The Times - UK (2020-11-26)

the times | Thursday November 26 2020 2GM 9

News

Levelling-up

projects will

need local

MP’s support

George Grylls, Esther Webber

Rishi Sunak has said that struggling

towns and high streets will be more

likely to win investment from a £4 bil-

lion fund if their MP endorses their

schemes for regeneration.

Money from the “levelling-up fund”

will be spent on everything from up-

grading stations to building libraries,

the chancellor announced yesterday.

Mr Sunak also unveiled plans to es-

tablish an infrastructure bank, based in

the north of England. From spring next

year the bank will invest with the pri-

vate sector in green technologies such

as carbon capture storage, solar power

and wind turbines.

Mr Sunak said that areas would be

able to submit bids to the levelling-up

fund for investment in specific

schemes. “Projects must have real im-

pact,” he said. “They must be delivered

within this parliament and they must

command local support, including

from their member of parliament.

“This is about funding the infrastruc-

ture of everyday life: a new bypass; up-

graded railway stations; less traffic;

more libraries, museums, and galleries;

better high streets and town centres.”

Tory backbenchers from “red wall”

constituencies praised the investment,

saying that it had been funded by a cut

in the foreign aid budget. Ben Bradley,

MP for Mansfield, tweeted: “£4 billion

Foreign Aid becomes £4 billion Level-

ling Up Fund to support areas of the UK

that are most in need of investment. [It]

should be warmly welcomed. I have no

doubt it will be by the vast majority in

Mansfield.”

But Bridget Phillipson, shadow chief

secretary to the treasury, who repre-

sents Houghton and Sunderland South,

said that the government was “doling

out cash based on politics, not need”,

adding: “The Tories have neglected the

northeast since 2010. [This is] pork-bar-

rel politics from a government that’s

learnt nothing from the past.”

Several sources said that no policy

development work was carried out on

the fund before it was announced. A

Whitehall official told The Times:

“They have quite obviously taken aid

and put it into a ribbon-cutting fund for

marginals. This is as cynical as it looks

from the joint economic unit in Down-

ing Street. They’ve dropped any pre-

tence of anything strategic... as was

evident from there being no mention of

devolution or Local Enterprise Part-

nerships or work that’s already gone in-

to identifying areas of need.”

A government source said: “It is

hardly cynical to want to level up this

country and get funds to local author-

ities to pay for the projects they and

their constituents most want to see in

their local area. It is incorrect to say that

this is a quid pro quo for aid.”

Under the scheme, £4 billion will be

made available to England and £

million to Scotland, Wales and North-

ern Ireland.

Mr Sunak, Grant Shapps, the trans-

port secretary, and Robert Jenrick, the

communities secretary, will be respon-

sible for managing the scheme. Mr Jen-

rick has come under pressure to publish

advice given to him by civil servants

after The Times reported that 60 of the

61 areas chosen to receive investment

from the £3.6 billion towns fund were in

constituencies won by the Conserva-

tives last year. About £300 million from

the levelling-up fund will be towns fund

money not yet spent.

put in to the pot to buy vaccines.
Mass testing and contact tracing
gets the lion’s share of £21.2 billion
extra for health in 2021-22, taking
total spending on Test and Trace to
£37 billion. Next year the
government will spend a further
£900 million on procurement and
vaccine research, with 355 million
doses already secured and sufficient
supplies to cover the entire adult
population expected early next year.
A further £2.1 billion is allocated for
PPE next year, taking total
spending over the pandemic to
£17.2 billion.

justice

The chancellor boosted spending on
the criminal justice system in
England and Wales by £337 million,
of which £275 million is targeted at
bringing “more offenders to justice”
in the courts. The review also
allocated £40 million to support
programmes for victims of crime.
Another £76 million goes to
increasing capacity at the family
court and employment tribunal. A
£4 billion prison-building
programme was the highlight of
the justice spending. It aims to
create 18,000 prison places in
England and Wales by the middle of
the decade.

home office

Nearly half of the Home Office’s
£900 million budget boost next year
will go toward Boris Johnson’s
central election pledge to recruit an

extra 20,000 police officers by 2023.

Beyond this, much of the money

will be spent managing the

additional costs of Brexit. There is

an extra £363 million to plug the

gap in law enforcement

co-operation with EU member

states following the end of the

transition period in January.

Britain’s new immigration system

has been given another £64 million

in day-to-day spending and

£153 million of capital funding.

culture, media and sport

Oliver Dowden may feel that his

effusive praise of Rishi Sunak and

his £1.57 billion bailout for culture

has paid off: the Department for

Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

has been given a small budget

increase of about £100 million. The

chancellor also reiterated

willingness to subsidise gigabit-

capable broadband across the

country, a project that falls under

Mr Dowden’s purview. The

department accounts for about

1.5 per cent of government spending

but had an unexpected opportunity

to splurge this year. It was not

enough to save every institution and

although national museums were

thankful for the money they

maintain that their financial models

are bust.

environment, food and

rural affairs

A thousand “green jobs” will be

created to pursue the government’s

commitment to more than double

tree planting to 30,000 hectares a

year by 2025. Some of the jobs will

focus on planting trees in towns and

cities. Funding for national parks

and areas of outstanding beauty will

increase to £75 million next year,

about £20 million more than last

year. Ministers plan to designate

new areas and ensure that 30 per

cent of the land has some form of

protection by 2030. The review

repeats a previous commitment to

protect 336,000 properties from

flooding and coastal erosion in

England by 2027 by doubling the

flood defence budget to £5.2 billion

over the next six years.

department for work

and pensions

Mr Sunak announced a £2.9 billion

three-year Restart programme to

help people who have been

unemployed for 12 months or more

to find work with intensive support

— a recreation of the coalition

government’s Work Programme.

The question, however, is where the

jobs will come from. There is anger

about the government’s refusal to

extend its £20-a-week boost to

universal credit past April, when the

economic aftermath of the

pandemic will bite hardest. Mr

Sunak is said to be open to the idea

but it depends on the state of the

economy over the next few months.

defence

Mr Johnson announced last week

that the Ministry of Defence, alone

among departments, would be

granted a multi-year spending

settlement and an extra £16.5 billion,

so the chancellor’s announcement is

a formality. Most of that money will

plug the deficit in the ministry’s

budget and see off the need for deep

cuts to capabilities. Much of the new

money will go on technological

innovation including a space centre,

a cyberagency and artificial

intelligence development, including

a new generation of combat drones,

a critical battlefield tool.

security

Spies and counterterrorism police

will work side by side in a new

centre that was announced by the

Treasury but mostly funded and

devised by the mayor of London two

years ago. Sadiq Khan had already

announced a £412 million

investment. The government

appears to have piggy-backed on

this but added some national

elements, including the crucial

involvement of the security services.

transport

More than 25 railway lines, closed

as part of the infamous Beeching

cuts half a century ago, could

reopen under plans to rebalance the

economy. However, in a blow to

London the government confirmed

plans to stop the development of

Crossrail 2, the new east-west

railway line through the capital.

More than £10 billion of taxpayers’

money will be spent to run largely

empty trains after a collapse in

passenger demand during the

pandemic. Some £2.1 billion has

been allocated to maintain rail

services next year on top of the £

billion forecast to be spent up to the

end of 2020-21.

housing and communities

Robert Jenrick, the housing

secretary, has been given a

£7.1 billion home-building fund

to push ahead with his drastic

reforms to the planning system.

However, house prices are

expected to suffer a fall of 8 per cent

next year. A new £4 billion

“levelling-up fund” will raise

eyebrows given its similarity to the

controversial towns fund, which

disproportionately benefited areas

where the Tories faced tight

electoral races.

education

Although schools will receive a

funding increase of £2.9 billion

overall, head teachers and

unions say that this will be wiped

out by the cost of protecting

children and staff from Covid-19.

Schools may be worse off despite

the extra funding, and there

is no new catch-up money for

tutoring, laptops, cleaning or other

virus expenses. Teachers’ pay is

frozen.

foreign and

commonwealth office

The £4 billion cut to overseas aid

represents a net failure for the

Foreign Office since its merger with

the development department in

September. Dominic Raab, the

foreign secretary, lost the argument

over cutting aid from 0.7 per cent of

national income to 0.5 per cent.

This breaches a manifesto pledge

and throws doubt on Mr Johnson’s

promises about a “global Britain”

advancing its soft power. Mr Sunak

says the cut is temporary but has

not set an end date.

News

AFP

Losers