Johnson under pressure to publish ‘levelling-up’ fund criteria

 Boris Johnson is facing calls to publish the criteria by which £4.8bn of “levelling up” funds are being allocated, as Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer claimed that Tory areas were being favoured in what felt like “pork barrel politics”.

The row erupted after it emerged that Richmondshire in Rishi Sunak’s constituency in rural North Yorkshire was being treated as a “category one” area for receipt of money from the fund, while areas including Barnsley and Salford were in the second tier.

“I think lots of people would scratch their heads and say ‘what is going on here?’” Starmer said, noting that 40 out of 45 towns receiving money from a separate “towns fund” were represented by Conservative MPs.

In response to a question from the Financial Times on Wednesday Sunak said that the criteria for allocating money under the “levelling up fund” was based on “an index of economic need”. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said it would publish its methodology shortly.

Dan Jarvis, Labour mayor of the Sheffield city region, said: “I’m pushing the chancellor and Treasury to publish the allocation formula immediately.”

He said the list made a “mockery” of levelling up. In a letter to Sunak, he noted that Richmondshire, the 251st most deprived place in Britain, was in a higher category of need than Salford (20), Barnsley (38), Halton (39) and Sheffield (93).

We want to unite and level-up across the whole country and want to do it in a completely impartial way

But the prime minister said on a visit to Middlesbrough: “If you look at the map, one of the functions of the election is clearly that there are a lot of Conservative-represented towns — I think that is just a basic electoral fact.

“I’ve asked about this and I’m told that the criteria were entirely objective — it takes in data on poverty, employment and so on. We want to unite and level-up across the whole country and want to do it in a completely impartial way.”

Areas represented by four other cabinet ministers are also in the top category to qualify for cash from the £4.6bn levelling up fund unveiled this week.

The government placed all 384 UK local authorities into one of three categories, with roughly a third in each.

Those in category one had “the highest levels of identified need”, which means their funding bids are more likely to succeed. The fund, which runs until 2025, focuses on town centre and high street regeneration, local transport, and cultural and heritage assets.

The levelling up fund prospectus said the formula included three factors: the need for economic recovery and growth, improved transport connectivity and regeneration.

“While preference will be given to bids from higher priority areas, the bandings do not represent eligibility criteria, nor the amount or number of bids a place can submit,” it said. 

One former civil servant familiar with government thinking said it had probably used a heavy weighting for “access to services”, which favours rural areas with poor public transport links and facilities such as shops and pharmacies.

Sunak told BBC Breakfast on a visit to Middlesbrough that the ranking was not based solely on deprivation.

The Treasury said: “The bandings do not represent eligibility criteria — and money will be allocated to the areas most in need. Further technical details will be published by the government in due course.”

The government has already been criticised for its selection of 101 places to bid for the £3.6bn Towns Fund in 2019. The House of Commons public accounts committee last November found that ministers’ reasoning was “vague” and some decisions seemed politically motivated.

Chris Hanretty, professor of politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, found that Conservative represented areas were more likely to get approval to bid than similar places with an opposition MP. On Wednesday, the government awarded £1bn to 45 of the 101 bidders, of which 40 had Tory MPs.