Gove: The North is where the action is
The secretary of state reiterated his promise to give more powers to local leaders in a bid to speed up the government’s sluggish levelling up agenda, providing a fillip to local leaders assembled in Liverpool.
“We simply can’t allow the gulf between rich and poor, and North and South to grow,” Michael Gove told a room of political and business leaders.
Gove was speaking at the Convention of the North at The Spine in Liverpool, where figures from across the North gathered to discuss the region’s future following the publication of the government’s Levelling Up White Paper last week.
Read more about the Levelling Up White Paper
On a day of enthusiastic speeches from Northern stakeholders around the ambitions they have for their areas, Gove acknowledged that the North would act as the crucible for levelling up over the next decade.
“This is where the political action will be for the next nine years and beyond,” he said. “Wherever you stand on the political spectrum, or whatever your background, [levelling up the North] has to be the central economic, social and moral mission.”
Gove likened the issues facing the UK’s regions to the situation in Germany following the fall of the Berlin Wall.
He said that inequalities across Germany were “bridged through the effective partnership working between the centre and individual regions and cities”, adding that he wants to take a similar approach when it comes to levelling up.
By giving more powers to areas including Greater Manchester and the Liverpool city region, he hopes to tackle entrenched inequalities in a country that is both “the most geographically unequal, and also the most centralised”.
“With great power comes great responsibility,” Gove said. “We will be seeking to ensure that when we devolve even greater control over the communities that you serve, that we’re also holding each other to account for how money is spent.”
Speaking to Place North West after Gove’s speech, Steve Rotheram, Mayor of Liverpool City Region, seemed hopeful that the secretary of state and the government might be coming to terms with the size of the task in hand.
“I think he was more honest than he has been up to now,” Rotheram said. “He has recognised that [levelling up] needs to be more than warm words, it needs to be something tangible.”
However, while Gove may have a good grasp on what needs to be done to level up the North, actually delivering the agenda will depend on the outcomes of conversations with his department, Northern leaders and the treasury, Gove said.
As the lack of new money in the white paper indicates, it is the final part of that trifactor that may continue to stimy the North’s ambitions.
The comparison between East and West Germany forgets to mention one thing, East Germany had different governments until reunification, the North’s neglect stems from its own parliament. He speaks like a United England came about in the last ten years. The betrayal of the people of the North Mr. Gove, is solely at the door of Westminster. Once we no longer served a purpose doing the horrible jobs, Southerners didn’t want to do, we were treated as an irrelevance. At least admit where the blame lies.
By Elephant
It`s not just levelling up between North and South that Gove needs to address but inequality within the North, as Liverpool gets a raw deal with no direct HS2, no civil service re-locations,and needs improved rail and road links to the port.
By Anonymous
Why do we fall for this rhetoric from government? Northern Powerhouse, Levelling Up. All slogans, no real will from central Government to commit real hard cash to the agenda of change. Think of the money stripped in real terms from education, health and infrastructure since 2010.
By Mark Gilbertson
And what is he doing about those of us facing huge cladding bills?
My building has over £4m to split between 100 residents! We dont want this work done, its not eligable for funding, why should we have to suffer!
By Anonymous
It should not be forgotten that around 20 years ago the Labour government promoted democratic regional parliaments in England, but the project was abandoned because the English did not want direct regional parliaments: “No more politics! We want London civil servants and capital corporations to rule our communities and our lives, please! So that is what the North got.”
By James Yates
Let’s face it the Government are not making up for the massive cuts mainly to deprived communities and is focusing small amounts of levelling money up on marginal constituencies mainly in parts of Yorkshire and parts of the north east ..irrespective of the business case and opportunities ..the north west and other non Tory voting areas are losing out
By George
As long as Parliament and the civil service, the Central Bank and the Judiciary are all based in the same place there can be no ‘levelling up’. Successive administrations be they Labour or Conservative have all tickled around the edge achieving not a great deal over many decades. Unless we do as others have done and really grasp the fundamental principle that some of these great pillars of state have to be moved wholesale to other parts of the this small country of ours we will not see the profound changes that need to be made to reduce inequality.
By Anonymous
They offered the North East a regional assembly,without proper funding. The English didn’t reject it.
By Elephant
The action may be happening in the North but it is not happening Liverpool. Who’d invest here when the council sends clear messages to investors to go elsewhere. Shame, shame and shame again, Liverpool City Council.
By Stephen Davis
Yes Liverpool City Council`s behaviour is shameful, they are anti-development, anti-business and are unable or incapable of making the right decisions eg the Romal development at Waterloo dock, which has gone to appeal.
The new mayor is not a leader, she is not a strategist, she comments on trivia not the big issues of a major city, all other cities in the North have visibly active development with cranes on the horizon, Liverpool has only 7, we`ll get no cruise terminal due to all the dithering.
By Anonymous
anonymous @10.22 , absolutely spot on the replacement for Mr Anderson is totally absent as a leader or figure head and the silence is deafening about job creation or being attractive to business but she will provide a twitter quote on a nonsense subject or something PC. I honestly despair , it is tragic to see our city being left behind . What prospects do graduates or the youth have ? Credit to Manchester council and its leaders there efforts and vision are transforming it into the true second city of England . We are destined for decline by our own politicians . So sad
By Paul M - Woolton