POLITICS


Opportunities for the East Midlands


Ever since Boris Johnson entered No 10 in December 2019, levelling up has been an oft-used phrase from the Prime Minister and his cabinet. But what does it even mean and how should it take shape? A group of political and business leaders, including a Chamber director, discussed this at a recent webinar, with Dan Robinson in attendance.


centrepiece of a north Nottinghamshire mine that produced a million tonnes of coal per year in the 1980s but closed in 2003 after eight decades in operation. “It’s an immense and actually quite beautiful


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mining structure, with two giant towers that held the wheels controlling the descents of the cages into the pits and drawing out coal,” says Lord Ravensdale. “But it’s in quite a sad state of disrepair. It’s crumbling, most of the windows are smashed and I thought it was really quite an evocative symbol for how we got here following the deindustrialisation of the North and Midlands – and why we need to level up.” Clipstone, located on the north-east edge of


Mansfield, is just one of many post-industrial communities in the East Midlands. Before the 1984 Miners’ Strike, the region


boasted about 30 working mines but just a few years later, most had closed with the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. Its final mine, Thorseby Colliery, shut down in 2015. “Many of those mining communities around


where I grew up never really recovered from those pit closures in the 1980s,” says the Nottingham native.


LORD RAVENSDALE IS a cross-bench peer who founded and co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Midlands Engine alongside Broxtowe MP Darren Henry. He is speaking at the Levelling Up webinar,


48 business network April 2021


few months ago, Lord Daniel Ravensdale was driving towards Sherwood Forest when he passed Clipstone Colliery Headstocks. The abandoned towers are the


hosted by the transport group Midlands Engine, just over a year after Boris Johnson won a clear majority in Parliament on a pledge to “get Brexit done” and “level up” the UK. It’s a frequent phrase used by Westminster,


but its actual meaning is sometimes unclear. Jane Stevenson, the Wolverhampton North


East MP, says it’s about “equality of opportunity” to key social motors like jobs, while Chamber director of policy and external affairs Chris Hobson believes we need to consider sectoral, as well as geographical, levelling up. Many agree that infrastructure will be at the backbone to all this.


‘Thinking about the green economy, we need to build our innovation systems in the Midlands with a particular focus around net zero’


Webinar host Caroline Wheeler, deputy political editor of The Sunday Times, says that while the Government’s “bandwidth” for levelling up has been affected by the pandemic, the signs are positive it remains high on the agenda. This is partly inspired by a desire to hold on to


the “red wall” seats Johnson won from traditional Labour strongholds in the North and Midlands at the general election, but also because of the opportunity to “build back better” – another phrase coined in No 10 that reflects the need to restart and rethink our approach to economic development. In the 3 March budget, it was announced some Government departments will be moved


Lord Daniel Ravensdale


out of London into the regions, while Caroline adds “there’s a real opportunity now, when it comes to infrastructure and transport investment, to really drive the economic recovery of those areas outside London.” The Office for Budget Responsibility has


forecast borrowing to hit £355bn for the current financial year ending April 2021 – the highest level since the Second World War – due to the major state interventions during pandemic. But Lord Ravensdale believes the UK can still


afford levelling up as the ultra-low interest rates – the Government can currently borrow for 30 years at 0.9% – make it an “ideal time” to invest in sustainable infrastructure. Among the projects he would like to get


started on with haste include Midlands Engine Rail – seven projects that will improve links between the East and West Midlands – as well as strategic sites earmarked by the East Midlands Development Corporation surrounding East Midlands Airport, the proposed Toton HS2 station and Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station. He adds: “Thinking about the green economy,


we need to build our innovation systems in the Midlands with a particular focus around net zero. “This would get our research and


development going, improve our productivity and increase the growth rate of the economy.”


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