Government spending overall is planned to be £1,182bn in 2022-23. The levelling up expenditure announced last week was just £2.1bn – less than 0.2% of that (Editorial, 18 January). It is the way that the other 99.8% is spent that has created the gross regional imbalance that so disfigures Britain’s economy. Mainstream funding has depressed the north – and other areas outside London, such as the West Country – and it is that mainstream funding that needs to be rebalanced if levelling up is ever to become real.
A good place to start would be with bus services, on which the government is overseeing terminal decline outside London just when the cost of living and climate crises demand a “London solution” (ie public control and ownership) for the whole country. And judicious spending could solve the perpetual chaos on the north’s railways, so frequently reported but rarely with solutions offered.
Jim Bamford
Sheffield
