Levelling up means getting people good jobs near to their home, the Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis tells Conservative conference

Brandon Lewis was speaking at a discussion at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester about evening up opportunities across the UK.

The Tories have made levelling up one of their key priorities — resetting the relationship between central and local government and improving opportunities in all parts of the nation — and has been working on a White Paper on it.

Mr Lewis said: “Some really exciting international businesses are investing and growing in Northern Ireland. But it is that kind of thing which means that we can move away from the situation ... where good smart people will go off to university and not come back.”

At the conference event, other high-ranking ministers shared their definitions of what levelling up means as the government seeks to define its agenda.

One of the architects of the Conservatives’ 2019 election-winning manifesto said it needs to include cleaning up “graffiti on cenotaphs” and bringing “hanging baskets” to towns to restore civic pride.

Rachel Wolf told a fringe event at the party’s conference in Manchester that there needed to be “short-term wins” to convince people to stick with levelling up.

She said: “When we get around to talking to some of these communities about what they are looking for, I think you have to recognise that often what they are looking for seem like quite small things from Westminster.”

She added: “The reason they mention hanging baskets is they make comparisons with towns that they go into and shop in where hanging baskets are a symbol of somewhere that is being looked after.”

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