Michael Gove has succeeded in turning ‘levelling up’ into more than a slogan

The white paper is a serious attempt to address the decline in ‘forgotten communities’ that has bedevilled successive governments for the last 40 years, writes Andrew Grice

The levelling up secretary has announced 12 targets, to be enshrined in law (PA)

It’s easy to mock the long-awaited, 400-page white paper on “levelling up”. After all, a history lesson about how the Medici transformed Florence will hardly get them toasting a renaissance for the north in the Dog and Duck in Hartlepool.

Yet the document is a serious attempt to address the decline in “forgotten communities” that has bedevilled successive governments for the last 40 years. Many of the ideas outlined by Michael Gove will, eventually, make a difference and finally turn levelling up into more than an empty slogan.

It’s good that the levelling up secretary has announced 12 targets (or missions), to be enshrined in law, so we can measure the government’s progress with the help of a new watchdog. There is a political risk for any government in setting targets; they can return to bite you. Although some goals are too vague, others such as raising life expectancy and research and development spending outside the southeast are important.

It is also welcome that the Tories have swallowed their instinctive doubts about devolving power by proposing London-style mayors in every part of England, as revealed by The Independent in December.

Until now, levelling up has been mainly about shamelessly funnelling money from Whitehall into Tory-held seats. More Labour-held areas will now benefit, although, in many places, the money available will not compensate for a decade of Tory austerity in which local authorities suffered deeper cuts than any central government department.

Jeremy Corbyn was mocked for banging on about bus services but he was right; the Tories’ sneering showed how out of touch they were.

While the white paper is a good if belated start, crucial questions remain. Will other cabinet ministers be as committed as Gove to devolving power from their Whitehall empires? Will the Treasury allow fiscal devolution? I doubt it.

There’s also the political risk of mayoral elections being won by Labour politicians, giving the Tories’ main opponent more credibility. Some ministers worry that the proposed mayors will not result in the election of people of the calibre of Labour’s Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester and the Tories’ Ben Houchen in Tees Valley. Will candidates inspire local people in a country without a tradition of American-style governors? Will the turnout in mayoral elections be more than the 33 per cent for police and crime commissioners?

The white paper’s huge scope, ranging from productivity to obesity to the arts, living standards (oops!), broadband coverage, literacy and crime, shows it is a kitchen-sink job. That will disappoint critics who say levelling up means everything and nothing and who hoped for a more focused approach.

The political problem for Boris Johnson is that Rishi Sunak denied Gove more money for his flagship project in the Whitehall turf war that raged right up to today’s launch. I’m told Gove was nagging Johnson to squeeze more money out of the Treasury until the last minute. The chancellor also blocked Gove’s plan to scrap business rates for high street shops. Other ministers complain that Gove has been trying to raid their departmental budgets to beef up his white paper. He even tried to sign at least one Treasury official before transfer deadline day.

The deep structural problems that lie behind our regional inequalities inevitably require long-term solutions. Crucially, there will not be enough quick wins to transform the north and Midlands before a 2024 general election; most targets are supposed to be hit by 2030. One government adviser told me: “I fear we haven’t got the balance right between radical policy that shifts things in the medium-to-long term and tangible short-term improvements that people care about and notice.”

That will worry the new generation of Tory MPs in the red wall; they are frustrated by the snail-like progress in the two years since the 2019 general election and the absence of extra money. The white paper offers the last chance, but it might already be too late to make a big impact before the election.

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Gove is acutely aware of the problem, telling the BBC the government will “fail” people who voted Tory in 2019 unless its “moral mission” is to “level up”, but conceding there is no “instant fix”.

The red wall Tory MPs, who are furious about Partygate, won their seats on the back of Johnson’s personal appeal and his pledge to level up. Both are now in grave doubt. No wonder they fear for their futures.

How times have changed. After the Tories won the Hartlepool by-election last May, Johnson made clear he wanted 10 years in power so he could finish his levelling-up project. Now he is grateful to survive from one day to the next and it will almost certainly fall to someone else to complete his mission.