Read: Justine Greening: The Spring Statement won’t break Britain’s cycle of disadvantage
Rishi Sunak’s announcements can help but the only long-term solution to this economic crisis and those ahead is a structural rewiring of Britain.
Levelling up and the cost of living crisis, which the Chancellor’s Spring Statement sought to address, go hand in hand. It’s Britain’s endemic inequality of opportunity that means it’s always the same people and same places on the front line of the economic headwinds hitting our economy, time after time. And it cannot be right that at a time millions of families face dire financial straits, employers equally face a serious skills shortage, unable to fill their better paid roles and careers. This too is driving inflation.
Families barely juggling tight household finances, just like the one I grew up in, in Rotherham, are now getting hit disproportionately by inflation rises on energy, fuel and food. This crisis won’t just financially sink families – it will also suck the economic lifeblood out of the very local communities that Government efforts on levelling up aim to target.
The Chancellor’s Spring Statement today with its extra help on fuel duty and a National Insurance threshold rise, lessening the hit from his existing planned NI rise, is of course welcome. It’s a bold step to pre-announce a cut in the basic rate of income tax by 2024. Yet Mr Sunak acknowledges that even more challenges lie ahead later in the year when the Ukraine crisis feeds fully into energy bills and inflation.
Today’s Spring Statement was about alleviating the symptoms of a Britain where when you start at the bottom you tend to stay at the bottom. Mr Sunak’s announcements on tax and welfare support can help paper over those cracks but the only long term solution to this economic crisis and those ahead is a structural rewiring of Britain to become fairer on access to opportunities. It’s about breaking the cycle of a country where advantage accumulates and so does disadvantage. Education is a key part of that and the Government will need to revisit and increase its ambition to close education inequality gaps that open up from birth.
Employers, as well as Government, have a vital role to play in levelling up. That’s what my Social Mobility Pledge is about, working with them to open up their opportunities to the widest possible talent. And whatever the wider challenges, employers can also be part of the solution to the cost of living crisis – whether on their broader role in supporting local communities, how they deal with their customers and how they use their own opportunities to transform lives.
It’s a welcome step from the Chancellor to be open to rebooting the overly rigid Apprenticeship Levy rules so companies can fully invest in reskilling and upskilling people, rather than giving unspent billions back to HM Treasury. Employers being better equipped to invest to break the cycle so more people from lower socio-economic backgrounds can not only get in but get on in their organisations, is what levelling up really looks like.
Levelling up is the long term solution because it’s about more than just helping people cope with circumstances today but about improving them for good. This cost of living crisis underlines how and why Britain must change – and fast.
Justine Greening is former Secretary of State for Education and Co-Founder of the Social Mobility Pledge