Levelling up or down? Addressing regional inequalities in the UK

ABSTRACT

The UK has the widest regional inequalities among the advanced industrial economies. These regional inequalities are not new, but the persistence of the so-called North-South divide has become more prominent in the public eye. The post-Brexit landscape was aligned with the political rhetoric of ‘levelling up’, although this was only vaguely defined. While related to tackling regional inequalities, there has been much ambiguity around the various dimensions of ‘levelling up’, and the scale of its ambition. Moreover, the recent UK government White Paper provides little indication of which alternative paths (weaker) regions should take to address the country’s long-standing inequalities. Indeed, the approach seems to implicitly accept the status quo, especially given that the minutiae detail of achieving ‘levelling up’ and recognition of interregional dynamics was largely missing. ‘Levelling up’ clearly invokes huge challenges, not least because the UK’s regional inequalities are not only wide, but longstanding. The papers in this special issue highlight some of these challenges and some potential new policy directions. We offer this collection as useful food for thought for both academics and policymakers from across the political spectrum as we continue to tackle the issues surrounding uneven regional economic growth, development, and opportunity.

KEYWORDS:

• Levelling up
• regional development
• regional inequalities
• regional policy

It is broadly acknowledged the UK has the widest regional inequalities among the advanced industrial economies (McCann, 2016). These regional inequalities are not new. Indeed, they date from at least the mid-nineteenth century, when it became clear that a growing gap was emerging between London (and the South-East) the UK’s northern/midlands regions, and also Wales and Scotland (Martin, 1988). The North-South divide continued throughout the whole twentieth century. The deindustrialisation of the 1980s (and later 1990s), was also more acute in the UK’s hinterlands especially in regions outside the South-East that were overly reliant upon a specialised industrial base and thus vulnerable to global competition (Martin, 1988). More recently, the effects of the Great Financial Crisis of 2008/9 and ensuing austerity appear to have disproportionately affected the UK’s weaker regions and widened the schism between a dynamic London and a sluggish periphery of (in particular) provincial UK cities (Hutton & Lee, 2012, McCann, 2016).

The persistence of the North-South divide has, in more recent years, become more prominent in the public eye. Political commentators and academics have begun to refer to places that have been ‘left behind’ (Pike et al., 2022) and/or ‘lagging regions’ in terms of their socio-economic outcomes. Some argue that this has given rise to a ‘geography of discontent’ (McCann, 2020), which was a significant factor behind the Brexit vote (Rodríguez-Pose, 2018). In response, UK politicians and policymakers from across the political divide, have (again) sought to address regional inequalities. This has largely been necessitated by the post-Brexit political landscape, with an electoral realignment that saw the governing Conservative Party shift its appeal to voters in Labour’s traditional heartlands (see Gamble, 2019); the so-called ‘Red Wall’ (Connolly et al., 2021). Yet, there was also recognition that widening regional imbalances represented unfulfilled potential and/or under-utilised capacity within the UK economy, a point explicitly recognised in the 2017 Industrial Strategy White Paper (HMG, 2017) which identified ‘place’ as one its five foundations for productivity growth. In the words of the then Prime Minister, Theresa May, a key aim was to create ‘an economy that works for everyone’ (FT, 5/10/2016).

This was, of course, not the first-time UK governments had sought to intervene on regional development (see Westwood et al., 2022). In relatively recent times, the New Labour government (1997–2010) introduced nine Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), alongside devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The RDA’s remit had been to promote regional regeneration and development, and in so doing, it was hoped this would reduce the UK’s regional imbalances. After a decade of operation, the RDAs were abolished by the Coalition government (2010–2015) looking for austerity budget cuts, and a more local and voluntary approach. This was to be achieved through the establishment of a more fragmented structure of 39 (now 38) Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPS) in England. The LEPs were intended to be partnerships between local businesses and local authorities, yet they were initially unfunded, had different capabilities and capacities, and as such they had little impact on local growth (see Bentley & Pugalis, 2013). Some funding through local growth deals did eventually arrive, following Lord Heseltine’s (2012) report entitled No Stone Unturned which sought solutions to the UK’s long standing weak regional productivity performance.¹ Yet, disenchantment with LEPS and their ability to drive local growth, alongside an evolving English devolution agenda (favouring elected Mayoral Combined Authorities) has put their future in doubt – in the 2023 March Budget, the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, effectively abolished them and announced their functions as being transferred to local authorities by April 2024 (LGC, 15/3/23).

With similar ambitions, the Industrial Strategy White Paper (2017) had required English Combined Authorities and LEPs to engage with local stakeholders in identifying local and regional areas of strength, capabilities and opportunities for future growth, and draft (and subsequently implement) a Local Industrial Strategy (LIS) that set out how to support local growth over the next 10–15 years (see Fai & Tomlinson, 2019).² Yet, the timing of the LISs was unfortunate. The first wave were published in mid to late 2019, amidst the national political turmoil of Brexit, and the second wave were released in 2020 when the country was grappling with the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. This also coincided with a change in the national administration within the governing Conservative Party and, at least in rhetoric (though not necessarily in overall national policy), a shift away from industrial strategy. Consequently, local industrial strategies – which had never been allocated any funding – have been ‘left on the shelf’ (and some LIS documents have been removed from LEPs and Combined Authority websites). This is despite many LISs being a genuine place-based attempt at identifying potential socio-economic directions for localities over the next decade (Bailey et al., 2023a). As Westwood et al. (2022, p. 100) note ‘The UK’s track record – and particularly that of England – over recent decades do not bode well for tackling spatial inequality and low productivity’.

Nevertheless, in the 2019 General Election, Boris Johnson’s Conservatives successfully took ‘Red Wall’ seats not only on a promise to resolve the ongoing Brexit impasse, but also to ‘level up’ the country (Tomaney & Pike, 2020). However, although a successful election slogan, the phrase ‘levelling up’ was only vaguely defined.³ It emerged as political rhetoric, and while it became apparent the phrase related to tackling regional inequalities, there was much ambiguity around its various dimensions and the scale of its ambition (Newman, 2021). Attempting to address these concerns, the UK government commissioned and then published in February 2022, a White Paper – Levelling Up the United Kingdom (HMG, 2022) – in which it set out an agenda for tackling unequal economic development in the UK’s cities and regions.

The ‘Levelling Up’ White Paper was a substantive and ambitious document running to 332 pages, replete with data and references to the ‘Medici’ of Renaissance Florence. It identified six ‘capitals’ as the key drivers of agglomeration and spatial disparity; physical (infrastructure/housing), human (skills/health), intangible (innovation/ideas), financial (finance), social (community relations/networks) and institutional (local leadership/capacity and capability). The aspiration of the White Paper was that ‘every place in the UK [should] have a rich endowment of all six capitals, so that people do not have to leave their community to live a good life’ (Executive Summary, p.xvi, 2022). The implication was public funding – through a variety of funding schema – would help to replenish these capitals in places where they were weak or depleted. These would be achieved through a set of twelve ‘missions’ designed to boost regional economies (from investments in R&D, transport and digital infrastructure to education/skills and health), alongside a greater devolution of powers and responsibilities to local leaders. In addition, better and more granular regional data collection and analysis would aid local decision making, while the whole project would be overseen by a new Levelling Up Advisory Council (which would publish annual reports).

Despite the White Paper’s noble aims, many critical aspects remain obscure. For instance, the definition of the concept itself, especially as to whether the purpose of ‘levelling up’ is absolute or relative, or whether all regions should seek to achieve the upper quartile or average of some regional performance metric (in an upward – ‘levelling up’ or downward – ‘levelling down’ direction). In this regard, the White Paper was quick to dismiss the most obvious paths to ‘levelling up’:

Levelling up is not about making every part of the country the same or pitting one part of the country against another. Nor does it mean dampening down the more prosperous parts of the country (Executive Summary, p. xiv).

Unfortunately, the White Paper provides little indication of which alternative paths (weaker) regions should take. The approach here seems to implicitly accept the status quo, especially given that the minutiae detail of achieving ‘levelling up’ and recognition of inter-regional dynamics was largely missing. As scholars of regional development have long observed, leading regions, with their existing advantages and with strong business and social ecosystems, are more likely to accumulate further benefits (and ‘pull further away’) and regional inequalities could even exacerbate during the digital era and Industry 4.0 due to the ‘Matthew Effect’⁴ (Barzotto et al., 2020). Indeed, we are already observing the emergence of widening (within country) regional ‘digital divides’⁵ that entrench regional inequality (Bailey & De Propris, 2019; Reveiu et al., 2022).

To counter these trends and for ‘levelling up’ to succeed, a proactive regional policy may need to instead engineer a ‘Mark’ effect⁶ by deliberately promoting the interests of the UK’s hinterland while curtailing the dominance of London and the South-East. Yet even this is approach is fraught with challenges, not least because while London is the UK’s wealthiest region in terms of GDP per capita and tax revenues, it also suffers from some of the worst inner city socio-economic deprivation and environmental issues. This has led some commentators and policymakers to resist ‘levelling down’.

Recent turmoil in the governing Conservative Party, with three Prime Ministers since 2022, have also raised questions over the (latest) government’s commitment to ‘levelling up’. Indeed, the current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak has previously admitted that as Chancellor, he altered public funding formulas to divert funds from deprived urban areas to other (more affluent) parts of the country (The Guardian, 2022, August 5). The cancellation of the Manchester-Birmingham leg of the new High-Speed 2 Rail (HS2) has also raised concerns that ‘levelling up’ is being downgraded – not least because this inter-city connection was seen as being the most likely to deliver the biggest gains (from the whole project) to the North and Midlands (The Guardian, 2023, October 2). Moreover, the broader macro-economic context sees the UK continuing to grapple with stagnant economic growth and high levels of inflation (‘stagflation’), a relatively high tax burden and renewed austerity in the wake of the Truss mini-budget leading to limits on the availability of future public funding for ‘levelling up’ (Newman, 2021). In addition, Brexit may be ‘done’ but its effects are still being seen (Bailey et al., 2023c) particularly in slowing economic growth in large part through its negative impacts on trade (Du et al., 2023) and investment (Portes, 2023).

Hence, macroeconomic pressures, the extraordinary churn of short-term regional policy initiatives (and their abandonment, such as LISs), and ongoing political uncertainty may yet lead to the term ‘levelling up’ being formally abandoned. Yet paradoxically, events since the Great Financial Crisis arguably reinforce the need to transform the spatial structure of the UK economy and address its manifold and atavistic problems. In this regard, the issues raised by the need to address wide regional inequalities may well feature centrally in debates during the next General Election and beyond. This makes this special issue both timely and especially pertinent.

This special issue of Contemporary Social Science offers a detailed and critical exploration of the ‘levelling up’ agenda through a collection of 13 papers. It opens with two papers that seek to identify some of the challenges and constraints faced by the UK’s lagging regions, with a key focus on regional productivity differentials which underpin the country’s long-standing regional inequalities (for more on this debate, see Beatty & Fothergill, 2019; Hearne, 2021 and Coffey et al., 2023). The first paper by Philip McCann (2023) follows the Financial Times journalist Chris Giles (2023) in considering three national level factors that are commonly believed to adversely affect regional productivity: the impact of Brexit, low levels of public and private investment and the operation of the land-use planning system. As McCann carefully argues, the implications of these national level issues have invariably played out at the regional level, exacerbating the problems and challenges faced by lagging regions and the regional divergence between London/the South-East, and elsewhere that have intensified since the 1980s. McCann concludes with a rather bleak warning, namely that the scale of these challenges are so great that the ‘levelling up’ agenda – while welcome – and its associated policy initiatives and funding are unlikely to be sufficient to rebalance UK regional productivity and prosperity.

Anna Stansbury, Dan Turner and Ed Balls (2023) focus upon within-industry productivity differentials, which arise from several inter-related factors and have significant regional implications. In particular, the authors identify lagging regions as suffering from a relative shortage of STEM graduates, binding transport infrastructure constraints, and the long-standing failure of national public innovation policy to support regional clusters outside the South-East. Several ways forward for policy are offered. These include a call for a greater emphasis upon improving STEM education and skills in lagging regions to meet growing private sector demands, alongside public investments in the scale and scope of transport links especially between non-London cities to improve connectivity. Stansbury et al., also suggest such interventions should be accompanied by a more selective regional innovation policy by, for instance, increasing public support for R&D in lagging regions where there is sufficient innovative and absorptive capacity.

One sector at the technological frontier which is ripe for a more selective regional innovation policy is space exploration and its associated economy. While the sector is global (and indeed also outside the confines of the planet) in nature, its various constituents have a wide regional scope that are especially relevant for the ‘levelling up’ agenda. In their paper, Leslie Budd and Stefania Paladini (2023) explore this possibility and, in a non-acquiescent ‘nod’ to the White Paper’s six capitals, invoke Bourdieu’s (1986) capitals framework, the authors highlight the wider socioeconomic regional benefits that can flow from the sector. These include not only technological advance and employment, but also cultural, educational, environmental and social gains which the authors term ‘community capitals’. This is becoming evident from the emergence of Spaceports, such as the one at Prestwick Airport, Glasgow, which can act as a regional anchor (see Dimos et al., 2021). Drawing on the wider European space industry experience, Budd and Paladini argue that if the UK is to realise the regional benefits of the space industry, then it requires a place-based approach that aligns the UK National Space strategy with (national and local) industrial strategy. The authors offer some optimism that a place-based focus upon space as a propulsive sector, alongside the concomitant development of the new technologies emerging from Industry 4.0, could act as a key driver in raising regional innovation (and productivity) and aid levelling up.

The dominance of London, specifically in terms of its concentration of the UK’s economic, financial, political and institutional power, and the wider implications of this for UK regions is taken up by Ron Martin and Peter Sunley (2023). Much of the mainstream narrative (as popularised by the largely London centric media including, at one stage, the former UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson) is that London is the growth engine of UK PLC with the rest of the country enjoying the benefits of this prosperity through the so-called ‘trickle down’ effect. So as not to kill the ‘golden goose’, this has often led to policy choices favouring London (and its much-vaunted financial sector) at the expense of other UK regions. However, as Martin and Sunley (2023) carefully document, such views are misplaced since the benefits of London’s financial economy (and ‘trickle down’) for the rest of the UK are grossly overstated and are often oblivious to more granular negative impacts. Indeed, aside from ignoring the unprecedented state bailouts to London based banks following the 2008 Great Financial Crisis, proponents of ‘trickle down’ also fail to consider the wider spatial implications and costs of London’s dominance. These include, for instance, London’s draw in attracting private finance (including UK citizens’ pension fund monies) and human capital (e.g. graduates) away from other UK regions, as well as the capital city inducing ‘unintended distortionary price effects’ such as in the housing market and the exchange rate which can ‘crowd out’ productive (and export based) activities elsewhere in the UK. As Martin and Sunley note, such impacts actually re-enforce the UK’s regional divides, as evident by London continuing to pull away from the rest of the UK in terms of growth. While welcoming some aspects of the ‘Levelling Up’ agenda, the authors are sceptical of its ability to address the UK’s longstanding regional inequalities, since it largely maintains the status quo of London (and the UK’s) economic and financial structures.

A related issue, taken up in Diane Coyle and Adam Muhtar’s (2023) paper, is the fragmented nature of the UK’s governance structures and the disjointed nature its policy framework. Again, both stem from the UK’s historically over-centralised polity, and an impositional style of policy making with directives – largely imposed in a top-down manner by Westminster and Whitehall based institutions. New policy initiatives emerge from changes in national political leadership and policy direction (even within the same political party) as part of ongoing policy churn, yet these initiatives are often short-term, and struggle to have any real impact. As Coyle and Muhtar demonstrate, this has especially been the case with regards to UK regional and industrial policy, where the lack of adequate feedback mechanisms from local outcomes to the national policy process has contributed to a failure to learn and improve policymaking. This has been compounded by the ever-changing and weakened local/regional governance structures and a lack of local capacity to deliver (see also Fai & Tomlinson, 2019); never more so than over the last decade and a half, where several regional policy initiatives have struggled to get off the ground. If the ‘Levelling Up’ agenda is to avoid a similar fate, the authors suggest the UK needs to learn from other countries and introduce appropriate institutional reforms that embed evaluation and learning mechanisms into a more decentralised (and regional) mode of policy analysis and implementation.

The UK’s overly centralised governance structures and institutional limitations are also considered by Charlotte Hoole, Simon Collinson and Jack Newman (2023), who argue that they impede the devolution agenda and hence constrain regional growth. A critical concern for these authors is that English devolution is predicated on the basis that regions have to demonstrate they have the local capacity and capability to administer any devolved resources and powers. Yet without having such powers and resources beforehand, regional authorities may struggle to demonstrate their ability to manage any devolved funding and undertake new responsibilities. Hoole et al. (2023) describe this as a classic Catch-22 situation, which is largely a legacy issue, but no doubt made more acute by the swathe of real terms cuts in local government funding through austerity. Drawing on case research from the West Midlands and echoing Coyle and Muhtar, the authors highlight the dominance of Whitehall and central government agencies in shaping the region’s strategy, resource allocation mechanisms, appraisal and control systems. The authors suggest their study is indicative of a dysfunctional approach to English devolution, where inadequate local capacities and the low quality of regional institutions is likely to limit progress towards locally driven ‘levelling-up’. The authors conclude by arguing for a combination of more resources to be given to regional institutions to enhance quality and capacity, alongside more consistency and clarity in central government policy and priorities with regards to devolution.

More generally, the UK policy approach to devolution and ‘levelling up’ is very much based upon a ‘top-down’ city-region model of governance and leadership. In short, the establishment of metropolitan size authorities (or city-regions) such as Combined Authorities, is a means to circumvent traditional local authority frictions, and facilitate more effective planning and public service provision. In what is essentially a space neutral approach, this objective is to allow market forces to flourish and deliver agglomeration economies. Yet, as Paul Hildreth and David Bailey (2023) point out in their paper, for many of the UK’s provincial areas residing outside the metropolis, this model is not appropriate and is actually harmful to the ‘levelling up’ agenda – not least because it pulls capital, employment, and people towards the larger agglomerations and away from rural areas and weaker towns and cities. Drawing on data from a case study of the Mersey Dee area, Hildreth and Bailey argue for greater recognition of the heterogeneous nature of local governance, which is largely shaped by local histories, culture, and geography. The authors advocate for a more flexible and place-based localities approach that would enable places to design their own institutional framework and a more ‘bottom up’ policy agenda in meeting the challenges of ‘levelling up’.

The importance of ‘getting devolution right’ is also considered by Cameron Forbes, Joyce Liddle and John Shutt (2023) for the North East of England. In an insightful case study, the authors’ document the numerous regional policy initiatives since 1997, especially focusing upon more recent changes to regional governance (and associated funding). Unfortunately, as the authors point out, many of these policy initiatives have failed to deliver for the North East – largely because of the highly fragmented local governance structure (and weak local government capacities) to enact purposeful change. In looking towards the latest initiative, which includes a new devolution deal for the region and the establishment of a North East Mayoral Combined Authority, Forbes et.al suggest this offers a new opportunity for the region to unify around a new strategic and proactive local leadership team. The authors then suggest that any new leadership team should prioritise addressing the region’s long standing and underlying socio-economic challenges if ‘levelling up’ is to succeed. Otherwise, the opportunity will be lost, and the region is likely to fall further behind. The authors conclude with some tentative suggestions, including a call for a renewed focus on adult skills and further and higher education.

Indeed, higher education is explicitly recognised as having a central role to play in the Levelling Up White Paper, and in response, universities have been keen to extoll their civic influence, alongside their contribution to the knowledge economy. Yet, as Chris Millward (2023) explains in his paper, adopting this new role needs to be considered in the wider context of policy towards the expansion of Higher Education that began in the early 1990s. In this regard, Higher Education expansion has largely been concomitant with incentives for universities to excel in global rankings, prioritise research collaborations with multinationals and seek high fee-paying international students to secure income streams. While there were merits in this strategy, not least in helping to position UK Higher Education in the upper echelons of a globally competitive market, an unfortunate consequence has been a detachment of universities from their local communities, which may have exacerbated regional inequalities. In many cases, UK universities have become the proverbial ‘cathedrals in the desert’. Millward documents this dilemma, before offering some tentative suggestions to redress the balance. This includes rethinking public funding and regulation to facilitate closer and practical links between universities and local tertiary education providers to enable levelling up.

Regional prosperity is also closely linked to poor health outcomes, with long term sickness and disabilities reducing employment opportunities among those affected and raising local economic inactivity. Addressing regional disparities in public health and life expectancy outcomes is therefore a noble aim of the Levelling Up White Paper. Yet, as Sarah Ayres, Andrew Barnfield, Geoff Bates, Anna Le Gouais and Nick Pearce (2023) explain in their paper, the ambition of the White Paper is somewhat divorced from the reality of practical implementation. In particular, as Ayres et.al point out, there has been a failure to integrate population health policy objectives, programmes and interventions into the implementation of the levelling up agenda and its associated ‘missions’. The authors draw on insights from interviews with UK urban development actors, to explore some of the wider determinants of health (many of which are not currently considered by government) that might be incorporated into the levelling up agenda. In concluding, the authors offer policymakers a thought-provoking set of recommendations for transformative policy change to level up regional health outcomes.

Ultimately, the delivery of the ‘levelling up’ agenda will come down to public funding. For many years, public funding for regional development has been highly fragmented and disparate, with a plethora of (largely small scale) funding pots which has led to confusion among local actors and short-term planning and projects (Bentley & Pugalis, 2013). During the austerity years of the past decade, this was accompanied by substantial real term cuts amounting to £16 billion in the local government revenue support grant (Local Government Association, 2018) – in weaker regions especially, this hit local public services and amenities crucial to the local quality of life. Brexit has also led to the loss of European Union funding for regional development⁷ and necessitated their replacement by a new set of UK funding initiatives. The latter are the focus of Marc Le Chevallier and Graeme Atherton’s (2023) paper, which goes beneath the veneer of ‘levelling up’ funding to examine the extent to which the various funding streams align with the ‘levelling up’ missions contained in the White Paper. The authors find the relationship between designated funding and missions is largely tangential; there is a lack of clarity among key stakeholders (and departments) as to what is and is not a ‘levelling up’ fund and how these (funds) relate to the White Paper’s twelve missions. Le Chevallier and Atherton argue these ambiguities, alongside a general lack of coherence across the ‘levelling up’ project, make it difficult to monitor and evaluate the efficacy of ‘levelling up’ initiatives. They conclude this is likely to diminish the overall impact of the ‘levelling up’ agenda in reducing regional inequalities. Concerningly, it appears once again the UK’s piecemeal and largely uncoordinated approach to regional development is unlikely to be successful (see also Fransham et al., 2023).

Beyond the political rhetoric and academic enquiry of ‘levelling up’ lies the public ‘buy in’. This is arguably the key driver of the ‘levelling up’ agenda since without ongoing public support (and critically public embracement), the project will struggle for momentum and, like previous initiatives, will fall by the wayside. In this regard, Luke Telford’s (2023) paper draws upon interviews with residents from a ‘Red Wall’ constituency (Redcar and Cleveland) in exploring their perspectives on levelling up. Redcar and Cleveland is a typical example of a ‘left behind’ place which registered its long-standing discontent at the ballot box, with a large majority voting for leave in the 2016 Brexit Referendum (Rodríguez-Pose, 2018). Telford’s study finds that while Redcar and Cleveland residents welcome the ambitions of ‘levelling up’ and are generally positive about recent initiatives such as the new Freeport, there remains much ambiguity and scepticism about the wider agenda and its ability to deliver for their local community. Indeed, in an echo of Hildreth and Bailey’s (2023) concerns, many residents felt that while more prominent Northern cities would receive some new investment, smaller towns such as Redcar are likely to miss out. This highlights a wider concern, where confusion over the rhetoric and interpretation of ‘levelling up’ alongside promises that fail to meet reality, give rise to further public cynicism and entrench discontent in ‘left behind’ places.

The political ownership of the ‘Levelling up’ agenda has belonged to the governing Conservative party – it was after all, an attempt to cement its new post-Brexit electoral base in the ‘Red Wall’. After initially being on the back foot, the Opposition Labour party have begun to explore their own approach to ‘levelling up’ through devolution. This cumulated in a major report entitled ‘A New Britain: Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy’ led by the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and published in late 2022 (Labour Party, 2022). John Connolly and Robert Pyper (2023) critically unpick the details of the report and while welcoming Labour’s new commitment to ‘levelling up’, both authors raise concerns about its vagueness, opacity and occasional ignorance of existing governance structures and constraints. In particular, Connelly and Pyper note Labour’s lack of a roadmap (or timeframe) for delivery, query the report’s failure to press for appropriate policy evaluation, and critically question the party’s linking of levelling up to an unwieldy project for further constitutional local governance reform, which could add additional complexity to the whole levelling up agenda. The authors conclude that Labour’s efforts so far lack a binding strategic narrative on levelling up, and they call for the party to refine and develop its policy before the 2024 General Election.

‘Levelling up’ clearly invokes huge challenges, not least because the UK’s regional inequalities are not only wide, but longstanding. The papers in this special issue highlight some of these challenges and some potential new policy directions. We offer this collection as useful food for thought for both academics and policymakers from across the political spectrum as we continue to tackle the issues surrounding uneven regional economic growth, development, and opportunity.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Felicia M. Fai

Felicia M. Fai is Associate Professor in International Business and Innovation and Co-Director of the Centre for Governance, Regulation and Industrial Strategy (CGR&IS) at the University of Bath School of Management. A Fellow of the Regional Studies Association (FeRSA), Felicia’s research expertise lies in exploring evolutionary approaches to technological innovation and diversification in multinational corporations, industrial clusters and regional innovation eco-systems. Felicia has provided expert insight to Whitehall, Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership (SWLEP) and The Western Gateway. She has published in a range of world leading innovation, management and economic geography journals, and she has held major grants as both a Principal and Co-investigator with funders including the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPRSC), the European Union Regional Development Fund and the Regional Studies Association (RSA).

Philip R. Tomlinson

Philip R. Tomlinson is Professor of Industrial Strategy and Co-Director of the Centre for Governance, Regulation and Industrial Strategy (CGR&IS) at the University of Bath School of Management. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and also of the Regional Studies Association (FeRSA). His expertise lies in economic governance and inter-firm networks, particularly in sectoral and regional settings, and the implications for place based industrial strategy on which he has published widely and extensively. He is an Editor at Regional Studies and Competition and Change, and his research has been received by regional, national and international policy-making bodies. He has also advised the All-Parliamentary Manufacturing Group of MPs and the EU Commission (Joint Research Council). Phil has also held grants with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPRSC), the European Union Regional Development Fund and the Regional Studies Association (RSA).

Notes

1 Heseltine (2012) called for £49 billion of central government funding to be allocated to a Single Local Growth Fund over four years, yet the implementation of these recommendations (and funding) was ‘disappointingly timid’ (see Coffey & Thornley, 2015).

2 In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the responsibility for the Industrial Strategy lay with the respective devolved governments (see Fai, 2018).

3 Levelling up anyway became more difficult to achieve in the context of the differential Brexit impacts on UK sectors and regions; for example, on manufacturing in the Midlands see Bailey et al. (2023b) and on financial services see Hall and Heneghan (2023).

4 The term arises from Matthew (25:29) ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away’ (see Merton, 1968).

5 The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines a ‘digital divide’ as the differences between individuals, enterprises, and regions with regards to access and use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) for a wide diversity of activities (OECD 2001, p. 5).

6 As per Mark (10:31) ‘But many who are first will be last, and the last first’ (Bothner et al., 2011)

7 In a number of forms – see for example Highman et al. (2023) on EU funding for UK universities via the EU’s regional development fund.