Rohan Malik, EY’s UK Managing Partner for Markets & Accounts, says:
“For welcome ambitions around broadband infrastructure, public transport and housing, burning questions remain around how they will be funded and how results will be demonstrated. Clear metrics will also need to be agree – it is difficult to transparently measure success accurately against benchmarks such as ‘significantly’ and ‘large majority’. Capital investment in large-scale infrastructure projects will be key to kick-start levelling-up in earnest, but our latest Regional Economic Forecast suggests long-term ambitions and sustained, coordinated action across departments and sectors is needed to make it happen.
The structural forces driving regional economic inequality are deep-rooted making levelling-up a long-haul project. That said, progress needs to be demonstrated in the short term and following the publication of the white paper the government will now need to define a clear action plan on what happens next. These policies need to be hyperlocal in reach – infrastructure projects need to generate ‘jobs-for-now’ across the regions while aligning to long term value and sustainable, societal needs. Capital investment projects must have people at the heart of their purpose and be driven by enhancing the sustainable living of citizens where they are, not simply making it easier to travel to London.
Emphasis on the role levelling-up can play in our sustainable economic recovery and the green industrial revolution is curiously absent. There is a clear role for the private sector in levelling-up – nine out of ten jobs is created by the private sector. The private sector must be engaged with and encouraged to work in partnership with governments to translate the white paper mission principles into reality – for the benefit of us all. In order to give infrastructure capital projects the opportunity to feed directly into the levelling-up agenda and green economic recovery, they need to be accelerated to achieve maximum impact. That means we now need to see the right projects chosen, project development accelerated, departments and polices mobilised for success, and, finally, boots on the ground.”