In his bi-weekly column for The Times, IEA Director General Mark Littlewood argued that Boris Johnson may know what he wants when he say’s ‘levelling-up’, but he fails to grasp how he can spread wealth and opportunities to Britain’s forgotten regions.

Instead of outdated costly infrastructure projects and empty rhetoric, Mark suggested the government take a look at the essays submitted to the Richard Koch Breakthrough Prize, which looked for new policy ideas to close the north-south divide. The winning submission was a ‘peoples rebate’ which reduced peoples national insurance and income taxes based on an areas deprivation.

Mark argued: “At present, the prime minister appears to believe that a dose of infrastructure spending mixed with his buccaneering, optimistic style of delivery will be enough to spread affluence and, presumably, see his party re-elected at the next election. He should go back to the drawing board. To admit that he knows, in very broad terms, what he wants to achieve but not yet how to achieve it“.

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