As the Conservative Party Conference rolls into Manchester, Joseph Timan looks at how the government is doing against its own measures
The Conservatives won a decisive victory in 2019 as Boris Johnson vowed to 'level up' the UK. The ex-Prime Minister thanked lifelong Labour supporters in 'red wall' seats - including in Greater Manchester - who 'lent' him their votes.
Since then there have certainly been some broken promises - Northern Powerhouse Rail, which was set to connect east to west, has been scaled back, high speed rail might not even come to Manchester as the HS2 saga rumbles on, and plans for new platforms at Piccadilly which were supposed to ease rail congestion have been pulled.
As the Tories meet in Manchester for their conference this week the Manchester Evening News has taken an in-depth look at how the government is doing against its own measures; what progress has been made 'levelling' up the country; and whether the lives of people across Greater Manchester - and the North - have improved.
According to another think tank, the Resolution Foundation, the region's productivity - a measure of how much money each worker generates in the economy - is far below the UK average, and 35 per cent lower than London's. Their report, published in recent weeks, has made a series of recommendations aimed at reducing this gap in productivity, compared to the capital, to 20 per cent.
Successive Conservative governments have also given Greater Manchester more powers to manage its public transport network. Six years ago, English regions which agreed to elect their own mayors were given the power to take buses back under public control. He also wants a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss regional rail infrastructure. Rishi Sunak has refused to confirm whether HS2 will be coming to Manchester following reports the Northern leg could be scrapped due to concerns over rising costs.
The HS2 saga has rumbled on for years and, London mayor Sadiq Khan who has backed his Northern counterparts' calls for the line to be completed in full, has said that further delays will be detrimental to economic growth. And as obfuscation by the government over the future of the project continues, the uncertainty is already causing economic harm, according to Greater Manchester's mayor.
Visiting Manchester in August to learn about some of the projects funded by the Innovation Accelerator scheme, Viscount Camrose, who is the minister for Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property, said the government is seeking to roll out this scheme further. This meant the difference, when compared to national outcomes, more than doubled in three years. The development of children under five also declined, with only 53 per cent achieving the expected level of learning at that age, compared to 66 per cent in 2019 and 65 per cent nationally.
The report reveals that funding for Northern schools has lagged behind the rest of the UK over the past decade while regional inequalities have risen since the pandemic. The government is now planning to introduce a new funding formula for schools. The NHS is also dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic. When the number of cases was at its peak, the Covid death rate was 25 per cent higher in Greater Manchester than in England as a whole, meaning hospitals here were under more pressure than elsewhere.
News that work is finally set to start by around 2025 has been welcomed. But local NHS leaders are still struggling to balance the books when it comes to day-to-day spending, despite having had more control over health budget since the 2014 devolution deal. In Manchester, men can expect to die nearly five years younger than the average age for England while women can expect to die nearly four years younger. Life expectancy at birth for Manchester residents fell by an estimated 3.1 years for men and 1.9 years for women in 2020, compared to England's fall of 1.3 years for men and 0.9 years for women, according to a council report.
Levelling up secretary Michael Gove backed an M.E.N. campaign to make sure such a tragedy cannot be allowed to happen again. In July, Awaab's Law - which sets strict timelines for damp and mould to be inspected and repaired by landlords - became a reality. In the Conservative's 2019 manifesto, the party said it wanted 300,000 new homes to be built per year in England. This target was repeated in the Levelling Up White Paper - although the government has been accused of watering it down since then.
Many are stuck there as they wait for social housing. In Manchester alone, more than 15,000 households are on the housing register. The government's third levelling up objective is to 'restore a sense of community, local pride and belonging', especially in places where they have been lost. This includes by supporting regeneration, green spaces and cultural activities to create stronger communities.
Wigan MP Lisa Nandy, who was the Shadow Levelling Up Secretary at the time, slammed the scheme as 'chaos', describing it as a 'Hunger Games-style contest where communities are pitted against one another and Whitehall ministers pick winners and losers'. Last year, the force was taken out of special measures as inspectors recognised rapid improvements. Police officer numbers at GMP are now the highest they have been for many years with 2,629 additional officers recruited since 2019, taking the total to 8,067.
Last year, the Levelling Up White Paper kickstarted talks on the next stage of devolution for Greater Manchester which was selected as one of two 'trailblazer' city-regions. A year later, a new devolution deal described as the 'deepest' yet was agreed. But months after signing the new deal, the Department for Education described the MBacc proposal as 'unequal' and said that it would 'narrow the opportunities available to young people'. Education secretary Gillian Keegan said that she is opposed to the scheme, but her department has since confirmed that it is up to individual schools to decide if they want to adopt this approach.
But this hits the poorest parts of the country hardest, Labour councillors have argued. Last year, one councillor in Manchester claimed the scale of budget cuts the local authority has faced over the last 12 years is now of a magnitude similar to the value of Manchester United. Councils across the country are struggling to stay afloat. Just a few weeks ago, Birmingham council effectively declared itself bankrupt.
But in Greater Manchester, where nearly two thirds of households are classed in the lowest two bands of council tax, less money is collected under the scheme which is based on property values in 1990. For example, every 1 per cent increase raises around £2m in Manchester, while in Surrey, it would raise £8.3m, according to analysis from the Labour Group of the Local Government Association.
So how is levelling up going? The pandemic laid bare, and then worsened, many regional disparities and by many measures, things are going the wrong way. The gap in GCSE grades, life expectancy and public spending per person between the North and the South is growing. “As work by MetroDynamics has shown, the productivity growth of Greater Manchester has outpaced London in last decade. But Levelling Up, bypassing funds around devolved structures even this weekend with another town based fund, is why Levelling Up has turned into such a failure.
He said: "Something like the transport money that Greater Manchester got will make a significant difference to regional transport in Greater Manchester which has required investment for a long period of time. That's a definite success.
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