Yorkshire has been failed by successive governments since 2010 - Yorkshire Post Letters

The recent report 'Ending Stagnation' by the Resolution Foundation and London School of Economics exposes grim truths about how unequal our country has become in the last ten years.

The report details how income inequality in Britain is higher than in any other large European country. Typical households in Britain are 9 per cent poorer than their French counterparts, while our low-income families are 27 per cent poorer. Benefit levels have not kept pace with prices: cuts since 2010 have reduced the incomes of the poor by almost £3,000 a year. By contrast, public investment in the average OECD country is nearly 50 per cent higher than in the UK.

All England’s biggest cities outside London have productivity levels below the national average. In 2019, the income per person in the richest local authority – Kensington and Chelsea – was over four times that of the poorest – Nottingham. Higher productivity comes from investment and training.

However, almost a third of young people in Britain are not undertaking any education by age 18 – compared to just one in five in France and Germany.

Our region has been failed by successive governments since 2010. Instead of planned investment in infrastructure, re-skilling and developing capability, we have been ignored by a London-centric ruling class.

It distracts from this reality by filling the news with the manufactured crisis of small boats full of desperate people arriving on the south coast.

Here in Yorkshire, we are more concerned with the cost of living, the number of families sliding into poverty, and how a cash-starved NHS will cope with yet another winter. We are long overdue for a change of direction, a new government and fresh thinking.