The White Paper aims to set out a complete ‘system change’ of how government works that will be implemented to level up the UK. At the heart of this new way of making and implementing policy is 12 national missions – that the Government said are “all quantifiable and to be achieved by 2030”.
These missions are the policy objectives for levelling up, and thus form the heart of the government’s agenda for the 2020s. They will be given status in law in a flagship Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.
These missions will be cross-government, cross-society efforts. The first mission, for instance, will see pay, employment, and productivity grow everywhere, and the disparities between the top and worst performing areas narrow. This is the first time a government has placed narrowing spatial economic disparities at the heart of its agenda before.
The Research & Development (R&D) mission will see domestic public R&D investment outside the Greater South East increase by at least 40% by 2030, with these funds leveraging a huge increase in private investment in these areas too.
By 2030, other missions will see the rest of the country’s local public transport systems becoming much closer to London standards; the large majority of the country gain access to 5G broadband; and illiteracy and innumeracy in primary school leavers effectively eliminated - focussing the government’s education efforts on the most disadvantaged parts of the country.
Other missions will see: hundreds of thousands more people completing high quality skills training every year, gross disparities in healthy life expectancy narrowed, the number of poor quality rented homes halved, the most run down town centres and communities across the country rejuvenated, a significant decrease in serious crime in the most blighted areas, and every part of England getting a ‘London-style’ devolution deal if they wish to.
The White Paper also announces three new Innovation Accelerators, major place-based centres of innovation, centred on Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, and Glasgow-City Region. These clusters of innovation will see local businesses and researchers in these areas backed by £100 million of new government funding to “turbo-charge” local growth, learning from the MIT-Greater Boston and Stanford-Silicon Valley models.
UK engineering and manufacturing has reacted to the White Paper.
EngineeringUK head of public affairs, Beatrice Barleon, said: "We welcome the long-term vision of the levelling up white paper and its recognition of the importance of education and skills in ensuring opportunity is spread more equally across the country. As the paper rightly recognises ‘human capital’ is vital to the long-term success of this country. Ensuring that all young people regardless of where they live, and their background, have the opportunity to succeed must always be central to that ambition.
"We also welcome the future skills unit and the engineering voice on the levelling up advisory council. Together with the wider engineering sector, we have long argued for government to have a better central understanding of the skills gaps in this country, enabling more targeted policies to fill those gaps. The engineering sector has for a long-time struggled with skills shortages and this provides a real opportunity to address those challenges.
"The white paper rightly identifies many of the challenges the country faces and brings together in a more coherent format the policies that already exist to address those, as well as announce some new ones. We now look forward to working with the different departments and the levelling up advisory council to develop some of the detail that will ensure that we as a country provide young people with STEM skills that they need in order to access the sectors that will create the jobs of tomorrow wherever they are.”
Stephen Phipson, chief Executive of Make UK, said: “Manufacturers will enthusiastically embrace this strategy which is a vital building block in spreading growth to all parts of the UK. The sector has a significant presence in exactly the areas which need levelling up and is playing a vital role in delivering high value skills.
“While there is substantially more to be done, this focus on skills and innovation, together with an emphasis on infrastructure and place, is the right starting point and one that industry will back.”
Charles Woodburn, chief executive, BAE Systems said: “As a Company with tens of thousands of highly skilled, highly productive employees across the North of England and central Scotland, we support putting innovation and skills at the heart of the Levelling Up strategy.
“Industry and government working together to increase investment in research, development and skills outside of London and the South East will help individuals to access good jobs in the communities where they live, improve productivity and help every part of the UK reach its full potential.”
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