Despite Boris Johnson’s persistent levelling-up rhetoric, the figures show government has not put its money where its mouth is
England’s north-south divide continues to deepen despite two years of “levelling-up” rhetoric from the government, according to a landmark new report to be published tomorrow.
Entitled State of the North 2021, and produced by IPPR North, the northern branch of the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank, the report compares levels of public investment in London and the south-east with that in the north. Its authors estimate that, in the five years to 2019/20, London received the equivalent of £12,147 per person, while in the north the figure was only £8,125.