Don't turn your back on the North: Our message to Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss

It was a day of huge symbolism on December 14, 2019, when hours after starting his new term as Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived in the Sedgefield constituency which for years had been the patch of Labour premier Tony Blair.

The town was one of a swathe of 'red wall' seats – like Hyndburn, Burnley and Blackpool South - where voters cast off decades of tradition to vote Conservative for the first time, ushering in an 80-seat majority for what seemed to be an invincible PM.

"I know that people may have been breaking the voting habits of generations to vote for us," Mr Johnson said that day.

"And I want the people of the North to know that we, in the Conservative Party, and I will repay your trust."

Fast forward to July 2022 - three years almost exactly since the phrase 'levelling up' was coined - and the slogan used to sum up his plan to spread opportunity to left-behind parts of the country in the North and Midlands is starting to ring hollow.

Boris Johnson's levelling up agenda has failed to deliver so far. Pic: PA (Image: PA)

The twin headwinds of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis - plus the constant whiff of scandal surrounding the PM himself - have understandably dominated his government's attention and left little bandwidth for the complicated task of undoing decades of worsening inequality.

But as two recent reports have set out all too clearly, in many parts of the North the dramatic events of the last two years have actually set the cause back even further.

In figures which shame any developed nation, child poverty rates in Blackburn with Darwen now sit at 34 per cent compared to 30 per cent in 2015, despite falling in the South.

In the Burnley and Hyndburn seats which switched to the Tories two years ago, the number of children living in poverty has risen by almost 2,000 since Johnson swept to power in 2019.

Super-rich Rishi Sunak has been accused of being out of touch with working people

Here in Lancashire, we have the three towns hit hardest by inflation in the country as poorly-insulated housing and heavy car reliance means Burnley, Blackpool and Blackburn bear the brunt of soaring costs – two towns which turned to the Tories on the promise of levelling up.

More than 22,000 families in Blackburn with Darwen received the recent cost of living crisis payment, and there are record numbers of children on free school meals in Blackburn and across Lancashire as a whole.

Almost a quarter of children in Blackburn get free school meals – 24.1 per cent is above the England average of 22.5 per cent.

Almost 10,000 families in Blackburn were also living in fuel poverty before the energy price crisis – triggered by a rise in demand for fuel last autumn and compounded by the war in Ukraine – took effect; the number now is likely to be even higher.

It’s clear that after a pandemic which hit the North’s towns, villages and cities harder than those in the South East, the argument for taking robust and concerted action is more powerful than ever.

Mr Johnson has in the last two years named a key department after 'levelling up' and tasked one of his most able Ministers - Michael Gove - with delivering his agenda, in the process producing 12 missions to judge his success.

Thousands of government workers have been moved out of London to the North, 'freeports'  have been created and £4.8bn Levelling Up Fund cash is being doled out for local regeneration projects.

The National Cyber Force is also coming to Samlesbury, which coincidentally just happens to be in the Preston and Wyre North constituency of Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.

But for the thousands of families across the North still held back by non-existent transport and a lack of jobs and skills, with soaring inflation chipping away at their living standards, the idea that their communities are being 'levelled up' must seem almost laughable.

Liz Truss could become just the third female Prime Minister. Pic: ITV

For those who care about the future of the North - and its ability to contribute to a successful nation - it's clear that levelling up is not just a race yet to be won but one barely out of the starting blocks.

So, with Boris Johnson now on his way out and Michael Gove abruptly sacked, it's all the more alarming to read multiple reports in the national press that the agenda could be scrapped by the next PM.

Though the two remaining hopefuls, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, have made many of the right noises about their commitment to the cause it's been far from a top priority in a debate largely focused on tax cuts and culture wars.

Perhaps, as reports suggest, Tory strategists are worried the perception of favouring neglected parts of the North will cost them as they defend seats in the affluent South East from the Liberal Democrats.

Done properly, however, levelling up - or whatever the next PM wants to call it - could help ease those areas’ sky-high housing costs by cooling down the pressure on the overheated regions around our dominant capital.

Bridging the gap between London and the neglected regions is a job of decades and - if the example of East and West Germany is anything to go by - trillions, rather than billions of pounds.

The aim is not just to apply a sticking plaster to the problems communities face in 2022 but to address why Northern towns and cities are more likely to face them.

Jake Berry has demanded commitment to the North from the leadership hopefuls (Image: UK Parliament)

At the heart of the issue is a problem under the bonnet of the North’s economy. The average Northern worker - for a whole host of reasons - is 50 per cent less productive than one in London, a gap that’s widened rapidly in recent years.

There’s no escaping the fact that any leader serious about the task of bridging this gap will have to make hard decisions about where and how it spends its money.

And new analysis by the IPPR North think-tank released today shows the gap in public spending between the North and the rest of the country has actually widened during the last three years.

While total public spending in the North was £16,223 per person in 2021, up 17 per cent on 2019, the England average rose by 20 per cent and the London average by 25 per cent to £19,231.

But this is not simply a case of the North with its begging bowl out asking for more cash from the hard-pressed taxpayer.

Rossendale and Darwen MP Jake Berry, who leads the Northern Research Group of Tory backbenchers, includes in his four asks of the next PM a ‘levelling up formula’ which would equalise government funding and ensure the North is not left behind.

Sara Britcliffe won the 'red wall' seat of Hyndburn for the Tories in 2019 (Image: Parliament)

But he also proposes changes that will rewire our unequal nation and give communities in the North the ability to succeed on their own terms, including a greater emphasis on vocational training with our region at the heart of it.

The demands are also personal for Mr Berry – the levelling up agenda’s lack of impact so far is putting his career in jeopardy, with polling site Electoral Calculus predicting he would lose his seat to Labour if an election were held tomorrow.

Some changes have already been made to the Green Book - the Treasury’s method of deciding where public money should be spent - but more reform is needed if towns and rural areas aren’t to be held back.

And above all central government must stop hoarding power and press the accelerator on devolution, giving elected mayors with strong local mandates the ability to take control of their post-16 education systems.

This important step would mean young people would be equipped with the skills they need to get well-paid local and not have to move away for a better life.

One-off pots of cash might look good on election flyers but meaningful change will only come with commitment to a more ambitious long-term approach, driven by leaders who understand their communities.

Levelling up and Brexit were what saw Tory Antony Higginbotham take Burnley from Labour in 2019 (Image: Parliament)

The North deserves to know where Mr Sunak and Ms Truss - the two contenders to be the next Prime Minister - stand on these issues and whether they’re truly committed to the hard decisions necessary to end the status quo.

As Jake Berry puts it, after getting the backing of both hopefuls for his four asks: “Rishi and Liz cannot simply pledge and forget about the North. The time for talking is over, we in the North demand action.”

And ahead of the first leadership hustings this week, major news titles across the North today put the following five key questions to the two candidates:

• What will you do to make sure the commitments made to the North by your predecessors as Prime Minister are kept?
• The average worker in the North is 50 per cent less productive than one in London, what will you do to address this widening gap?
• What will you do to address spiralling rates of child poverty in parts of Northern England?
• How far will you go to give Northern leaders control over education and skills, transport and health budgets currently held by Westminster, and will you give them more powers to raise or lower taxes to boost local economies?
• Will you retain a government department responsible for tackling regional inequalities with a Cabinet-level Minister for whom this is their main job?

We’ll publish the responses later this week. And with Labour making the case that they’re now the true party of levelling up we’ll be asking them to answer too.

As Conservative members in the North of England weigh up who to choose as the next Prime Minister, they should be looking not just at who might help them win the next election but their vision for the people of our proud regions.

Rosie Lockwood, head of advocacy at IPPR North, said: “The North deserves nothing more than the next Prime Minister to step through the door of number ten and set to work unlocking its potential. Northern prosperity is national prosperity.”

The argument was put neatly by Michael Gove, who said last week that levelling up was not just a social mission but also "an economic mission, because if different parts of the United Kingdom are all performing as effectively as the South East and London, then we would be the strongest economy in Europe”.

Anything but a full-throated commitment to this agenda would be a betrayal of the Northern voters who backed Boris Johnson in 2019. 

But worse than that, it would be a sad admission of defeat for the idea that everyone in this country should have a fair chance of success, no matter where they live.