Levelling up - getting beyond the rhetoric

Hambleton, Robin

Abstract

This article examines the UK government's so-called 'levelling up' policy and outlines two scenarios for the future of this policy. The analysis suggests that levelling up can be characterised as a slogan in search of a policy. Despite announcing the policy in the Conservative Party manifesto for the December 2019 general election the government has, two years later, still not explained: what levelling up means, what the precise objectives of this policy are, how it will be delivered and how the performance of action on this policy will be measured. The article suggests that an effective approach to levelling up will require policies that level up people, level up places and level up power. A government White Paper on levelling up is expected early in 2022 and the article outlines two scenarios for this paper. In the first one language trumps reality and a non-policy emerges, one that is designed to provide 'symbolic reassurance' that something is being done. In the more optimistic scenario a compelling strategy is set out illustrating how inequality in British society is to be reduced and how power is to be shifted from Whitehall to cities and localities.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 2, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Dec 1, 2021
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Dec 28, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 4, 2022
• Journal: Town and Country Planning
• Print ISSN: 0040-9960
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 90
• Issue: 11/12
• Pages: 373-378
• Keywords: levelling up; inequality; local democracy
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/8486986