Recommendation 9

HM Government Accepted

As HMG’s Levelling Up White paper highlighted, the UK faces significant regional productivity disparities, with differences originating and cementing due to history, deindustrialisation and deficiencies in the presences of the six capitals (physical, human, intangible, financial, institutional and social). The first Levelling Up Mission—improving living standards—aims to directly address these productivity disparities. The mission states that by 2030, pay, employment and productivity will have risen in every area of the UK, with each containing a globally competitive city, with the gap between the top performing and other areas closing. City regions are particularly important to driving economic growth and long-term prosperity, but the major cities outside of London punch below their weight. The UK Government recognizes the need to put the development of dynamic city regions at the centre of any plan to raise living standards. Improving the performance of cities can benefit the surrounding towns and communities as well, through raising growth and productivity. For instance, policies such as extending the geographical reach of the British Business Bank’s Regional Investment Funds; incentivising private sector investment through freeports; establishing the UK infrastructure bank to catalyse investment and support regional growth; and announcing the launch of the investment zones programme (which will be predominantly located across the UK’s major cities outside of the Greater South East) directly work towards the living standards mission. Likewise, since the White Paper, HMG has committed to expanding devolution further across England with new deals and deeper devolution for existing MCAs. The White Paper also announced three innovation accelerators in Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and Glasgow City region—given that innovation is a key input to productivity growth, this policy also aims to supercharge the UK’s city regions to close regional productivity gaps.