thousands more people get high quality skills training every year while gross disparities in healthy life expectancy are narrowed.

The paper promises to halve the number of poor quality rented homes, rejuvenate the most run down town centres and deliver a significant decrease in serious crime in the most blighted areas.

Every part of England will get a London-style devolution deal if they want one.