Treasury tells Michael Gove not to expect lots of new cash for levelling up
Michael Gove’s new levelling up department is being warned not to expect a large injection of new cash in the spending review hours after Boris Johnson called levelling up “our fundamental project”, Sky News understands.
Mr Gove‘s department, which covers housing, the Union, local government and elections, will be expected to negotiate its three-year budget on the basis of the bid put together by Robert Jenrick, who was sacked on Wednesday.
Although there is some scope for changes, Sky News has learnt the Treasury is playing down the ability of incoming cabinet ministers to radically rewrite their departmental spending bids or ask for dramatically more.
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What will the new cabinet achieve?
One Whitehall source told Sky News that Mr Gove should therefore not be expecting an above average settlement.
A leading Tory MP, Jack Berry, said that the Treasury needed a new approach to levelling up or the Tories risk losing voters in the North.
Sky News has learned that the Treasury asked cabinet ministers to submit bids for the spending review at the start of the week, hours before the reshuffle was due to begin.
Now they are telling all departments they are still expecting to negotiate in some cases on the basis of bids submitted by cabinet ministers who lost their jobs or changed roles – which include Dominic Raab from the Foreign Office, Robert Buckland who has gone from Justice and Mr Jenrick from the Ministry of Housing.
This has caused surprise in parts of Whitehall, who point out there is a long way to go until the October 26 review and the arrival of a new Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Simon Clark, may change calculations.
Mr Gove may also benefit from machinery of government changes, such as the possible move of the Union unit to Mr Gove’s new ministry, which means Mr Jenrick’s budget submission cannot be adopted completely like for like.
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The Prime Minister assembles a new top team
Having only been in place 48 hours, it is thought to be too early for Mr Gove to have decided what his budget needs and priorities will be.
This morning the prime minister used the first post-reshuffle cabinet meeting to emphasise the importance of levelling up.
He said: “By cutting crime, by making our streets safer across the country, by improving the quality of people’s lives, putting in fibre optic gigabit broadband sprouting through everybody’s homes, by tackling the skills deficit across our country, by giving people opportunity across the whole of the UK… combined with local leadership – we are going to fulfil our fundamental project of uniting and levelling up the entire country… because that is what our mission is.”
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How will cabinet reshuffle impact climate goals?
Departments are already facing a squeeze.
Overall departmental spending will rise 4% a year in real terms (which is a 6% rise in cash terms before accounting for inflation) but a large share of this will be taken up by the Health and Social Care spending meaning other departments will get less.
Whitehall was braced for a tricky settlement as Rishi Sunak attempts to reclaim the mantle of fiscal discipline for the Conservative party after spending hundreds of billions on the pandemic.
Jake Berry, chairman of the Northern Research Group of Tory MPs who want greater commitment to levelling up, told Sky News: “I think what we’re learning is that the Treasury is yet to be convinced that levelling up is a government priority.
“Levelling up is about devolving power away from London, that tends not to be an agenda that the Treasury backs.”
Asked why there is resistance, he said: “They regard it as expensive.
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“Many of these projects in the North don’t stack up on traditional value for money spending.
“It’s just for that exact reason these communities need investment.
“The Treasury doesn’t need to so much tweak the Green Book.
“As they’ve done over the last few years – they need to rip it up, throw it in the shredder, and then chuck the waste away.
“They need a whole new approach.
“In all fairness to Mr Gove he has a track record of delivering… he has a track record of taking on what he’d call ‘the blob’ – and in this case the Treasury is the blob.”
The battle for West Midlands mayor is down to the wire after a partial recount of votes was ordered.
Incumbent Tory Andy Street’s hope of securing a third term in office remains on a knife-edge in the face of a stiff challenge by Labour’s Richard Parker.
The outcome of the contest is critical to Rishi Sunak after a hammering in the local elections, which saw the Conservative Party lose more than half of its councillors who stood for re-election across England.
It threatens to ramp back up the pressure on the prime minister, who was hoping for a repeat of the success enjoyed by Conservative Ben Houchen who held on as the mayor of Tees Valley and to dampen rumblings of rebellion among some Tory MPs.
Former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson in the Electoral Dysfunction podcast said the rebels who want to move against Mr Sunak and change leader “would have a huge amount of fuel” if the party lost “one or other or both of Teeside and West Midlands”.
Mr Street had sought to distance himself from the Conservative brand during his campaign and instead ran on a personal platform.
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Sky News recently revealed Mr Street was sending out election literature with an endorsement from former prime minister Boris Johnson which urged people to “forget about the government”.
Read more:
The winners and losers
Charts tell story of Conservative collapse
Analysis: Labour’s future success is less clear-cut
His campaign website also made no mention of Mr Sunak on its homepage and was coloured in green rather than Conservative blue.
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Politics
Boris Johnson pays tribute to polling station staff who refused to let him vote without photo ID
Boris Johnson has paid tribute to the villagers who Sky News revealed turned him away from a polling station when he tried to vote without a valid photo ID – under rules he introduced.
The former prime minister said he attempted to cast his ballot using a magazine sleeve with his name and address on as proof but was prevented from doing so.
The requirement to provide photo ID was introduced by Mr Johnson during his time in Downing Street as part of the Elections Act 2022.
The move was controversial over fears it would bar people from voting, particularly among disadvantaged groups.
Local election live: Khan likely to cling on to London – as West Midlands on knife-edge
Mr Johnson had been seeking to vote in South Oxfordshire, where a police and crime commissioner for Thames Valley was being elected.
Writing in his Daily Mail column, he said: “I want to pay a particular tribute to the three villagers who on Thursday rightly turned me away when I appeared in the polling station with nothing to prove my identity except the sleeve of my copy of Prospect magazine, on which my name and address had been printed.
“I showed it to them and they looked very dubious… within minutes I was back with my driving licence and voted Tory.”
Read more:
The winners and losers
Charts tell story of Conservative collapse
Analysis: Labour’s future success is less clear-cut
Thursday’s election is the first time many voters in England and Wales have had to present ID to vote under provisions first rolled out at last year’s local elections.
As well as driving licences, other acceptable forms of ID include passports, proof of age cards, blue badges, and some concessionary travel cards.
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The government has also said it intends to make veterans’ ID cards a valid form of voter identification after former service personnel were turned away.
Veterans’ minister Johnny Mercer apologised to those who had been unable to use the document to vote, vowing to “do all I can” to have it added to the list of valid identification.
Labour said the government has had years to ensure the card was included, having begun rolling out the scheme in 2019.
Politics
Labour has ‘searching’ to do after losing votes in areas with high Muslim population, Jess Phillips says
The Labour Party has some “searching” to do following its underperformance in areas with a high Muslim population, according to MP Jess Phillips.
Speaking to political editor Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, the Birmingham Yardley MP said her party will have to “wake up and face” the issues that lead to it losing seats to the Greens, independents and the Workers Party of Britain.
Ms Phillips said: “There are some issues with regards to independents and Greens that the Labour Party is going to have to wake up and face tomorrow morning, Monday morning, whenever it is.
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“There are some results in places, you know, Labour heartlands, where they maintain the council, of course, in places like Newcastle where the Greens are making strides.
“I very much expect, as the mayoral votes come in, that in places like Birmingham, Bradford, places with high Muslim populations, as we’ve seen overnight in Oldham, that the Labour Party will have some questions that they have, and some searching to do themselves.
“However, you cannot spin it any other way than this is a good night for the Labour Party.”
Analysis from Sky News shows that areas with a Muslim population below 5% saw the Labour Party’s vote share increase by 1.1 percentage points.
But areas with a Muslim population above 20% saw Sir Keir Starmer’s party lose 17.9 points from their vote share.
Local election results: Follow them as they come in here
One of the issues that is thought to be impacting the Muslim vote is Labour’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
Labour lost control of councils in Oldham and Kirklees, with victories for independent candidates opposed to the party’s stance on the war in Gaza.
It is hard to crystallise the exact impact on the elections, as a number of Labour councillors have defected from the party over Labour’s stance on the Middle East conflict.
George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain also targeted Labour seats on the issue of Gaza, and won four – including unseating the deputy leader of Manchester council Luthfur Rahman in Longsight.
The BBC reported that Labour were pessimistic about their chances in the race for the West Midlands mayoralty – which covers Ms Phillip’s constituency – with one journalist saying a Labour source told them: “It’s the Middle East, not West Midlands that will have won Street the Mayoralty. Once again Hamas are the real villains.”
This was decried by the Labour Party on the record, with shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth saying: “This is utterly unacceptable. I’m pleased the Labour Party have quickly and rightly condemned it.
“This is a racist quote which has not come from anyone who is speaking on behalf of the party or whose values are welcome in the party.”
Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary, was asked on the Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge about whether the party’s stance will change.
She said the party does “recognise” the party’s stance on the conflict has been a “factor in some areas”.
Ms Cooper added there were areas where Gaza was “partly” a factor and there were also “council factors” as well.
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She added: “So it’s lots of different things.
“But undoubtedly many people feel really strongly about this – and rightly because tens of thousands of people have been killed, including the majority of them women and children.
“We desperately need an immediate ceasefire, but we have the hostages released. We need the urgent humanitarian action that’s needed.”
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