No targets will be set to assess if Boris Johnson ’s “levelling up ” pledge has been achieved, a minister has revealed – insisting the voters will decide.
The allocations from the £4.8bn fund have provoked uproar, after the leafy North Yorkshire seat of Chancellor Rishi Sunak was given higher priority than struggling Barnsley.
Amid accusations of “pork barrel politics”, it was then revealed that levels of deprivation – the normal criteria for handing out poverty-fighting cash – had not been a factor .
In the Commons, Mr Hughes, the local government minister, provoked surprise by telling MPs: “We decided to leave the criteria to civil servants.
“We set out the expectation of what we hope to achieve. We left it to civil servants to decide what the criteria was, so that we didn’t have any of the political influence that he is suggesting.”
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The minister was then asked what indicators would be used to decide if the levelling-up policy had been “successful” – beyond “announcing lots of money”.
But he dismissed the suggestion, saying: “The British electorate will probably do that at the next election, so I look forward to seeing how that turns out.”
Toby Perkins , a Labour MP, called the remark “absolutely shameless”, adding it laid bare that the spending was “purely about getting re-elected”.
More than a year ago, The Independent asked No 10 how the effectiveness of the levelling up policy would be measured and was told ‘wait for the Budget”.
Labour, when promising to “close the North-South divide”, set detailed targets for raising properity in the poorest regions and for closing huge gaps in life expectancy with wealthier areas.
But Mr Hughes has now said there will be no benchmarks at all, as he told MPs: “We’re levelling up everywhere.”
The local authorities of five Cabinet ministers are receiving levelling up funds to “support town centre and high street regeneration, local transport projects, and cultural and heritage assets”.
Instead of prioritising deprivation, money is going to rural areas with low productivity and long commutes to work – factors that appear to favour Conservative parts of the country.
Meanwhile, 45 places have shared a further £1bn of Towns Fund grants, of which only four are in Opposition-held seats.
Labour’s Steve Reed protested that, even areas receiving cash, were still “getting less than they got” before a decade of local government cuts.
“It’s a bit like a burglar who sneaks into your house in the dead of night, strips it bare, and then expects gratitude for handing back your TV set,” he said.
