Michael Gove's Levelling Up White Paper promises every area of UK will achieve growth by 2030

The Levelling Up Secretary has set out the “12 big missions” the Government wants to achieve by 2030 in order to improve the lives of those outside London and the South East.

Communities Secretary Michael Gove has said “we need to allow overlooked and undervalued communities to take back control of their destiny”.

Making a statement on the Government’s plans to “level up and unite our country”, Mr Gove said: “The White Paper we are publishing today sets out a detailed strategy to make opportunity more equal and to shift wealth and power decisively towards working people and their families.

“After two long Covid years, we need to get this country moving at top speed again.

“We need faster growth, quicker public services and higher wages and we need to allow overlooked and undervalued communities to take back control of their destiny.

“Because we know that while talent is spread equally across the United Kingdom, opportunity is not.”

But his Labour counterpart, Lisa Nandy, criticised the Levelling Up White Paper as being a “series of rehashed announcements, some of which are so old they were actually originally made by Gordon Brown when he was the Labour prime minister in 2008”.

The White Paper sets out a series of wide-ranging national “missions” – from improving public transport to ensuring access to 5G broadband – to be enshrined in law.

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