Northerners should accept lower wages because 'London is London', top Rishi Sunak aide says

A top aide to Rishi Sunak has been crticised after stating workers in northern towns should "accept lower wages" to compete with the South.

The Chancellor, who is said to be blocking cash for key "levelling up" projects, has been urged to explain why he takes advice from economist Tim Leunig, who says northerners should accept less because "London is London".

The Treasury aide has come under fire after a think tank report called Cities Unlimited, in which Mr Leunig wrote “the only way towns and cities that are less well connected (...) can compete to attract firms is to accept lower wages".

READ MORE: Michael Gove rails against trickle-down economics in levelling up speech to northern leaders

Mr Leunig was hired by Sajid Javid as economic advisor in 2019 and helps ministers with the Treasury's long-term strategy, reports The Mirror.

His paper for the right-leaning Policy Exchange told ministers - who have trumpeted plans to move Treasury staff to Darlington - that they "need to accept above all that we cannot guarantee to regenerate every town and every city in Britain that has fallen behind".

It reads: “We cannot, with the best will in the world, move JP Morgan to Blackburn, or Deutsche Bank to Sunderland."

The controversial paper concluded there was "no realistic prospect" that towns and cities "can converge with London and the South East" as they "suffer from a much less attractive skills mix than London" .

“The North, the power house of the industrial revolution, is now a less desirable location for business for reasons that are geographical and entirely outside its control or that of central and local government," it said.

Mr Leunig - who Labour accused of seeing the North as a "lost cause" - went on to make the