Commenting on the Levelling Up White Paper, John Dickie, Chief Executive of London First, said:
“While bringing devolution to more places is good, this needs to be accompanied with real local powers, responsibilities and resources.
“In particular, local places need to keep more of the taxes raised locally and decide how they spend them to drive jobs and growth, without having to repeatedly make the case for small pots of centralised cash.
“The ambition of levelling-up is right, but devolved authorities — including London — will need more firepower if we are to build back better from the pandemic.”