4.7 UK Government Policy Flashcards
What is the North-South divide
- economic gap between the North and the overheated South
- south is more densely populated as it has more funding and investment and was less affected by deindustriaisation
What is infrastructure inequality
Infrastructure is better and more efficient in the South
Journeys the same distance can take hours longer in the North
In London infrastructure spending per person is £3000 and in the North is £5
How has the government tried to improve transport accessibility
- motorway system is expanded
- High Speed Rail aiming to connect London to the North
- HS2
- HS1 to Kent from London
- cross rails like Elizabeth Line
- expanding airports eg Heathrow Terminal 5
What is HS2
High speed railway (360km/hour) connecting London to Birmingham wiht additional legs to Leeds and Manchester
Aim to reduce travel times to north to allow more people to commute and earn London wage
Would’ve created 60,000 jobs
Why is HS2 controversial
- goes through Chilterns (AONB)
- caused demolition of housing
- inefficient and over budget
- protested by environmental groups
- cost £45 billion and lasted 15 years
What was the impact of cancelling HS2 phase 2
- cut off northern cities like Leeds and Manchester
- makes government look weak as a railway is a simple task compared to others (eg net 0)
- makes government look like they don’t care about the north
What are the future plans to expand Heathrow
- third runway to increase flight capacity by 260,000 annually
- £20 billion but privately funded
- could create 80,000 jobs and generate £60billion
- opposed by locals due to demolition of homes and GHG emissions
What are UK planning laws
- aim to limit negative impact of regeneration
- deciding how land is used to created places that people want to work/live and invest in
- central government can override local regeneration schemes for national benefit
What are the environmental considerations of planning laws
- green belt land around urban areas cannot be built on to prevent urbran sprawl
- conservation areas have strict regulations preventing large scale development
What are House Building Targets
- introduced in 1990s to prevent housing shortages
- target number of houses set each year but are almost never met (around 1million a year)
- conservative government favour market led approach with private associations leading them
Why is there a shortage of affordable housing in the UK
- more single owner occupancy
- population is growing due to immigration
- average house price is 10x average salary
What is the impact of the shortage of affordable housing
- more people forced to live in unsuitable accommodation
- shared housing
- homelessness
- adults live at home for longer
How do planning laws lead to economic regeneration
- creates places where people want to live
- businesses move in creating job opportunities
- diversification of the economy
- higher employment rats
- more competitive business
- greater GVA and exports increases economic income
How do house building targets lead to economic regeneration
- construction of homes creates jobs
- agglomeration related industries move in (architects, engineers etc)
- more demand for services so spending and quality increase
- increases investor confidence
- more businesses move in
- more tax revenue
How does building affordable housing lead to economic regeneration
- younger population looking for cheap places to live move in and start families
- larger working population
- more taxes to economically active people
- services receive more investment eg transport
- more high earning commuters move in
- gentrifies area
What are the benefits of fracking
- UK imports 70% of gas so the government introduced a faster system to apply for fracking licenses in 2015
- fracking areas are typically in rural or deindustrialised places bringing employment back after mechanisation and the global shift
- shale gas is less polluting than other fossil fuels
- reduces vulnerability to exogenous shock eg war between Russia and Ukraine
What are the cons of fracking
- chemicals and methane can leach out and damage environment
- can lead into drilling of oil wells
- finite resource so not sustainable
- when the UK reaches Net zero goals these areas will be left with the same unemployment they had before fracking industries were reintroduced
How does fracking lead to economic regenernation
- increases energy security
- the area will export more energy to other places
- receive more FDI
- clustering and agglomeration will take place creating more jobs and increasing business investment
- more poeple will move in for the jobs
- energy demand will increase so the industry will grow further
What is deregulation
The process of removing or reducing government regulation of the economy
How did deregulation take place under Thatcher
- saw privatisation as “fundamental to improving Britain’s economic performance”
- over 50 companies were privatised such as British Airways, BP and the train lines
What were the positive impacts of deregulation under Thatcher
- removed barriers stopping foreign banks setting up in London
- London is now an international financial hub worth £95billion
- allowed for the creation of of tech ecosystems like Canary Wharf
- banking, finance and business make up 30% of UK GDP
What were the negative impacts of deregulation under Thatcher
- widens North-South divide as investment goes to London over northern cities
- contributes to overheated south
- more expensive for the consumer as services like railways are run by NGOs or foreign investors with the intention of making profit rather than efficiency
Why does the Conservative Party favour privatisation
- laissez faire
- cheaper to run
- profit form selling company
Why is international migration important to the UK
- fill skill shortages
- higher population so more tax revenue
- combat aging population
What was the UK’s pre-Brexit migration policy
Open door migration policy
- EU allows free movement of people and labour
- helped balance ageing population
- more working age people means higher tax revenue and economic growth
What is the UK’s post-Brexit migration policy
Closed door migration policy - point based system
- points awarded for speaking English, qualifications, being single etc
- must meet certain salary threshold and have specific skills (skilled worker route)
What are positives of the skilled worker route
- working age population combat ageing population
- more business start ups and innovation
- higher disposable income and more spending
- better quality services
- links to MMCC
What are negatives of the skilled worker route
- infrastructure doesn’t support that many people
- creates housing shortages as many single people move in
- workers are career driven and don’t have as many children leading to an ageing population in the future
- contributes to North-South divide
- brain drain from source location
- can cause tensions as British people are short of work and blame immigrants
- leads to rise of anti-imigrant political groups
