Boris Johnson has promised the government will not make the “rich parts” of the UK poorer as it pursues its “levelling up” programme.
In a speech in Coventry, the prime minister said plans to invest more in deprived areas and improve skills are not a “jam-spreading exercise”.
He also pledged to improve services and boost community pride after fuller plans are laid out this autumn.
But Labour described the PM’s planned speech as “an empty husk”.
Deputy leader Angela Rayner said he had “no plan for the future of our country other than pitching people and towns against each other”.
The Conservatives first promised to “level up” the country in their manifesto for the 2019 general election, in which they targeted – and won – so-called “red wall” parliamentary seats in the Midlands and northern England previously dominated by Labour.
The plan, some of which has already been outlined, involves investing in transport, skills and businesses to address regional disparities.
The government is expected to publish more details in September.
But a group of 50 Conservative MPs called this week for extra investment to be rolled out to northern England at a greater pace to deal with the economic impact of the pandemic.
The prime minister’s speech was delivered in the West Midlands but the words, it appears, are designed to reach an audience much further south.
The loss of the Chesham and Amersham by-election to the Liberal Democrats last month has turbo-charged jitters in the Conservative Party that the focus on “levelling up” areas in northern England and the Midlands could leave traditional voters in southern seats feeling taken for granted.
There is deep uneasiness, too, about proposals to reform the planning system and to increase housebuilding.
This speech seems designed to reassure the Tory heartlands that the government is listening.
In his speech, the prime minister said the government will have “made progress in levelling up when we have begun to raise living standards, spread opportunity, improved our public services and restored people’s sense of pride in their community”.
He said that investing in more deprived areas will relieve pressure on parts of the UK that are “over-heating” and that previous governments focused too much on “areas where house prices are already high and where transport is already congested”.
However, Mr Johnson insisted that there will not be “levelling down” in prosperous places, adding: “We don’t want to decapitate the tall poppies.
“We don’t think you can make the poor parts of the country richer by making the rich parts poorer.”
He said that “levelling up is not a jam-spreading operation. It’s not robbing Peter to pay Paul. It’s not zero-sum. It’s win-win”.
In the Budget in March, Chancellor Rishi Sunak said applications were being sought for some of the £4.8bn Levelling Up Fund, which will invest in infrastructure such as town centres and local transport.
He also announced an extra £111m to fund work placements and training for 16 to 24-year-olds in England.
And eight freeports – including tax breaks for employers – have been promised.
But the Industrial Strategy Council, chaired by the Bank of England’s chief economist, said in March that the plans needed a “comprehensive reorientation”.
It added that they were “over-reliant on infrastructure spending” and that “centrally controlled funding pots thinly spread across a range of initiatives” were unlikely to succeed.
For Labour, Ms Rayner said: “Boris Johnson has overseen the worst death toll in Europe and the greatest hit to any major economy.
“Two years as prime minister and all we have is this empty husk of a speech that shows he has no plan for the future of our country other than pitching people and towns against each other.”
She added: “He has no jobs promise for young people and he has no recovery plan for our children.”