Boris Johnson has called for greater devolution across England as a way to boost his “levelling up” agenda, while indicating this would only be granted for areas where the leadership was viewed as sufficiently pro-business.
“Come to us, come to Neil O’Brien or to me with your vision for how you will level up, back business, attract more good jobs and improve your local services,” Johnson ended a somewhat freewheeling speech in Coventry, mentioning the Conservative MP brought into Downing Street to flesh out the levelling up plans.
While the speech was billed in advance as an explanation of the government’s flagship policy, the prime minister mainly focused on what he called the “outrage” of glaring regional inequalities.
The one new policy, if only outlined in the broadest terms, was a floating of the idea of powerful elected mayors – such as those already running some cities and metropolitan regions – being extended to counties and towns.
Saying that while the policy would not take a “one-size-fits-all” approach, Johnson said such places would be able to seek bespoke powers in areas such as the economy and transport.
However, he hinted this would only be granted to areas ministers deemed ideologically sympathetic to promoting business, saying it had been correct for earlier Conservative governments to abolish previous local administrations that were “so genuinely hostile to business in such a way that government was forced to intervene”.
He went on: “Now, with some notable exceptions that argument is over and most of the big metro mayors know that private sector investment is crucial.”
Asked after the speech if this meant only some areas could benefit from devolution, Johnson said: “We’ll deal with anybody, of course we will.” He added: “But obviously, what I’m saying is that with these powers must come responsibility and accountability. And that’s what we want to see.”
Elsewhere, Johnson pledged to target investment away from prosperous Conservative heartlands near London, calling these “areas where house prices are already sky-high and where transport is already congested”.
If governments invest further in such places, “you drive prices even higher and you force more and more people to move to the same expensive areas – and two-thirds of graduates from our top 30 universities end up in London – and the result is that their commutes are longer, their trains are more crowded, they have less time with their kids”, he said.
In contrast, Johnson said, terrible disparities existed given the situation in more deprived areas: “It is an outrage that a man in Glasgow or Blackpool has an average of 10 years less on this planet than someone growing up in Hart in Hampshire.
“It is the mission of this government to unite and level up across the whole UK, not just because that is morally right but because if we fail then we are simply squandering vast reserves of human capital, we are failing to allow people to fulfil their potential.
“To a great extent, Germany has succeeded in levelling up where we have not,” he said, contrasting the UK’s record with other countries.
More policies for levelling up are expected in a white paper on the subject due in the autumn.
Johnson has faced criticism that levelling up largely remains a slogan and relates to a series of sometimes confusingly administered funds.
There have also been concerns about the allocation of money already distributed under the rubric of levelling up. An examination of one scheme, the community renewal fund, found it appeared overwhelmingly skewed towards Tory-held areas, despite its stated intent to target the most deprived regions.
