Legal & General: Jobs and affordable housing must be ‘centrepiece’ of levelling up agenda

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Darlington Announced As Treasury's New Northern Home
Darlington was announced as the Treasury’s new northern economic campus last month as part of the government’s so-called levelling-up agenda. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)

The provision of jobs and good quality affordable housing will define the UK’s Covid recovery, according to a new report.

The Legal & General Rebuilding Britain Index (RBI), launched today, shows that measures to support the UK’s recovery cannot be unform, with different regions and communities needing to level-up in different ways.

According to the new research, lower-income communities are most at risk of behind left behind after the pandemic, as Britain looks set for a “K-shaped” recovery defined by winners and losers.

For London and the South of England, affordable housing is the critical type of infrastructure requiring investment, with London achieving the lowest housing score.

The mayor’s assessment of housing need in London found that the city now requires around 66,000 new homes a year to provide enough for current and future residents.

Elsewhere, annual earnings between London authorities and the South East are far higher than seen in other parts of the UK.

The importance of the index is the extent to which the most urgent priorities in each region are addressed to level up rather than average down.

The RBI has been formed to measure Britain’s headway in levelling up by tracking social and economic progress quarterly across the country.

Legal & General will survey 20,000 people over the course of 2021 to identify the extent to which sectors are driving a recovery across different regions.

Nigel Wilson, CEO at Legal and General, said that despite the differences in priorities between regions, job creation and affordable housing “are the centrepiece to improving quality of life”.

“As the idea of a K-shaped recovery becomes a reality, and inequality widens across the UK, developing local investment strategies to meet local priorities has never been more important.

“Towns and cities should be in the driving seat of their own recovery and it’s up to businesses like ours to provide the investment needed to realise these ambitions.”