The Labour government is spending more than Boris Johnson on levelling up in its first year in office, investing £2bn more, new analysis has revealed.
The Labour government is spending more than Boris Johnson on levelling up in its first year in office, investing £2bn more, new analysis has revealed.
The New Statesman reports: “In its first year in office, Keir Starmer’s government has invested £2bn more than Johnson did in his first year – with £4.5bn allocated to regional investment programmes in Labour’s first year compared with £2.5bn spent in the equivalent period under Johnson – according to new analysis by the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods.”
Levelling up was supposed to be Johnson’s flagship policy to help working communities up and down the country, however far from investing in them the Tories presided over more than a decade of austerity which decimated public services and made matters worse.
Rishi Sunak was also then filmed boasting about how he withdrew funding from deprived urban areas and transferred it to wealthy towns instead.
Instead, it’s the Labour government that is helping to level up Britain.
The New Statesman adds: “Investment in the North East will be seven times higher than under Johnson, and five times higher in the North West and Yorkshire and Humber by the end of the parliament, based on current trends identified in this analysis of 46 government programmes and funds.
“In fact, Starmer’s government has already committed funding the equivalent of 70 per cent of the entirety of Johnson’s “Levelling Up” allocation in just 14 months in office. It is on track to invest £36bn in such schemes: three times the levels under Boris Johnson. It is also weighting this funding more towards the north, with 51 per cent of the money going to northern regions compared with 41 per cent under Johnson.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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