Levelling-Up Drive Is ‘New Slogans Without New Ideas', Says Labour

Critics say 12-point plan to help the poorest areas lacks funding and clarity

- Heather Stewart Josh Halliday

Targets to reduce inequalities across society by 2030 are to be enshrined in law as part of long-awaited levelling up proposals to be published today, amid new rows over funding for the government’s flagship policy.

Michael Gove will promise to “call time on the postcode lottery” of inequalities across Britain, setting 12 legally binding “missions” to improve health, living standards, transport, crime and wellbeing by the end of the decade.

Announcing the government’s levelling up strategy, the communities secretary will say that every area of England will have the chance to create a “London-style” metro mayor as part of what he claims is the biggest shift of power from Whitehall to local areas in modern times.

The levelling up white paper comes with Boris Johnson desperate to shift the public debate away from lockdown parties and on to what he says is the guiding aim of his premiership.

However, critics warned that the government is not clear about how it will achieve its 12 “missions”, which include everything from cutting crime to boosting skill levels in left-behind regions, and that there is insufficient funding behind the plans. Labour denounced it as a series of slogans.