After successfully being re-elected as Mayor of Liverpool City Region, Steve Rotheram now needs to lead the area in the recovery from Covid-19, creating jobs and long-term prosperity.
On May 6, Steve Rotheram was successfully re-elected as the Metro Mayor for Liverpool City Region, bucking the national trend of Labour facing defeats in its strongholds by actually increasing his majority in the combined authority.
Building on his work to date, the Metro Mayor now needs to lead the area to a successful recovery from the Covid-19 crisis as well as planting the seeds for long-term growth in the city-region by creating job opportunities and attracting high-value businesses.
In particular, the Mayor should focus on three key policy areas:
Even before the pandemic hit, Liverpool City Region’s employment rate was already over two percentage points below the national average. This, combined with the events of the past year, makes it absolutely clear that helping people find job opportunities must be top of the priority list for the Metro Mayor.
In his manifesto, Rotheram pledges to do so by using the next round of devolved funding to establish a Liverpool City Region Covid-recovery Fund aimed at creating job opportunities in the region. This is welcome as previous research by Centre for Cities does show that the city-region is less productive that its counterparts in Europe and needs to create more jobs to close this gap.
Alongside that, the Metro Mayor should use his powers over adult education to ensure residents have the right skills to access these new jobs. This would entail coordinating activity – bringing together education providers, employers and charities – to raise awareness about skills and training opportunities available in the local area and how to access them, with particular attention and support channelled towards people who are further away from the labour market.
One of the groups hardest hit by the pandemic is undoubtedly young people. Nationally, the under 35s account for almost 80 per cent of all job lost since the pandemic begun and in the Liverpool City Region there are now approximately 15,000 young people claiming unemployment related benefits.
To support them, Rotheram has pledged to introduce a Young Person’s Guarantee – a commitment of a job, training or apprenticeship opportunity for every young person out of work for more than six months. This is encouraging as a similar type of support for young people was introduced at the national level in the aftermath of the financial crisis, with evidence suggesting it had indeed a positive impact in supporting young people back into work.
In addition to that, the Metro Mayor should also focus on ensuring young people in the city-region leave education with the skills they need to succeed in the labour market. This includes challenging schools that are underperforming, using his soft powers to ask for more investment in education and improving access and take-up of extra-curricular activities among pupils in the city-region.
Creating job opportunities and equipping people with skills are crucial to creating growth in the city-region, but mean little if people are not able to connect with jobs. Yet, Liverpool city centre is – at peak times – one of the most congested in the country, making it difficult for people to move around.
Improving the public transport offer in the city-region plays an important role in solving this issue. As such, it is welcome to see Rotheram pledging he will reform the bus system by either introducing an enhanced partnership or bus franchising. Furthermore, it is also positive to read in his manifesto that he will work towards creating a London-style transport system for the city-region and expand the existing public transport network to better cover each local authority within the city-region.
Importantly however, while improving public transport is the ‘carrot’ approach to reducing congestion, the Metro Mayor should also look into adopting a ‘stick’ approach by pushing for a congestion charge to be introduced in Liverpool city centre. Indeed, experience from other cities in the UK and abroad suggests that congestion charges are a quick and effective way to reduce traffic. Furthermore, by reducing the number of cars circulating on the streets, a congestion charge would improve space for buses as well as improving air quality – another key pledge in Rotherham’s manifesto.
Now that the dust from the elections has settled, Rotheram can use his second term in office to continue improving the economic performance of his city-region, ensuring not just a strong bounce back from the Covid-19 pandemic, but also setting the foundation for long-term growth.
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