Leaving no-one behind:
the people’s voice in levelling up

Conservative Party Conference Fringe event

Watch the live stream

This event was held in partnership between Poverty2Solutions and Bright Blue and was hosted at 3:30pm – 5.00pm, on Monday 4th October 2021, outside the secure zone, at INNSIDE Manchester, 1 First Street, Manchester, M15 4RP. 

We believe there is a growing recognition that people who have direct experience of  problematic policies have skills, expertise and insight that can be harnessed to develop more effective solutions for change. Our goal was to build on this momentum through a fringe event at the 2021 Tory conference and advance discussions and build links within the Conservative Party on the critical role that participatory policy-making can play in meeting the party’s ambitions to listen to left-behind communities and level up the country. 

Despite successive government’s commitments to ‘level up’ and address social mobility, The UK continues to evidence rising and persistent rates of inequality (Francis-Devine, 2020) 

Covid-19 has both exposed and hardened existing inequalities; with low income households at greater risk from the virus, but also from income shocks related to the economic fallout

The political discourse around the concepts of ‘left-behind’ towns, cities and regions has become especially widespread in recent months. The Conservative Party manifesto at the 2019 general election included a promise to ‘listen to the people who have felt left behind’ (Conservative Party, 2019) and this event provided an opportunity to explore some key questions:

  • What does levelling up mean for people in so-called ‘left-behind’ communities?

  • Should levelling up place greater focus on addressing poverty and deprivation?

  • Could the Government’s levelling up agenda be better informed through involving people with lived experience in policy-making

  • What is the best way to employ the knowledge of people with lived experience to address issues such as debt and poor-quality work?

  • What are the wider benefits of involving people with lived experience in policy-making?