CHANCELLOR PUTS LEVELLING UP ON HOLD - MAYOR RESPONDS TO SPENDING REVIEW

Published 25 December 2020 at 12:00am

Responding to the Chancellor’s Spending Review, Mayor of the Sheffield City Region, Dan Jarvis, said: 

“At the moment we needed Government to deliver a New Deal for the North, the Spending Review lacked clout, coherence and continued to tinker at the margins – when a wholesale transformation was needed to rise to the challenge of the biggest economic upheaval in generations.  

“Instead of delivering levelling up, the Chancellor put it on hold with unnecessary pilots that pits regions against each other in bids for piecemeal pots of funding.  

“We needed a substantial, devolved and ambitious Shared Prosperity Fund to kick start economic recovery and renewal across the North. In South Yorkshire, using the Local Growth Fund, we have created and protected thousands of jobs, improved worker’s skills, built new infrastructure and attracted world-leading firms.  

“I have long called for the Green Book to be rewritten, and this is a welcome change. Yet the long-arm of the Treasury continues to tighten its grip. The Government previously told Metro Mayors we would lead the economic recovery, yet the Levelling Up Fund and Restart schemes involve more top down control. It is another flawed attempt to deliver the recovery from Westminster.  

“Instead, Ministers need to let go and back local leaders with investment and powers so we can get on with the job and drive the transformation of our economy from the North, rather than a desk in Whitehall.”