Levelling up: Gove calls time on ‘postcode lottery’ as strategy launched
Targets to reduce inequalities across society by 2030 are to be enshrined in law as part of long-awaited levelling up proposals to be published today, amid new rows over funding for the government’s headline policy.
Michael Gove will promise to “call time on the postcode lottery” of inequalities across Britain, setting 12 legally binding “missions” to improve health, living standards, transport, crime and wellbeing by the end of the decade.
Announcing the government’s levelling up strategy, the communities secretary will say that every area of England will have the chance to create a “London-style” metro mayor as part of what he claims is the biggest shift of power from Whitehall to local areas in modern times.
The levelling up white paper comes with Boris Johnson desperate to shift the public debate away from lockdown parties and on to what he says is the guiding aim of his premiership.
However, critics warned that the government is not clear about how it will achieve its 12 “missions”, which include everything from cutting crime to boosting skill levels in “left-behind” regions, and that there is insufficient funding behind the plans. Labour denounced it as a series of slogans.
The new levelling up targets include increasing taxpayer-funded research and development outside London and the south-east by 40%; boosting “perceived wellbeing” in every part of the country and improving “pride in place”, defined as “people’s satisfaction with their town centre and engagement in local culture and community”; and bringing local transport connectivity across the UK “significantly closer to the standards of London”.
Gove said: “For decades, too many communities have been overlooked and undervalued. As some areas have flourished, others
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