CROSS-PARTY GROUP OF PARLIAMENTARIANS CALLS ON GOVERNMENT TO TAKE URGENT ACTION TO BUILD BACK BETTER

CROSS-PARTY GROUP OF PARLIAMENTARIANS CALLS ON GOVERNMENT TO TAKE URGENT ACTION TO BUILD BACK BETTER

Ahead of the Budget and Spending Review on 27th October, a cross-party group of Parliamentarians has joined with the economics think tank the Centre for Progressive Policy (CPP) to call on the Government to commit to ambitious action to Build Back Better after COVID-19.

Members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Inclusive Growth and All-Party Parliamentary Group for ‘Left Behind’ Neighbourhoods, together with CPP, release today a joint statement calling on the Government to adopt new policies that will establish the UK as a global leader in inclusive, green growth and in boosting the health of its citizens following the pandemic.

Key recommendations include:

• Expanding the Pupil Premium to provide more funding for disadvantaged pupils, helping to tackle the impact of the pandemic on their educational attainment and breaking the link between low attainment and poor employment prospects. Signatories are calling on eligibility to be expanded to include children living in households earning less than £24,400 (representing the bottom 40% of the UK income distribution, and half of households with children).

In the North East for instance, 62% of families with children have a household income below £24,440 and the new policies would bring in an additional spend of £432 per primary school child in the region. By comparison, in London 44.8% of families have a household income below the threshold, bringing in an additional spend of £278 per primary school child

• Using the additional funding made available for the NHS to not just clear the current backlog but also safeguard community public health budgets, helping to improve the health resilience of communities and tackle the underlying causes of ill health

• As we approach COP26, ensuring that there is a ‘just transition’ to a low carbon economy by establishing a Just Transition Fund for local authorities to help alleviate the financial impact on people least able to bear the costs of reaching net zero. Also introducing a Net Zero Retraining Scheme to assist people who’ve been displaced by decarbonisation into new, quality jobs

• Establish a £2bn Community Wealth Fund using the next wave of dormant assets (e.g. bonds, stocks, shares, securities, insurance and pension policies) to ensure targeted, neighbourhood-level, long-term, community-led investment in the social infrastructure of the most disadvantaged and ‘left behind’ places

The two APPGs and CPP are joining together to make this statement in light of their common commitment to addressing the social and economic barriers holding back people and places across the United Kingdom. They also recognise that addressing these long-term challenges requires a cross-party commitment to doing so, with a plan to span successive parliaments. The full statement issued today can be read below.

Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Inclusive Growth, said:

“We may now be in the final stages of the Covid crisis – but we’re in the early stages of a new, sharper inequality crisis unless we take action now. After the years we had, it’s never been more important to rebuild an economy with inclusive growth, where progress is fairly shared. 

“After much talk of levelling up, the forthcoming Spending Review is the moment of truth. I am delighted to join with the Centre for Progressive Policy and colleagues from different parties and both Houses of Parliament to call on the Government to take steps to boost shared, sustainable growth the length and breadth of Britain.

“Whether it’s through supporting school children from deprived backgrounds through an enhanced Pupil Premium, new measures to tackle health inequalities or ensuring a just transition to net zero, the work to ensure that we truly build back greener, fairer and stronger must start now.”

The Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt Revd David Urquhart, Vice Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Inclusive Growth, said:

“I welcome this call to action that unites politicians across parties and urges us to think about commitments that will span generations.

“Closing the inequality gap is vital for the wellbeing of the whole nation. Disparities in health and education are stark and it is essential that we work together to enable people from all neighbourhoods, ethnicities and backgrounds to reach their full potential.

“This ‘levelling up’ will best be achieved when power and investment is released to local structures that can respond to personal and community aspirations, needs and contexts. I am heartened to read of sustainable solutions that will take us forward to a just transition which leaves no-one behind.”

Paul Howell MP, Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for ‘Left Behind’ Neighbourhoods, said:

“We strongly endorse the recommendations in this joint statement and hope that they are reflected by the Government – in the Spending Review and beyond.

“The recommendations form the basis of the transformative change that ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods require to tackle disparities in health and education, whilst ensuring that we meet our obligations to the planet. ‘Left behind’ neighbourhoods really are at risk of being hit harder in the long term by the pandemic and the impacts of climate change, and now is the time to ensure they don’t fall further behind and that we Build Back Better right across the country.”

Dame Diana Johnson MP, Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for ‘Left Behind’ Neighbourhoods, said:

“We welcome this joint initiative alongside our colleagues from across Parliament, providing a vision for a better, more equal and sustainable future for our country. 

“We know that ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods suffer worse outcomes across a range of indicators such as education, health and employment. Expanding the eligibility for the Pupil Premium and establishing a Community Wealth Fund would certainly help these neighbourhoods to gain a more equal footing with better-off areas. If the Government really wants to make a change to the lives of people in ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods, targeted investment and support like the measures suggested by these recommendations are what is needed to overcome inequalities once and for all.”

In addition to tackling the challenges exacerbated by the pandemic, the policy recommendations outlined in the statement pioneer a new approach to investing in the most deprived or ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods, which trusts local people with spending decisions. This new approach will not only help to boost the UK’s long-term productivity potential but also to develop a strengthened, shared national identity by enabling more people to contribute to, and benefit from, the UK’s prosperity.

These themes will also be discussed at CPP’s Inclusive Growth Conference 2021, which takes place today (20th October). Speakers include Vice Chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership and former Treasury Minister Lord Jim O’Neill, the author and economist Dambisa Moyo, former Cabinet Minister Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP and Conservative MPs Paul Howell and John Stevenson. More information is available here.

For more information, please contact Holly Mahon on holly.mahon@atlas-partners.co.uk

Notes to editors

The full statement released today is as follows:

A joint statement unites cross-party Parliamentarians in

a call for a healthier, greener and more inclusive United Kingdom

As the UK emerges out of the pandemic and the government renews its focus on levelling up, Parliamentarians from the APPG Inclusive Growth and APPG for ‘Left Behind’ Neighbourhoods come together to urge change.

The Spending Review and Levelling Up White Paper are opportunities for the government to go further and faster in driving inclusive growth and shared prosperity for all. Together with the UK’s presidency of COP26 and our global role in pioneering health technologies and treatments – during the pandemic and beyond – the UK can lead the way for a healthier, green and more inclusive future, by:

• Prioritising social as much as physical infrastructure investment, particularly in education and community health. In particular, we call for an expanded Pupil Premium (in England) to close the education attainment gap.
• Allow for integrated ‘Total Place’ style investment for local authorities to align new and existing resources against their long term strategic objectives – including a just transition, protecting the poorest households from bearing the burden of net zero.
• Going beyond headline GDP to measure and monitor economic success, including prioritisation of health life expectancy and a shift in how government accounts for expenditure in people as an investment not a cost.

Why are we joining together?

• The APPG Inclusive Growth and APPG for ‘Left Behind’ Neighbourhoods share a common commitment to addressing the social and economic barriers holding back people and places across the United Kingdom.
• The government recognises that levelling up opportunity across the nations and regions of the UK is critical. Whilst progress could – and should – be made in the coming months and years, truly addressing these long-term challenges requires a cross-party commitment to doing so, with a plan to span successive parliaments. Forging a new system of green and inclusive growth, where as many people as possible can contribute to and share in the prosperity of our nation, will take the work of a generation.
• Whilst most of these challenges were evident before the coronavirus pandemic, the deep inequalities that have been exposed – and compounded – by the crisis make action to address them even more urgent. For example:
• The learning loss for disadvantaged pupils is estimated to have undone between a third and two-thirds of the progress made over the past decade in closing the disadvantage gap among primary school children.
• Healthy life expectancy had also stagnated for those in the most deprived areas of England, rising only from 52 years to 52.3 for men in this group between 2011/13 and 2017/19 and falling from 52.4 years to 51.4 for women in the most deprived areas during the same period.
• The most disadvantaged and ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods experience the greatest disparities of all, ranking below the average on educational attainment compared to other equally deprived areas and England as a whole, and with higher rates of cancer, greater mental health challenges, a disproportionate vulnerability to COVID-19 and higher mortality rates due to COVID-19.
• Climate change poses another urgent threat, both to the future of the planet and to local economies least resilient to rapid decarbonisation and structural change. A green revolution must go beyond creating new job opportunities in renewable energy and other technologies, actively helping people into new and emerging sectors and encouraging and supporting community-led responses in the most ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods to ensure the most deprived places are not forgotten in our efforts to achieve net zero.
• Underpinning long term change will need to be a shift in what we value and what we measure – going beyond headline GDP to monitor the distribution of social and economic opportunity at a regional and local level, acknowledging the crucial importance of social infrastructure – places and spaces to meet, community activities and transport and digital connectivity – particularly in the most ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods as a firm foundation both for local economic growth and improved health and well-being. Research by the Centre for Progressive Policy shows that healthy life expectancy is the most powerful proxy for inclusive growth.

What are we calling for?

• We urge the Government to accelerate its commitment to promoting shared, sustainable growth by:

1. Prioritising social as much as physical infrastructure investment in the Comprehensive Spending Review. Efforts to enhance the physical infrastructure of a place including the quality of local high streets, transport and broadband connectivity must go alongside efforts to improve the UK’s social infrastructure, if the ‘levelling up’ agenda is to unlock economic opportunities across the country. This means – at a minimum (in England):
   1. Expanding eligibility for the Pupil Premium so that children living in households earning less than £24,400 (representing 40% of households with children) are entitled to additional primary and secondary school funding.
   2. Safeguarding community public health budgets so that pressure on relieving acute NHS backlogs does not undermine efforts to tackle the root causes of ill-health and boost the health resilience of our communities. The launch of the new Office for Health Improvement and Disparities is an opportunity to catalyse action for population health within central government, but needs to be supported by resources on the ground.
   3. Providing targeted investment in foundational social infrastructure from the next wave of dormant assets for the most disadvantaged and ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods through the proposed Community Wealth Fund. This would provide £2billion for community-led, hyper-local investment over the long term to help improve social, economic and environmental outcomes and level up through a ‘least first’ approach.

2. Allow for integrated ‘Total Place’ style investment for combined authorities (or their equivalent) to ensure the transition to net zero goes hand in hand with inclusive growth – nationally and locally. This must involve:
   1. De-ringfencing public sector funding and investment for Mayoral Combined Authorities and places with County Deals so that resources (including via the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, Levelling Up Fund and others) reinforce local, long-term economic and public service reform strategies – spanning urban regeneration, housing, planning, transport, R&D, skills and population health, and leveraging private sector finance and enterprise.
   2. Establishing a Just Transition Fund for local authorities to help alleviate the financial impact on people least able to bear the costs of transitioning to net zero, allowing places to invest in retrofitting social housing or providing means-tested grants to households to replace old gas boilers or for small businesses to switch to electric vehicles (e.g.).
   3. Launching a dedicated Net Zero Retraining Scheme to assist people into new, quality jobs where they have been displaced by the process of decarbonisation – working with sector representatives, trade unions, skills providers and employers, especially in the most carbon intensive industries.
   4. Building community confidence and capacity through the mechanism of the Community Wealth Fund enabling the residents of ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods to take local action against climate change. Ambition Lawrence Weston, a community group in north Bristol, has used support of this kind (delivered through the Big Local programme) to, among other things, reduce fuel poverty, improve housing provision and generate revenue from community-owned renewables.

3. Going beyond headline GDP to measure and monitor economic success by:
   1. Incorporating local, regional and national healthy life expectancy as a core component of the OBR’s fiscal sustainability reporting process – maintaining recognition of the relationship between population health and economic productivity and risk.
   2. Prioritising quality job metrics over standard employment figures in official monthly and quarterly statistics.
   3. Reforming Government accounting conventions to enable spending on people and skills to be treated as investment rather than a cost (i.e. as capital rather than revenue).

What will this achieve?

• Increasing the UK’s long term productivity potential and sense of shared, national identity by enabling more people to contribute to, and benefit from, the shared prosperity of the regions and nations in a thriving United Kingdom.
• Boosting the UK’s position as a global leader in sustainable and inclusive growth during the time of our G7 presidency, hosting of COP26 and as we look to forge new relationships and opportunities on the post-Covid, post-Brexit international stage. In particular, by:
• Pioneering a new approach to productivity and prosperity in which people and the planet are the drivers of enterprise and innovation, not beholden to poor quality employers or bound by circumstances of where they live;
• Making clear how a just transition to net-zero will be achieved in a way that promotes growth and ensures disadvantaged and ‘left behind’ communities are not penalised by the cost of making pro-environmental choices.
• Pioneering a new approach to investing in the most deprived or ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods, which trusts local people with spending decisions, building community confidence and capacity to leverage in mainstream funds and advocate for their needs, ensuring these areas have the opportunity to catch up with their more prosperous neighbours and addressing decades of neglect.

ENDS

The Officers of each of the APPGs are as follows:

All Party Parliamentary Group on Inclusive Growth

• Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP, Labour MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill (Chair)
• Rt Rev David Urquhart, Bishop of Birmingham (Vice Chair)
• Baron William Bradshaw, Liberal Democrat Member of the House of Lords
• Rt Rev Christine Hardman, Bishop of Newcastle
• Clive Efford MP, Labour MP for Eltham
• Bill Esterson MP, Labour MP for Sefton Central
• Lord Ian Wrigglesworth, Liberal Democrat Member of the House of Lords (Vice Chair)
• Seema Malhotra MP, Labour MP for Feltham and Heston
• Kate Hollern MP, Labour MP for Blackburn

All Party Parliamentary Group for ‘Left Behind’ Neighbourhoods

• Dame Diana Johnson DBE MP, Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull North (Co-Chair)
• Paul Howell MP, Conservative MP for Sedgefield (Co-Chair)
• Nicola Richards MP, Conservative MP for West Bromwich East (Vice Chair)
• Judith Cummins MP, Labour MP for Bradford South (Vice Chair)
• Sharon Hodgson MP, Labour MP for Washington and Sunderland West
• Jack Brereton MP, Conservative MP for Stoke-on-Trent South
• Ian Levy MP, Conservative MP for Blyth Valley
• Dr Kieran Mullan MP, Conservative MP for Crewe and Nantwich
• Karin Smyth MP, Labour MP for Bristol South

ENDS

More information on the proposed Community Wealth Fund can be accessed here.

More information on the proposed expanded Pupil Premium can be accessed here.