AMA Research Reacts: Levelling Up White Paper

The government has recently released its white paper ‘Levelling Up the United Kingdom’, wherein it is proposed that levelling up is a long-term endeavour, where the central and local governments along with the private sector and civil society will require a fundamental shift in how they operate. Without such a shift being achieved, the number of strategies set out within the white paper will struggle to be realised.

The government are committed to setting out further details with policy updates and state they will introduce legislation to Parliament to enable their levelling up strategies.

As the foremost experts in construction and the built environment, we at AMA Research have investigated how the strategies outlined may affect our industry:

• £23.3bn extra for the NHS in England over the 2021 Spending Review (SR21) period, a commitment to build 40 new hospitals by 2030 and an ambition to deliver 50,000 more nurses

More funding for the NHS to include the commitment to build 40 new hospitals will certainly affect the construction and built environment sectors. It is not clear from the white paper whether these will be a full 40 new hospitals or will come under the bracket which defined new hospitals as those receiving refurbishments. If the latter is the case, the level of construction activity required could be vastly different.

• control of our immigration system by ending free movement and introducing a new points-based immigration system, giving the UK the freedom to decide who comes to our country based on the skills people have to offer

It has been observationally noted that the number of skilled tradespeople has declined since Brexit. Will this section of Levelling Up help get more people on site?

• £1.49bn in City and Growth Deals in every part of Scotland, £791m across Wales and £617m for deals covering the whole of Northern Ireland

Through 2021 London held the majority of contract awards with 21% of all contracts that year (source Snap Analysis 2021 Review). With grants specified outside of London and the South East it will be interesting to keep track of where the contract awards start to develop. As it stands Wales received the lowest contract awards through 2021 with just 3.2% of the total.

• eight innovative Freeports bringing jobs, investment and prosperity across England with a commitment to deliver more Freeports in each of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

With more Freeports across different parts of the country, the current supply shortage and delays that many suppliers of construction materials are experienced may start to improve.

• 101 towns across England receiving £2.4bn from the Towns Fund to unleash their economic potential, and the £830m Future High Streets Fund regenerating 72 towns and high streets and helping them recover from the pandemic

We have noticed a distinct shift where retail and office premises are opting to refurbish and move towards a more hybrid approach, or even to transform the properties in accommodation. Will the investment funding be used to help towns continue this move or will they be opting tor try and bring the public back to city and town centres?

• £4.8bn infrastructure investment in towns across the UK via the Levelling Up Fund

With the vast array of works that sit under infrastructure, it remains to be seen whether this money will be used for transport infrastructure, utilities construction or even electric vehicle charging.

• £26bn of public capital investment for the green industrial revolution and transition to Net Zero

With the government’s own Net Zero target of 2050 ever looming, investment into the green industrial revolution can only help utilise greener construction practices.

The government finalise that they will use five pillars to correctly enforce this new policy regime:

1; The Government is setting clear and ambitious medium-term missions

2; Central Government decision-making will be fundamentally reoriented

3; The UK Government will empower decision-makers in local areas

4; The UK Government will transform its approach to data and evaluation

5; The UK Government will create a new regime to oversee its levelling up missions

The full white paper Levelling Up the United Kingdom: Executive Summary can be viewed here