Level best? The levelling up agenda and UK regional inequality

Mark Fransham, Max Herbertson, Mihaela Pop, Margarida Bandeira Morais and Neil Lee

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: ‘Levelling up’ - a policy agenda focused on reducing regional inequalities - has become the new mantra in British politics. This paper reviews and critiques the agenda from its beginnings in 2019 to the publication of the 2022 Levelling Up White Paper. The agenda is an overdue recognition of gross regional inequality, and the new ‘missions’ which are set out to drive change are welcome. Yet local institutions lack capacity to deliver, there has been little genuine devolution, and the mechanisms through which the ‘missions’ will actually be delivered are unclear. Our analysis of spending commitments shows little new money has been committed, and what has been committed has tended to be through top-down competitive bids. There is a danger that levelling up becomes the latest in a list of politically useful but empty slogans which are used as a substitute for resources and devolution.

Keywords: levelling up; inequality; regions; cities; funding; policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2022-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo and nep-ure
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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/115015/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: Level best? The levelling up agenda and UK regional inequality (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:115015

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