Part 2 - A Divided Country, why action is needed

Sam Knight
May 30, 2019
3 min read

Updated: Jun 1, 2019

Attention needs to be drawn to the unequal relationship between London and the rest of the country, because as the Government’s own Industrial Strategy (2017, pp.129) states, ‘decisions on physical infrastructure can widen or narrow geographic divisions in wealth and productivity’. A recent report by Lord Kerslake (Williams, 2019) has stated that the UK is the 28th most regionally divided economy of the 30 major Western economies. In the UK he states that’s there are huge regional differences in terms of health, life expectancy, employment levels and incomes.

How much each person contributes to the economy per region

The Government has committed to addressing the imbalance between the different regions in the UK (Grayling, 2017), with the former Prime Minster, David Cameron originally setting out this commitment in 2010; he said that ‘our economy is heavily reliant on… London and the South East. This really matters. An economy with such a narrow foundation for growth is fundamentally unstable and wasteful’ and that a ‘crucial part of our strategy… is to rebalance our economy’. Currently London’s economy alone produces 23% of the UK’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with only 13% of the population (Brown, 2019, pp.6), once the wider South East (South East and the East of England) is included this goes up to 44% of GDP (Travers, 2013). One of the reasons why London and the Wider South East provide such a large contribution is because they have received the largest share of rail infrastructure investment (Raikes, 2018, pp.4). This has helped boost productivity (Department for Transport, 2016, pp.20) and therefore the wealth of a region. The rest of the country receives significantly less investment, which has acted as a barrier to their economic growth, according to the National Infrastructure Commission (2016, pp.17). This means that if the Government is to rebalance the economy, then it also needs to tackle the imbalance in rail infrastructure investment.

Regional inequality poses an issue not just from an economic point of view, but a political one as well. The Prime Minster (at the time of writing), Theresa May, (2017, pp.5) has highlighted this issue, by saying she would ‘make our United Kingdom a country that truly works for everyone’. This was her response to the growing anger felt by those in areas that feel left behind. Brexit is part of this backlash, with the current Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, saying ‘Westminster created Brexit by failing to look after all parts of the country equally’ (Burnham, 2019). The failure of Westminster to look after all parts of the country is shown through the regional imbalance in rail infrastructure. It is a visible symbol that the Government has prioritised helping London over the rest of the country.

References: