TODAY, The Press joins forces with other local newspapers across the region to warn Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss: ‘Don’t turn your back on the North’.

With child poverty rates soaring across Yorkshire we call on the two remaining contenders to be next PM to honour Conservative promises to the North of England.

It is three years since the term ‘levelling up’ was coined. But if anything the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis have left North/ South inequality worse than ever.

“For the thousands of families across the North still held back by non-existent transport and a lack of jobs and skills, with inflation chipping away at their living standards, the idea that their communities are being 'levelled up' must seem almost laughable,” we say, in an extended leader comment on page 26 today.

As reported in The Press on Saturday, 7,443 children are now living in poverty in York.

Those shocking figures were released just days after City of York Council declared a 'cost of living emergency' and as representatives from the York Foodbank and Citizens Advice York outlined the real extent of the crisis in the city.

The council will be distributing £200,000 worth of fuel and food vouchers to the most vulnerable, and a local Cost-of-Living Emergency Summit will be convened.

But meaningful change will only come with commitment to a more ambitious long-term approach to levelling up by the government.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson named a key department after 'levelling up' and tasked Michael Gove with delivering his agenda.

But Mr Johnson is now on his way out and Mr Gove has been sacked.

And while Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have made many of the right noises, levelling up has been far from a top priority in a leadership debate focused on tax cuts and culture wars.

At the heart of the issue is the North’s economy. The average Northern worker is 50 per cent less productive than one in London.

And while total public spending in the North was £16,223 per person in 2021, up 17 per cent on 2019, the England average rose by 20 per cent and the London average by 25 per cent to £19,231.

We need to know where Mr Sunak and Mrs Truss stand on these issues.

That's why today, in concert with other regional newspapers, we put a series of questions to the two politcians:

  • What will you do to make sure the commitments made to the North by your predecessors as Prime Minister are kept?
  • The average worker in the North is 50 per cent less productive than one in London, what will you do to address this widening gap?
  • What will you do to address spiralling rates of child poverty in parts of Northern England?
  • How far will you go to give Northern leaders control over education and skills, transport and health budgets?
  • Will you retain a government department responsible for tackling regional inequalities with a Cabinet-level Minister?

We’ll publish the responses later this week.

What our local leaders say on levelling up