Levelling Up the United Kingdom

Today, 2 February 2022, the Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove unveiled the government’s flagship Levelling Up White Paper. This document sets out a plan to transform the UK by spreading opportunity and prosperity to all parts of it.

Twelve bold national levelling up missions, given status in law, will shift government focus and resources to Britain’s forgotten communities throughout 2020s

• Biggest shift of power from Whitehall to local leaders in modern times announced - every part of England to get ‘London style’ powers and mayor if they wish to

• Starting gun fired on decade-long project to level up Britain, with radical new policies announced across the board

• Domestic public investment in Research & Development to increase by at least 40% across the North, Midlands, South West, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland

This paper sets out the next stages in this programme to level up the UK.
This programme has to be broad, deep and long-term. It has to be rooted in evidence demonstrating that a mix of factors is needed to transform places and boost local growth: strong innovation and a climate conducive to private sector investment, better skills, improved transport systems, greater access to culture, stronger pride in place, deeper trust, greater safety and more resilient institutions.

History illustrates what is possible by following this path. The Renaissance fourished in Italian city states that combined innovation in fnance with technological breakthroughs, the cultivation of learning, ground-breaking artistic endeavour, a beautiful built environment and strong civic leadership. And the frst Industrial Revolution in Britain came about through the interplay of innovative fnancial instruments, sharper rewards for enterprise, new institutions of learning, improvements in transportation and rivalrous emulation between local leaders and entrepreneurs. Those same concerted forces are needed to drive productivity, innovation and growth across the UK today.

This contemporary Medici model, our twenty-frst century recipe for a new Industrial Revolution, depends on harnessing an array of interventions and catalysing a range of sectors. Levelling up will require us to:

1. boost productivity, pay, jobs and living standards by growing the private sector, especially in those places where they are lagging;

2. spread opportunities and improve public services, especially in those places where they are weakest;

3. restore a sense of community, local pride and belonging, especially in those places where they have been lost; and

4. empower local leaders and communities, especially in those places lacking local agency.

How does Levelling Up impact Housing?

By 2030, renters will have a secure path to ownership with the number of frst-time buyers increasing in all areas; and the government’s ambition is for the number of non-decent rented homes to have fallen by 50%, with the biggest improvements in the lowest performing areas. Government will consult on the impact on the private rented market and particularly those on the lowest incomes. Further detail will be set out once the review of the Decent Homes Standard has concluded.

Our aim with these reforms is to improve pride in place in every area of the UK, with the gap between top performing and other areas narrowing (Mission Nine).

Poor housing quality, overcrowding and a reliance on temporary accommodation for vulnerable families also contribute to unnecessarily poor health and quality of life for many. We will take action on two fronts. First, building more housing in England, including more genuinely afordable social housing. Second, we will launch a new drive on housing quality to make sure homes are ft for the 21st century.

We will ensure home ownership is within the reach of many more people.
The Help to Buy scheme launched last year is focussing entirely on frst time buyers and we will build on the success of the Mortgage Guarantee Scheme by working with the lending industry to maximise the availability of low deposit mortgages. Alongside this, we will improve the home buying and selling process, working with the industry to ensure the critical information buyers need to know is available digitally wherever possible from trusted and authenticated sources. We will also scrap the 80/20 funding rule that focused investment in Greater London, and instead invest in more homes in the North and Midlands to relieve pressure on the South East.

To deliver our mission to improve housing conditions, we will introduce new legislation to improve the quality and regulation of social housing, give residents performance information so that they can hold their landlord to account and ensure that when residents make a complaint, landlords take quick and efective action to put things right. And we will publish a landmark White Paper in the spring to consult on introducing a legally binding Decent Homes Standard in the Private Rented Sector for the frst time ever, explore a National Landlord Register and bring forward other measures to reset the relationship between landlords and tenants, including through ending section 21 “no fault evictions. The Renter’s Reform Bill should clarify the detail of what the changes will be and when they will be implemented.