03Defining levelling up

The Government should define levelling up by setting the following three targets:

• Reduce the share of people without the equivalent of five good GCSEs to the current national average of 17.8 per cent in every local authority that currently sits above it.
• Increase life expectancy to the current national average of 79.3 years in every local authority that currently sits below it.
• Bring all lagging places up to their productivity potential, with particular focus on raising the contribution of the UK’s largest cities.

While these should be goals in their own right, they are of course interlinked. Improving skills, for example, is likely to improve productivity too.