My Lords, I remind the House of my relevant interests: I am a councillor on Kirklees Council in West Yorkshire and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. This group of amendments focuses on the areas that have benefited, or not, from the initial round of the levelling-up fund. As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, there are many examples of levelling-up funds failing to reach those parts that the Government’s own White Paper assesses as being in need of targeted funding over a sustained period.
Throughout our considerations of the Bill, I have said that this vast tome, the levelling up White Paper, should be at the heart of what we are discussing and what the legislation should be doing. As I said in Committee and at Second Reading, it seems to me that the Government have lost their way. The White Paper is not perfect, but it makes a good start in setting out what levelling up should be about. One of the phrases in it is that levelling up should be “broad, deep and long-term”—I agree. Experience of previous iterations of levelling up, from city challenge to neighbourhood renewal and several other policy interventions in between, has demonstrated that scattering plugs of funding is not sufficient to ensure that communities that have not shared in the nation’s prosperity begin to do so. The cycle is not broken without dedicated and long-term investment; that is what the White Paper says. The fundamental approach currently being pursued is inadequate to meet that challenge.
The Government have so far distributed funding via a bidding culture, which, as many noble Lords will know, the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands has criticised, calling it a “begging bowl culture”. Such a bidding culture is also costly, in time and money, and leads to many more losers than winners. One example, which I think I have given before, is a major city in Yorkshire investing a six-figure sum in its bid for levelling-up funds only to receive a big fat zero. It seems to me that this process needs a fundamental rethink. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, was right to use the example of the House of Commons Select
Committee on this very issue, but the National Audit Office has also raised concerns about the use of levelling-up funds and how the bidding culture has worked —or not.
If the Government were serious about levelling up, only those areas that are amply described in the levelling up White Paper would qualify for funding. The Minister may be able to tell us whether only those areas described in the White Paper will qualify for funding. If not, we are moving away from the purpose of levelling up.
The second element of change needs to be for local authorities. Those that qualify via the assessment and the metrics in the White Paper should be asked to produce plans that tackle the inequalities at the heart of their communities in a sustained way—that is what the White Paper says needs to be done. It would mean more emphasis, for example, on skills, access to employment, and barriers, such as lack of childcare and transport. However, given what the Minister said in Committee, I am not sure whether the Government are ready for such big changes.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, is right to pursue making the use of levelling-up funding more transparent and, as Amendment 3 says, ensuring that the funding is linked to the missions. For me, at the heart of levelling-up and regeneration legislation should be linking funding to the missions. If they are not linked, I do not know what the purpose of this Bill is.
At this point, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, raises a good example of what happens when there is an inequality of immense proportions. My noble friend Lord Teverson supported him in that, and he was right to do so. There are countless examples of such disparities across the country, which the levelling-up fund should be dealing with.
These amendments are fundamental to the effective levelling up of the many parts of this country that have suffered inequalities—some of considerable proportion compared with the rest of the country—over many years. If the noble Baroness wishes to move her amendment to a vote and divide the House, we on these Benches will support her.