Andy Street is Mayor of the West Midlands, and is a former Managing Director of John Lewis.
Levelling-Up remains a mission-critical priority for the Government. It’s essential that we Conservatives deliver on a concept that was fundamental to our 2019 election success. Make no mistake: the Labour leadership are positioning themselves to seize the agenda, despite the fact they have no real record of English devolution.
Recent Levelling-Up grants provided a powerful illustration of why changes must happen quickly. I want to use this column to explain how they exposed the flaws in the system, and how the Trailblazer Devolution Deals now being negotiated can provide the long-term strategic approach to make Levelling-Up happen.
First of all, I want to make clear that we welcome the grants our region did receive, for Rowley Regis and Willenhall in the Black Country. However, many worthy bids here inexplicably failed, such as our plans for a National Centre for Decarbonisation of Heat, at the Tyseley Energy Park in Birmingham.
As Mayor of West Midlands, I make no apologies for voicing our disappointment when we miss out. It’s my job. This is not sour grapes, it’s simply frustration that things can be done better.
It’s also my job to work positively with Government and acknowledge when our concerns are heard. Indications from the Chancellor and Levelling-Up Secretary now suggest that they are willing to look at a less centralised way of allocating spending. This is to be welcomed.
So, why were we so disappointed? The current bidding system, where London-based civil servants decide how and where regional money is spent, is no longer fit for purpose – and the last round of Levelling-Up announcements shone a stark light on its flaws.
Yes, I’m proud that our region has won substantial funding from Government – more than £4.5 billion since 2017. But after the disappointment of last month’s grants, there were concerns here that our success had counted against us in the eyes of Whitehall civil servants. The fact is we used that funding to bring in billions more in private investment.
For example, while the Commonwealth Games and Coventry City of Culture were supported by significant Government backing, they are now delivering legacies driven by local decision-making.
Surely, these successes prove that we use money effectively, representing a vote of confidence in our proven ability to deliver.
This is why the Trailblazer Devolution Deal now being negotiated is so important. The deal will mean that, instead of going cap in hand to a Civil Servant in London to fund a key project here, we can turn to the proven effectiveness of local expertise to get the most out of investment on the ground.
Just look at our track record in Skills, one of the areas where we have already benefited from substantial devolution, with control of the region’s £130m Adult Education Budget.
We took this budget, which had formerly been held centrally, and tailored the spending to match the make-up of the West Midlands. As a consequence, we put a greater emphasis on jobs, on being more responsive to the needs of employers, and on developing high-quality skills through fewer, better training providers, who work in tandem with our colleges.
The results? Our ground-breaking digital boot camps have been adopted nationally. We have seen a significant rise in those achieving NVQ Level 3+. Thousands have passed through our courses on coding, cyber security, and electric vehicle maintenance.
Yet even in this area, we can do more, given the powers to allocate funding. The Trailblazer Devolution Deal would give us greater control over post-16 education so we can do even better in equipping our young people with the skills we know are needed by employers. And, by devolving inward investment powers, it would enable us to attract even more high-quality jobs and international businesses.
Compared to this long-term vision for devolution, the Levelling Up money in each round of grants is relatively small – but as a commitment to rebalancing our nation, it is totemic of our ambition as a party. We must think strategically if we are to deliver Levelling-Up, and the regions have the local insights to shape that strategy.
We are now at a significant waypoint in the mission to create a more economically balanced UK where, through Trailblazer Deals, devolution and Levelling-Up should begin to move forward in lockstep, unleashing the full potential of the regions.
In his speech to the Convention of the North on January 25th, Michael Gove confirmed that another round of Levelling-Up grants is likely to be revealed after the budget in March. The West Midlands looks forward to seeing more of our bids succeed.
However, the Secretary of State for Levelling-Up also said he and the Chancellor were working to simplify funding allocations and extend local autonomy, including reducing the bureaucracy involved in the many repetitive bidding processes in the current system. Again, he promised further details after the March budget.
The West Midlands is ready to take the next step in devolution, and that means a new approach to how we invest here and in other regions – an approach that equips us to take on global competitors rather than each other. After all, the West Midlands must compete with Barcelona, Boston, and Beijing – not with London and Manchester.
We are champing at the bit not just to access Levelling-Up funds, but to contribute our knowledge and expertise, and have a say in how they are allocated and used.