Date: 22 October 2025
Time: 18:00 -19:30
Speaker: Professor Steve Fothergill
Talk Title: “The demolition of British Regional Policy'
Location: Ramsden room, St Catharine's College
The seminar series is supported by the Cambridge Political Economy Society and the Economics and Policy Group at the Cambridge Judge Business School.
Talk Overview:
Regional policy has always seemed like a fixture in British political and economic life. Since the 1930s, there have just about always been substantial efforts to promote growth and jobs in the less prosperous parts of the country. But, as this presentation will argue, bit by bit British regional policy is now being dismantled. This has not been the result of a single decision but over the last decade we’ve seen the abolition of Assisted Area status, the removal of EU funding to the regions and now the winding down of ‘levelling up’ initiatives. In place of regional policy we now have a misplaced faith that devolution, especially to mayors, will narrow the UK’s gaps in prosperity and well-being. The presentation will draw on deep involvement in the policy debate and on a solid understanding of the on-going problems in Britain’s less prosperous places.
Speaker Overview:
Steve Fothergill is the National Director of the Industrial Communities Alliance, the all-party association representing local authorities in the older industrial areas of England, Scotland and Wales. An economist and academic by background, he is author or co-author of five books and more than 200 articles and reports on aspects of local and regional development, including The Impact of Welfare Reform (2016), Industrial Strategy and the Regions (2017), Local Productivity (2019), The Real Level of Unemployment (2022) and State of the Coalfields (2024).