We've published a brilliant new report today on levelling up Britain's regions. It was launched by @RobertJenrick, hailed by @CityAM (cityam.com/budget-must-ac…) and praised by @sajidjavid & @RishiSunak (1/?)
You can read the full thing here. It's full of sensible solutions to Britain's problems - devolving power and money to the regions, embracing opportunity zones, investing in the kind of infrastructure communities want and need cps.org.uk/research/a-ris…
But reading back through the report, I thought I'd highlight some of the charts (because everyone loves a chart...) showing why this agenda is so necessary.
Here is a chart of gross value added (GVA) per capita per region - essentially, how much wealth regions are generating. You will notice that apart from the South East, no region today is creating as much prosperity as London did MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS AGO 
The figures for household income aren't quite as dramatic, but still make the same point.
London dominates (higher-paying, more productive) services jobs
It dominates exports.
It overwhelmingly reaps the benefits of foreign direct investment
It gets the most investment in infrastructure...
And it has the best educational outcomes (though this is a relatively recent phenomenon)
Some people argue that for the rest of Britain to catch up, London needs to be pulled back. As I argue in @CityAM today, that makes no sense - it's like saying (as some on the Left do) that you can only make the poor rich by making the rich poor cityam.com/level-up-lesso…
Instead, we need to shift our model. At the start of the 20th century, 90% of UK taxes were controlled locally and 10% were controlled nationally. By its end, that had flipped on its head
This, as this final chart shows, is extremely atypical. And it's no coincidence that we simultaneously have the most centralised system of government, and some of the most glaring geographical disparities in wealth/income
So let's try giving our regions the powers, resources and money to compete, experiment, innovate and thrive. And to find out how, here's that report on the @CPSThinkTank website... cps.org.uk/files/reports/…
Anyway, now back to your regularly scheduled discussion about the election.
