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What would a genuine plan for levelling up the north of
England look like? Ask a German
Today a minister will wow political and business leaders from across the north
of England with his government’s achievements on levelling up. Sadly, I am not
talking about a UK minister, although Michael Gove will no doubt be warmly
received. I am instead referring to Carsten Schneider, minister for east Germany
and equivalent living conditions.
Schneider will tell the Convention of the North in Manchester: “The goal of
creating equal living conditions everywhere in Germany can even be found in our
constitution. There are good reasons for it. If regions are drifting apart, it
is bad for everyone. If a variety of regions flourish, the whole country will
prosper.”
This is what real levelling up looks like: a basic law in the German
constitution requiring equality between the 16 states and an annual process of
funding redistribution to support it. When you visit Germany, you can see and
feel the success of this policy wherever you go in the high standards of
transport infrastructure and the public realm.
The great irony is that Britain had a big hand in creating it. In the aftermath
of the war, to prevent a concentration of political power in Berlin, the allies
drew up new boundaries for the German states and gave them real autonomy. It has
worked spectacularly well and is a model of nation building.
Can you imagine what Britain would be like today if we had applied the same
policy here? All the great cities of the north of England would be connected by
high-speed railway lines instead of crumbling Victorian infrastructure.
Manchester would almost certainly have an underground system, like other
European cities of the same size and influence, and Leeds a mass transit system.
The north would have a modern industrial base and a bigger economy. Our jobs and
homes would be better; people would be living longer and in better health.
When you consider this alternative vision of what the north could have been
alongside today’s reality of unequal living standards, you can see why the mood
is becoming mutinous. Whitehall’s version of levelling up – where places have to
plead on bended knee for funding and the names of winners and losers are handed
down from on high – only confirms to many what is wrong with the way the country
is run. Do they realise how they are coming over? I doubt it.
And yet, they have achieved one thing not seen before: the unification of the
north of England across geographical and political lines behind a call for
change. Today’s convention, the fourth and biggest yet, is proof of that. The
north is getting organised. Our voice is getting louder. We are politely, but
firmly, telling all political parties that things are going to have to be
different. This is not northern whingeing. Instead, it is a positive offer to UK
plc to let us contribute more and write a new story for ourselves over the rest
of this century.
The idea that the north of England cannot achieve the same economic power as
other parts of the UK is not borne out by history. In the 19th century, the
great cities of the north built Britain’s wealth. Liverpool was one of the most
powerful ports in the world; Manchester was the global hub of the cotton
industry. These two cities pioneered rail travel. An illustration of
Manchester’s economic and political power came in 1862 with the refusal of its
mill workers to handle slave-picked cotton, a decision that helped to end the
American civil war.
Our decline in the 20th century was not due to any weaknesses of ours but to
hostile national policy, particularly on industry and infrastructure. Can the
north rise again in the 21st century? Put that question to today’s convention
and you would get a unanimous yes. The issue is whether Whitehall is prepared to
let us try. The new devolution deal for a united north-east gives grounds for
hope, as do our trailblazer talks with the government on deepening devolution in
Greater Manchester.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/25/levelling-up-north-england-regional-germany-barnett-formula