Boris Johnson has been urged by one of the most senior Conservative figures outside London to match the symbolism of his “levelling up” pledge with concrete policies. Andy Street, the mayor of the West Midlands, said the prime minister had shown he was “not for turning” in the face of Tory heartland MPs worried the party would neglect its traditional voters, but pressed him to set out a “full policy platform” in the coming months. Fresh from securing an increased majority in the May local elections as one of the few Conservative metro mayors, Street cautioned that the swathes of “red wall” voters who backed the party for the first time in 2019 “want to see delivery”. The former John Lewis managing director also called on ministers not to rely totally on public spending to boost the life chances of those in impoverished areas, instead saying that leveraging significant investment by private businesses was “the only way out of this country’s economic challenge”. Speaking from Wolverhampton College, Street conceded the idea behind levelling up was “not completely new”, instead pioneered by former prime minister David Cameron – meaning it had already been “in action” for several years. However, he praised Johnson for vowing to make it “the defining mission of his government” and admitted that while a landmark speech Johnson gave in Coventry last month on his priorities as the UK emerged from the pandemic did not contain everything he wanted to hear, he was confident those announcements would come. Street said: “He could easily have turned his back on that after Covid. But actually, no, he’s leaning right into it. And he’s also telling his party – and this was what was so important – that that is what the Conservative government’s going to do.
He added: “The reason I say it couldn’t be everything we [wanted] to hear is it wasn’t a full policy platform. That’s being worked on … But he did something very, very important, which is say: ‘I am not for turning on this.’” “On the day, he did not stand up and say: ‘And this is what we’re going to do with our training budgets for colleges like this.’ He did not say: ‘This is what we’re going to do with our affordable housing budget to get more construction going.’ He didn’t. But that will all come. I’m absolutely convinced of that. Because it’s got to.” Street impressed the importance of action for retaining the voters who broke the habit of a lifetime by backing the Conservatives in 2019. “People here who voted Conservative either in the general election for the first time – and obviously, we had a lot of red wall gains in the West Midlands – or voted for me, they want to see delivery … They want to see things happening. So I am very clear, we have got to deliver behind that, behind those votes of 2019 and 2021.” Street also said there needed to be a “reconciliation” of the opposing voices in government for high spending versus a more restrained approach to public finances, urging Johnson and chancellor Rishi Sunak to leverage support from the private sector. He admitted the Treasury is “obviously in a very different position” since Covid began, with public finances “much less affluent” than in 2017, so mayors and those vying for central government spending were in a “competition” and would have to put forward the best business case. Street also stressed the benefits of devolving power and responsibility away from Westminster, admitting that the current framework across the UK was a patchwork that should be reformed by ministers to ensure greater standardisation.
Looking ahead to his own future, Street said he would strive to be seen as a businessman first and politician second. He admitted that sometimes caused tensions, but he would “stand up for what’s right for the region” instead of “always reading the script, exactly as per the cabinet decisions”. He declined to rule out one day running to be an MP, though he stressed he enjoyed “doing it my way, here”. “MPs are part of a whipped party. I’m a member of that party, but I’m not in any way part of that parliamentary process,” Street said.