Tony Roe
BBC East Midlands political editor in Nottinghamshire

When the Conservatives won former Labour stronghold Ashfield in 2019, they did it on a promise to make people’s lives better, spending more on places neglected in the past.

They coined the phrase "levelling up" and and now we have some commitments.

In Kirkby-in-Ashfield, there are signs of money being spent – a new leisure centre and, in a shopping precinct, a newly refurbished indoor market – but convincing voters things are being done is hard.

Kathleen George said: “I know what it’s supposed to be – trying to balance things out in the north, midlands and the south – but I can’t see them doing anything, they never have before.

“And 2030 is a long way off. [Kirkby-in-Ashfield] needs something now.”

Image source, UK Parliament

Senior Conservative MP Damian Green says he “welcomes” the whitepaper and says he’d like to commend Gove on the health commitment he makes.

He says: “Five years extra healthy life span will be absolutely critical in spreading opportunity, not just to disadvantaged people but to disadvantaged communities as well”.

He says it’s the health inequalities which will help the older generation more than anything else.

Green says: “We can have all the transport infrastructure you like, if people in middle-age are too unhealthy to lead full lives and to stay in work, then they can not benefit from this”.

Spending on education will be back to 2010 levelspublished at 15:28 Greenwich Mean Time 2 February 2022

15:28 GMT 2 February 2022

Branwen Jeffreys
Education Editor

Education funding is not so much being "levelled up" as being brought back up to where it was.

The cash going into England’s schools is rising now and in the years ahead, but that follows many years of cutbacks since 2010.

And, of course, schools face increasing costs, including meeting the government promise to increase teachers’ starting pay to £30,000.

All this means, in real terms, by 2023-24 the spending per pupil in England will be only just over where it was in 2010.

It’s not clear there will be any extra money for the Education Investment Areas that are meant to be part of levelling up.

Image source, HoC

Labour MP Clive Betts, who is chairman of the Commons levelling up committee, asks whether local councils will be getting any new powers to deliver the government's pledges.

He suggests all the powers listed in the whitepaper are already available to at least some local authorities.

In response, Michael Gove says those local authorities with fewer powers will be able to get more - closer to those held by the Mayor of London.

He adds that the government is "open to negotiation" on the acquisition of more powers for councils.

The SNP’s Tommy Sheppard has described Michael Gove’s statement as “somewhat underwhelming”.

He says it “might have been an opportunity” to bring forward proposals for the modernisation of the government and “devolve further powers" to the national administrations.

But he says it has nothing in it for the people that he represents.

Phil Mackie
Midlands correspondent, BBC News

We already knew that Wolverhampton was going to be given money to “level up” because, along with Sheffield, it was singled out by the government ahead of today’s announcement.

Wolverhampton continues to suffer from an exodus of talent. Many accomplished Wulfrunians have had to leave the city to achieve their success.

Tanzila Shabir is studying accountancy at the university but says she’ll have to leave to get a better job.

“Because I know that I can’t find any good companies here that will help me get to my career path, I’m going elsewhere.”

Levelling up money also needs to be spent on education. A-Level attainment in two of the three Wolverhampton constituencies - South East & North East - is less than half the national average. , external

Keira Gleeson, who is about to start an apprenticeship at New Cross hospital, says: “I think there are job opportunities.. [but] when I was in education I don’t feel like there was enough done”.

Her friend Madison Ray says: “Recently, going out of education, I think it’s quite poor… there were never enough books."

Earlier, Michael Gove was questioned by Labour's Lisa Nandy, and he gave her a withering response.

He suggested he didn’t hear Nandy “disagree with a single policy that we put forward”.

Turning to the record of successive Conservative governments over the past 12 years, Gove said they “closed the gap between rich and poor” and “extended opportunity”.

Unlike Labour, Gove said, the current Conservative government has a plan.

“No plans, no idea, no answers,” Gove says of Labour.

In the levelling up white paper, the government has set itself 12 "national missions" for measuring its progress on spreading opportunities more equally.

“We’ve set out clear ambitious missions underpinned by metric with which we can be held to account to drive the change we need,” Gove tells MPs.

Among the 12 missions are:

• Increase pay, employment and productivity in all areas of the UK, with each one containing a "globally competitive city"
• Raise public investment in research and development outside the south-east of England by 40%
• Eliminate illiteracy and innumeracy by refocusing education spending on the most disadvantaged parts of the country

You can read the full list in our news story here.

Image source, UK Parliament

Shadow levelling up secretary Lisa Nandy takes to the despatch box holding up a copy of the levelling up white paper.

"After all the delays, all the slogans, all the big promises, is this it?" she asks.

"This is a government in free fall, out of ideas, out of energy. Recycled, watered-down ambitions," she says. "None of it is new."

"Some of it is so old, that one of the better announcements that caught my eye, was actually made in 2008 by Gordon Brown and has been running ever since."

Find out what's in the paper here.

Michael Gove is setting out some of the plans outlined in the levelling-up white paper unveiled by the government today.

The strategy will take until 2030 and aims to improve services such as education, broadband and transport.

Gove tells MPs the policy paper proposes a “strategy to make the country more equal and shift wealth and power decisively towards working people”.

“We need to get this country moving at top speed again. We need faster growth, quicker public services and higher wages,” he says.

In an echo of the Leave campaign’s slogan ahead of the 2016 EU referendum, Gove says the levelling-up agenda will help communities “take back control” of their destiny.

Faisal Islam
BBC Economics Editor

Image source, Getty Images

The problem that the government seeks to solve with its "Levelling Up" agenda is clear - the fact that the UK is one of the world's most geographically unequal major economies.

Not just that, the inequality in the economic performance of the UK's regions has grown materially over the past three decades.

While that has for many in politics during that time been an inevitable side-effect of having one of the world's fastest-growing regions - Greater London - this White Paper marks out a new consensus, that this inequity has been a choice.

Other nations around the world have conducted intensive strategic plans to close regional disparities such as this, for example Spain and Germany.

The origins of the prime minister's use of the phrase "levelling up" are in his 2019 Conservative leadership election promise to equalise per pupil spending in English schools, and in some work on social mobility done by former Education Secretary Justine Greening.

But Levelling Up is not about doing the same for disparities in public spending on, say transport, between London (£882 per head in 2019/20) and NE England (£315 per head). Or even spending on science and technology in the North West (£76 per head) and the South East (£122 per head).

Read more here.

Let's just hear a final word on the police report from Conservative MP Nickie Aiken.

She says words don't cover how she felt when she read the report into the behaviour of some Met Police officers based in her constituency.

Aiken, who is MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, says she will meet the borough commander tomorrow to discuss how they can implement the report's recommendations.

But she says although there are rogue police officers in the Met Police, there are "thousands of dedicated and hard-working police officers up and down this country who are equally disgusted".

Image source, Reuters

Michael Gove has announced long-promised plans to close the gap between rich and poor parts of the country.

The strategy will take until 2030 and aims to improve services such as education, broadband and transport.

He said it would "shift both money and power into the hands of working people".

But Labour said the plans contained no new money and little fresh thinking.

Gove told the BBC that the strategy was not aimed at providing new funding but ensuring it is spent effectively on local priorities.

Read more here.

Michael Gove has started his statement to the House of Commons on his "levelling up" strategy, published today.

Image source, UK Parliament

Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse said that "this lack of leadership and culture of cover-up is letting down honourable rank and filled police officers".

Hobhouse asked policing minister Kit Malthouse why the home secretary extended Dame Cressida Dick's term as Met Commissioner, "instead of asking for her resignation".

Malthouse said the Met Commissioner had her term extended "because we thought she was the best person for the job".

Image source, UK Parliament

Labour's Shadow Home Office minister Sara Jones said the behaviour outlined in the IOPC report is "truly appalling" and action was needed now to tackle discrimination.

"Shameful behaviour like this undermines policing and threatens public trust," she told MPs.

Jones said the Metropolitan Police must accept and urgently implement the 15 recommendations from the IOPC report.

Read more about the report and Priti Patel's reaction to it here.

The BBC's Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg says there was tension between Priti Patel and Downing Street over whether to try to recruit a successor for Met Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick after the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer.

Read more here.

Image source, UK Parliament

Back to police standards.

Kit Malthouse, who was deputy London mayor for policing under Boris Johnson, told MPs: "As someone who knows the Met well, I cannot begin to describe my horror at the revelations in the (IOPC) report".

Conservative MP Matthew Offord said the evidence from the report showed that the Metropolitan Police has a "sinister and obnoxious culture".

He called for changes in sex offences laws and for a whistleblowing hotline to be set up for Met officers, which he said could help female officers raise concerns.

Malthouse said: "One of the specific requests we've asked is to make sure there are adequate whistleblowing facilities".

He added that the findings point to a problem of leadership.

Image source, HoC

The final word in the debate on Jack Dromey (before MPs turned to police standards) was, appropriately enough, left to his wife of 40 years, Harriet Harman.

The veteran Labour MP thanked all those who paid tribute, saying they were "so much comfort to me and his beloved family as we face the total shock of his sudden death from heart failure".

Harman says her husband "spoke up for people - and they heard him, and that made them stronger".

He gave her "phenomenal" and "unswerving" support in her work, she says, but says it was not because she was his wife, but because men should support women generally.

"Jack's support was a superpower," she says. "We will so miss him."

MPs have started debating an urgent question from Labour on a report by the police watchdog on the behaviour of officers at a London police station.

The officers mainly based at Charing Cross, were found by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) have joked about rape, killing black children and beating their wives.

Home Secretary Priti Patel called the behaviour "sickening" at a Commons committee earlier and said the Metropolitan Police had to change its culture.

Policing minister Kit Malthouse echoed these comments at the start of the debate.

Fellow Birmingham MPs are paying tribute to the late Labour MP Jack Dromey.

Liam Byrne, MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill, describes Dromey as a mentor, teacher, political partner and friend. "He was like a father to me," he says.

Labour's Shabana Mahmood, MP for Birmingham Ladywood, says their relationship was built on "lots of gentle micky-taking and loads of laughter".

Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, tells MPs: "There could be no greater advocate for the city of Birmingham."

And she recalls Dromey putting his arms around her in the chamber the first time she spoke after being elected, telling her: "I'm so proud of you".