Treasury to move fifth of staff to new campus in north of England, Chancellor announces

Rishi Sunak said it was important to have a presence in all parts of the country

The Treasury is to move one-fifth of its staff to a new “economic campus” in the North of England, chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced.

Mr Sunak did not identify the exact location of the new offices, but said that officials with economic responsibilities from other departments would also be based there.

And he told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday that Treasury offices will also be opened in Wales and Northern Ireland, adding to an existing presence in Scotland.

The chancellor said the new offices were part of prime minister Boris Johnson’s “levelling up” agenda to spread economic opportunity to all corners of the UK.

Mr Sunak said: “We believe in making sure that wherever you live in this country there is opportunity for you. That’s what levelling up means in practice.

“I want to make sure that the Treasury is at the front foot of that.

“We are driving economic policy in this country and it’s important that we have a presence everywhere in this country, so we will have a new economic campus in the North led by the Treasury where about a fifth of our headcount over time will move.

“We will be joined by members from other economic-facing departments and we will also be opening offices in Northern Ireland and Wales to complement the one that we have in Scotland as well.”

Asked how voters will be able to judge whether the government has fulfilled its promise to "level up" the country by the time of the 2024 election, Mr Sunak told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: "You will be able, of course, to measure it in the stats on income growth. You'll be able to measure it in where we're making our investments in infrastructure."

But he added: "It's about a feeling that people have that where they happen to be born, where they happen to grow up, is not going to be the determinant of how well they do in life.

"It's that wherever they are, we've provided them with the opportunities - whether it's through education, whether it's through skills, whether it's through a better bus connection that gets them to a better job - we're doing all of that and that's meant that their life is better-off, that they feel that their aspirations are being realised,

"That's how I'm going to measure it."

The chancellor said that the government's ambition was to make sure that opportunity is "equally spread" across the UK.

"'Levelling up' sometimes people take to mean as we're going to build a bridge here or a roundabout there or another road here," he said.

"To me, it's about spreading opportunity, and it's making sure that wherever you live in this country, we can fulfil your aspirations; that opportunity should be the same wherever you happen to grow up, whether it's a rural area in the south-west, or a town in the north-east.

"I'm keen to make sure that opportunity is equally spread, we can fulfil everybody's dreams and aspirations. That's what levelling up means to me."