Levelling up: Michael Gove sets out plan to end illiteracy by 2030

2 February 2022, 00:38 | Updated: 17 May 2023, 09:33

Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove pledges to end illiteracy and innumeracy by 2030

Michael Gove today told LBC the government wants to eliminate illiteracy and innumeracy completely by 2030.

The Government is promising to break the link between "geography and destiny" as it publishes its long-awaited blueprint for "levelling up" Britain.

Mr Gove detailed the government's ambitious plans on LBC this morning to Nick Ferrari, saying: "We've set out that we need to achieve these goals by 2030, and we're also setting out later today the detailed way in which our progress towards some of those goals can be measured."

Mr Gove was also challenged on plans to increase the power of regional mayors in England.

Nick asked Mr Gove: “You also talk about local leaders. You want to create new mayors and strengthen the hand of local leaders around the country.”

Nick highlighted the low turnout for elections of regional leaders. “People aren’t interested Mr Gove. I don’t know what you think this will bring.”

Mr Gove said: “The more power that mayors have and the more accountable they are, the more committed people are to playing a part in deciding who their mayor would be.

“Nobody would say the race between Sadiq Khan and Sean Bailey… was a peripheral sideshow.

“We want more mayors to be more like London’s mayor.”

The flagship Levelling Up White Paper will set out a series of wide-ranging national "missions", promising improved infrastructure, research and development funding, educational outcomes and quality of life across Britain, when it is unveiled by Michael Gove today.

Announcing the government’s levelling up strategy, Mr Gove will say that every area of England will have the chance to create a “London-style” metro mayor as part of what he claims is the biggest shift of power from Whitehall to local areas in modern times.

Yesterday, Boris Johnson pledged that the plan amounted to an eight-year "moral mission" to spread opportunity across the country by 2030.

Labour however dismissed the plan as "more slogans" with "few new ideas".

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The promise to "level up" forgotten and deprived communities was a key theme of Mr Johnson's 2019 general election campaign which saw the Tories make huge gains in Labour's previously impregnable "red wall" heartlands.

In all, the White Paper includes 12 national "missions" to be achieved by 2030 to be enshrined in a a flagship Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.

The first is to improve pay, employment, and productivity across the board while narrowing the disparities between the best and worst performing areas.

Others include bringing the rest of the country's local public transport systems much closer to London standards and ensuring the large majority of the country has access to 5G broadband.

Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, the architect of the plan who will be responsible for driving through the changes, said it would end a "historic injustice".

"For decades, too many communities have been overlooked and undervalued. As some areas have flourished, others have been left in a cycle of decline. The UK has been like a jet firing on only one engine," he said.

"This will not be an easy task, and it won't happen overnight, but our 12 new national levelling up missions will drive real change in towns and cities across the UK, so that where you live will no longer determine how far you can go."

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Other missions included in the strategy include effectively eliminating illiteracy and innumeracy among primary school leavers, focussing on the most disadvantaged parts of the country.

There are also commitments to ensure hundreds of thousands more people get high quality skills training every year while gross disparities in healthy life expectancy is narrowed.

The paper promises to halve the number of poor quality rented homes, rejuvenate the most run down town centres and deliver a significant decrease in serious crime in the most blighted areas.

Every part of England will also get a London-style devolution deal if they want one.

Mr Johnson said it was the "most comprehensive, ambitious plan" of its kind that the country had ever seen.

"From day one, the defining mission of this Government has been to level up this country, to break the link between geography and destiny so that no matter where you live you have access to the same opportunities," he said.

"The challenges we face have been embedded over generations and cannot be dug out overnight, but this White Paper is the next crucial step."

For Labour, shadow levelling up secretary Lisa Nandy said the plan fell far short of what the country needed.

"Ministers have had two-and-a-half years to get this right and all we been given is more slogans and strategies, with few new ideas," she said.

"Boris Johnson's answer to our communities calling for change is to shuffle the deckchairs - new government structures, recycled pots of money and a small refund on the money this Government have taken from us.

"This is not what we were promised. We deserve far more ambition this."