Select committee: Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee

Recommendation 5

Third Report - Post-pandemic economic growth: Levelling up Published 22 Jul 2021 Paragraph 30 Addressed to Department for Business and Trade

Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee Post-pandemic economic growth: Levelling up - local and regional structures and the delivery of economic growth All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗

Recommendation (the committee's words)

The current available documents on the policy instruments the Government aims to use to level up—the Conservative Party Manifesto, its submission to this inquiry and the 2021 Queen’s Speech—show a wide ranging and disjointed programme of random policies from an obesity strategy, an increase in police officers, to funding on A roads and the creation of Freeports. Although these policies are all very interesting and welcome, it is difficult to see how they all tie together under one over-arching strategy. The cohesion of the whole has not been well described to identify how these fit together. If the Government is serious about levelling up and for it to be a substantive strategy rather than merely a slogan, it must spell out a coherent ‘plan’ as a matter of urgency.

From: Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee, Third Report - Post-pandemic economic growth: Levelling up (HC 566), paragraph 30, 22 July 2021

Government response

The government responded to the whole report on 3 December 2021 (deadline 22 September 2021).

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The government's response welcomes the Committee's report as a contribution to the forthcoming Levelling Up White Paper, accepting some recommendations while stating it has answered others only "insofar as possible without prejudicing live policy development".

On Covid-19 analysis, it "recognise[s] the importance" of factoring this into levelling up planning and says it is undertaking "a programme of work" to understand structural shifts in the economy, to feed into the agenda.
On a coherent plan, it is "committed to publishing" the Levelling Up White Paper and says "Further detail on our plans will be included" there, without giving a date or a detailed road map.
On departmental contributions, it "agree[s] with the Committee's recommendation" and says the White Paper "will assist in setting out how the work of different Departments fits into a wider Levelling Up strategy".
On metrics and accountability, it points to Spending Review 2020 priority outcomes and Outcome Delivery Plans, and says "Updated priority outcomes and metrics will be published at the next Spending Review."

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