The Green Party has responded to the plans to ‘level up’ areas of the country that have been left behind for decades, describing them as a ‘wasted opportunity to truly address the cost-of-living crisis and inequality while tackling the climate emergency’.
They call for local authorities to be given more powers and funding to deal with the problems they face, including improving public transport, building the skills necessary for a green economy, and insulating an ageing housing stock.
The statement draws on the party’s position on ‘levelling up’ and responses made to the twelve ‘missions’ set out by the government in its white paper and responses made to this by the Local Government Association (LGA).
Under the third of its missions the government wants to see public transport in the North brought up to the standard of that in London by 2030. Both the LGA and the Green Party are concerned that the removal of the Bus Recovery Grant in March will make this impossible.
The Confederation of Passenger Transport warned earlier this month that removing the grant introduced to protect but services during the pandemic could see them cut by 30%, with some services vanishing entirely.
Speaking to the Independent Jonathan Bray of the Urban Transport Group said he was “already beginning to see bus operators signal that some services will be stripped back or cut altogether”.
The Green Party are calling for the Bus Recovery Grant to remain in place as until usage returns to pre-pandemic levels. They also want to see local authorities given more power to set routes and timetables and support to introduce policies to encourage people out of their cars and onto public transport.
If the UK is to build a strong economy investment in skills is vital, something the Green Party and the LGA agree on. However the plans set out in the government white paper ignore the need for this process to focus on delivering skills for a ‘green economy’, with jobs being created in areas including retrofitting homes to make them more energy efficient.
Building a sustainable economy and ‘levelling’ up areas of the country that have been disproportionately disadvantaged by forty years of economic change followed by a decade of austerity is vital to addressing the cost-of-living crisis.
The severity of which is demonstrated by figures produced by the Food Foundation showing that 4.7 million adults in the UK experienced food insecurity and out of these 1million reported that they or someone in their household went without food at least one day every week.
A situation that, the charity warned could lead to serious health consequences, in a statement made to Sky News they said “There is little doubt that the cost-of-living crisis is putting is very real pressure on the ability of many to afford a healthy diet and is set to widen health inequalities further unless the Government acts now”.
Without adequate powers to be responsive to the situation in their own area local authorities cannot hope address rising levels of inequality. The Green Party argue that the approach being taken by central government to devolve power away from Westminster is flawed because it entrenches a ‘broken’ first past the post electoral system.
They call for councils to be given extended powers in areas including planning and public transport, and for the introduction of proportional representation, which would make the votes and views of local people count.
The current system, they say, ‘entrenches and extends first-past-the-post elections takes local democracy backwards. Making power even more remote as a condition for funding is an insult to local communities and their councillors’.
The UK is one of the most centralised countries in the world, creating a system of government that is cumbersome and slow to respond to local conditions. Despite the promises made at the 2019 general election the government’s levelling up agenda does not offer the radical refocusing towards the needs of communities outside London and the South that is necessary for a glib slogan to become a practical reality.