Keir Starmer signals London jobs exodus in grand vision for Britain

A shift of power, jobs and funding away from London would happen with a Labour government under a report published by Sir Keir Starmer on Monday.

The 155-page study aims to reshape the governing of Britain, with far more decisions taken regionally and locally rather than in Westminster.

It seeks to tackle the UK’s economic imbalance and address the high cost of living in the capital and South-East.

However, the report will raise concerns that it could fuel an anti-London agenda, especially as there were no politicians from the capital on the commission which compiled it.

It was chaired by ex-PM Gordon Brown, with other politicians including Oxford East MP and Labour party chair Anneliese Dodds, Bristol mayor Marvin Rees, Brigid Jones, deputy leader of Birmingham city council and ex-leader of Oldham council Arooj Shah. Some other of its members live in London.

Sir Keir hailed the report as “the biggest ever transfer of power from Westminster to the British people”.

Key recommendations include:

• 50,000 civil service jobs transferred out of London, as well as more agency and public bodies’ HQ. They could include the Competition and Markets Authority, the Food Standards Agency and the Charity Commission.

• An explicit constitutional requirement to rebalance the UK’s economy so that prosperity and investment can be spread more equally between regions.

• A legal requirement for decisions to be taken as close as “meaningfully and practicably possible” to the people affected by them.

• The UK Infrastructure Bank having an explicit mission to address regional economic inequality in the provision of infrastructure.

• More transport funding in the regions so that rail franchises and bus services outside London are not stuck in “a doom spiral of declining ridership and increasing fares”.

• The British Business Bank given a new remit to promote regional equality of access to investment capital. It should do this by bridging the “equity finance gap” outside London and the South-East, and should be renamed the British Regional Investment Bank.

• Councils should be given more capacity to generate their own revenue, including retaining a greater share of money raised from a new property tax which would replace business rates.

• Replacing the House of Lords with an at least partially elected second chamber, though this may not happen in a first Labour term.

The report, whose recommendations will now be considered by Labour, stated that an unbalanced economy caps overall growth potential.

“This extreme imbalance in the UK economy is forcing families up and down the country to choose between a life of limited economic opportunity or one of limited financial security, when any healthy economy should be able to guarantee both,” it says.

“Indeed, the impact of this lack of financial security on many families and children in London cannot be underestimated.”

Like-for-like wages are about 25 per cent higher in London than the North East, according to research, but disposable incomes are roughly the same due to the “substantially higher” housing costs in the South.