The Government has been warned that it must tailor long-awaited devolution deals to the specific needs of regions to help eradicate decades-long inequalities that have compounded the North-South divide.

Ministers are preparing to unveil a blueprint for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s much-trumpeted levelling up agenda later this month to help tackle the deeply ingrained regional inequalities that persist across the country.

The Levelling Up White Paper is due to present a detailed vision for how the Conservative Party’s manifesto pledge ahead of the 2019 General Election to help spread prosperity to beleaguered parts of the nation will become a reality.

The deputy chairman of the Social Mobility Commission, Alun Francis, has now urged the Government to ensure that deals to devolve powers away from Westminster, which are seen as a key element of the levelling up agenda, are not introduced in a “one-size fits all” approach.

The Social Mobility Commission's deputy chairman, Alun Francis, who has called for a tailored approach for devolution deals as part of the Government's levelling up agenda. (Photo: The Social Mobility Commission)

In his first interview since taking on the role at the commission in November, Mr Francis said: “We would hope the White Paper is about bringing levelling up and social mobility a lot closer together.

“Social mobility is not going to mean much if it is about small groups of people who can make gigantic leaps in their lives, it has got to mean something to the majority of the population.

“We are hoping that there will be a real dialogue with the Government to ensure that this can be achieved.”

The concept of social mobility has long been held as a means of allowing greater opportunities for people coming from more deprived backgrounds.

Research by the Social Mobility Commission has revealed that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on accentuating inequalities across society.

In its State of the Nation report last year, the commission warned that disadvantaged young people and children living in poverty have been hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis and could face consequences that affect them for years.

About 4.3m children - almost one third of youngsters in the UK - were living in poverty as of March 2020, an increase of about 700,000, or 3.7 percentage points, from March 2012.

The research also found that people are 60 per cent more likely to get a professional job if they come from a privileged background rather than working class background.

In 2019 before the pandemic struck, people from working class backgrounds in professional jobs earned about £6,000 less than their more privileged counterparts in professional careers.

Multi-billion pound devolution deals are already in place for South and West Yorkshire, but concerns have been raised over the true extent of the powers which the Government is granting to the regions.

The Yorkshire Post revealed last month that key decisions over the spending of £1.4bn for a Yorkshire “transport revolution” are due to be made in Whitehall rather than by local mayors leading to accusations that the Government is undermining its own levelling-up agenda.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s October Budget and Spending Review granted £830m to West Yorkshire and £570m to South Yorkshire under the £5.7bn City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement programme aimed at areas of the country with metro mayors.

But a Fre

Calls for devolution deals to be tailored to help solve decades-long inequalities ingrained in society