My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for tabling this amendment because it gives us the opportunity to pinpoint the tension at the heart of the levelling-up agenda. As the impact assessment reminds us, the problem it claims to address concerns unequal shares and opportunities, and levelling up
“is a mission to challenge, and change, that unfairness.”
It means
“giving everyone the opportunity to flourish”
and to have
“longer and more fulfilling lives”,
together with
“sustained rises in living standards and well-being”
for people everywhere. In fact, this is a statement about people, not places, as reflected in some of the missions. Yet the impact assessment states that achieving the aims of levelling up
“requires us to end the geographical inequality which is such a striking feature of the UK.”
The Minister’s levelling-up letter explains that the missions are necessarily spatial—but why are they purely spatial and geographical when inequalities of
income and wealth between individuals are also striking features of the UK? A report published by the Social Market Foundation, called Beyond Levelling Up and written by a former senior adviser to recent Conservative Chancellors, argues that this approach to levelling up
“avoids the question of whether we think the gap between rich and poor is acceptable, and whether we are comfortable with the current levels of income and wealth accruing to the richest in society.”
I will leave those in poverty until a later amendment. To make matters worse, ONS data shows that inequality has worsened since he wrote the report, and it is worse still if we use alternative measures on inequality.
I ask the Minister if she thinks the gap between rich and poor is acceptable. How does she think that the levelling-up agenda’s ambitions can be achieved without addressing that gap between rich and poor?