PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

This week, the long overdue Levelling Up White Paper was published by the UK Government. Weighing in at 332 pages, it is a substantial piece of work that puts forward the case for addressing the economic inequalities across the UK.  Naturally, some critics have already suggested that it long on ambition and short on the funding needed to achieve that ambition. Nevertheless, it must be applauded for at least getting this important issue front and centre when it comes to government policy and also on identifying a number of broad objectives to ensure a more equal distribution of economic prosperity in every part of the United Kingdom.  These include boosting productivity, pay, jobs and living standards by growing the private sector (especially in those places where they are lagging) as well as spreading opportunities and improve public services in the weakest regions. By adopting a bottom-up rather than the usual top-down approach, it also intends to restore a sense of community...

  Since the general election in December 2019, the term ‘levelling up’ has become used regularly by politicians in addressing the economic and social inequalities that exist across the UK.  Whilst the Covid-19 pandemic clearly interrupted any plans for developing policies to deal this issue, it has returned as a central theme of the programme for government as set out in the Queen’s Speech earlier this year. But what does the UK Government mean by the term levelling up and what will the policy aim to achieve over the next three years? That very question was at the heart of a recent report published by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee at the House of Commons. Unfortunately, the eleven MPs on the committee concluded that whilst it is something that is brought up constantly by the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and other politicians as being the central purpose and mission of the UK Government, there remains a lack of clarity about what it means beyond the aim ...

Earlier this week, there was some excellent news for the creative industries sector in South East Wales when the UK Government announced that media.cymru project was to be granted £22.2 million under its Strength in Places Fund.  This will bring together key stakeholders in the industry, including UK broadcasters, universities, small local businesses and freelancers in a £50m initiative to research and develop new products and services for global markets. The Strength in Places Fund - which has been established to support economic development across the UK – is an excellent policy tool in that it funds the specific competitive strengths of different parts of the UK. It forms an important part of the UK Government’s new innovation strategy to boost private sector investment in R&D across the whole of the UK and create the right conditions for all businesses to innovate. It is an ambitious approach that aims to increase annual government investment on R&D to £22 billion, help...

Earlier this week, the campaigning think-tank Onward published a report which examined how supporting a renaissance in manufacturing could level up the UK economy.  It builds on some of the themes that have been reflected in this column over the last eighteen years namely that manufacturing - especially here in Wales - has been sorely neglected by politicians and policymakers despite the evidence that it is now an industry utilising highly skilled workers to generate high quality products that are sold internationally. Yet as the report shows, if the UK is to close the productivity gap with its main competitors, then there needs to be a greater focus on supporting the manufacturing industry. This is because productivity growth in manufacturing has been higher than the rest of the economy with output per job in manufacturing growing by 0.64% in manufacturing between 1979 and 2019 as compared to an average of 0.36% across the economy as a whole.  Given this - and the fact that W...