The Legal & General Rebuilding Britain Index (RBI)
reveals that provision of jobs and good quality affordable housing will define
the UK’s progress in building back better.
The findings have shown that measures to support the UK’s
recovery cannot be uniform or linear, with different nations, regions and
communities needing to level-up in different ways.
The RBI has been established to measure the UK’s progress
in levelling up on a quarterly basis. It tracks social and economic progress
across the country, using a combination of statistical data and community
opinion across 51 measures, including Health and Social Care, Education,
Housing, Jobs & Economic Prosperity, Environment, Energy, Transport and
Digital.
Legal & General will survey 20,000 people over the
course of 2021 to identify the extent to which these areas are driving a
recovery across regions and local areas.
According to the new research, households in the North of
England, Wales and Northern Ireland require investment in jobs to level up
their economic prospects. Wales (51/100), the North East of England (53/100) and
Northern Ireland (54/100) achieved the lowest Jobs & Economic Prosperity
Index scores across the whole of the UK. For London and the South of England,
housing – particularly affordable housing – is the critical type of
infrastructure requiring investment, with London achieving the lowest Housing
score (51/100).
These baseline findings reflect historic progress in
these areas. The Mayor's official assessment of housing need in London found
that the city now requires around 66,000 new homes a year to provide
enough homes for current and future Londoners - two-thirds of which need to be
affordable homes. Elsewhere, annual earnings between London authorities
(£42,667) and the South East (£34,078) are far higher than seen in, for
example, Wales (£26,789) and the North East of England (£27,020). The
importance of the Index is the extent to which the most urgent priorities in
each region are addressed so as to level up rather than average down.
The research has also shown that across and within
regions, lower income communities are most ‘at risk’ of being left behind in
the wake of the pandemic, offering more credence to the idea of a “K-shaped” UK
recovery. Low-income households perform less well on all measures included
within the study irrespective of where they live in the UK.
The analysis has found pockets of affluence and
deprivation in all parts of the UK, challenging the notion of a North-South
divide. Some areas of the South achieve below average RBI scores – with
Cornwall (56/100) and Barnet (63/100) scoring the lowest– while some areas of
the North and Scotland perform well above average – most notably Edinburgh
(73/100), Leeds (70/100) and Cheshire East (70/100) who are the highest
scoring. Levelling-up, therefore, needs to be focused at a local level, not
regionally or nationally, addressing each communities’ challenges and
priorities.
Nigel Wilson,
CEO at Legal & General: “Levelling up and building back
better are, rightly, key government priorities. Our new Rebuilding Britain
Index shows that investment priorities differ by area – but that job creation
and affordable housing are the centrepiece to improving quality of life.
“Through our Inclusive Capitalism strategy, we have
invested over £29bn in partnership with the public and private sector to
deliver tangible regeneration which delivers more affordable housing, creates
jobs and supports regional economic growth. 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. ”
