Levelling up

We are coming to the end of a parliament where levelling up has been an ongoing theme, so it is a good time to begin to consider what levelling up is (or was), how it emerged, what if anything it has achieved and what lessons the past few years might offer a new, potentially progressive, government. In this article we argue that government has begun to deliver on some eye-catching initiatives, but their impact on economic levelling up is unlikely to be significant. More positively, we argue that levelling up – including a broadening and deepening of devolved economic governance – has moved regional inequality up the political agenda and into the public consciousness. This represents an opportunity for a progressive government if it first resolves some of the political tensions and contradictions around levelling up. These include a conflation and confusion over whether interventions are designed to drive economic growth and productivity or build social infrastructure and pride in place.