When No Time to Die came out, there was a huge amount riding on its success. It was the blockbuster that would restore the fortunes of the film industry after the pandemic. In trying to do so it threw everything at the audience and, whilst it did bring people back to the big screen, it was something of a disappointment and notched up a $100m loss.
While the Levelling Up White Paper had far fewer car chases (although it did have an equally torturous and far-reaching back story), it came burdened with similarly impossible expectations. ‘Levelling up’ had become the universal panacea, a catchphrase to cure intractable and long-standing problems of regional inequality.
With such high hopes it was always going to disappoint on some level. And so it did: it was the ne plus ultra of curate’s eggs. Its understanding of history and its analysis of the structural problems was thoughtful, clear, astute and well-argued, and the conclusions indisputable. The proposed remedy, however, came across as patchwork and opportunistic. It lacked coherence.
Perhaps this was not surprising. The WP came in the wake of the Comprehensive Spending Review, so there was little room for manoeuvre in redistributing budgets, and there was a slight sense that favours had been called in across Whitehall to contribute to the policy.
This is exactly what the government was trying to avoid. Having said that historic problems of ad hoc interventions, ‘endemic policy churn,’ and short-termism had sunk previous efforts, the proposals seemed to be setting out a framework that would do just that.
From an Eastern Arc perspective, I had particular concerns about how the ill-defined ‘Greater South East’ was perceived. Although our region is home to areas of significant prosperity, it is also home to areas of serious deprivation, particularly along its coast, including Tendring, which includes the most deprived area in the country, Jaywick.
It is the same in the world of R&D. Although R&D expenditure is, in global figures, highest in London, the South East and East of England, it is heavily distorted by the location of the six ‘Golden Triangle’ universities within these regions, which are all within the top ten richest universities in the UK.
There is a need, then, for more granularity in assessing need and distributing funding. It shouldn’t just be a case of increasing R&D spending outside the Greater South East by 40% by 2030, but rather thinking about where the specific need and opportunity is.
So, overall, I believe the WP is a good start, but the devil will be in the detail. I hope the Government can work across party lines, reach out to and fully engage with regional stakeholders and communities, and understand the specific needs and strengths at a sub-regional level. By doing so I hope levelling up will be more than just a catchphrase, breaking the cycle of ‘stop-start’ policy and ‘patchwork’ investment that, as the White Paper succinctly puts it, ‘first builds hope, then destroys it.’