More than three decades since the first cars rolled off its production line, Nissan’s car plant in Sunderland remains the poster child for levelling up.

The factory was a coup for Britain and the region, creating thousands of well-paid jobs by unleashing the private sector at a time when the shipyards of Wearside were shutting down.

Nissan, initially attracted by a raft of support including tax breaks masterminded by Margaret Thatcher, still employs 6,000 people directly in Sunderland and another 24,000 in its supply chain.

But although it cites the project as a case study of what can be achieved, Michael Gove’s long-awaited levelling up white paper takes a markedly more statist approach to the North South divide than Thatcher’s government ever did.

Regulations targeting landlords, pledges of state-backed infrastructure improvements and a mandate for companies to deliver widespread 5G internet are at the heart of his proposals, along with more power for a network of regional mayors and governors.

The proposals have been criticised by the senior Tory backbencher Steve Baker, who describes them as “socialist”. 

“Our answer to everything cannot be, ‘more government, more government, more government’,” he said on Twitter.

Mr Gove’s proposals may fall short of the hopes of free market Conservatives, but they fit into a long tradition of Whitehall interventions aimed at improving the economic performance of English regions left behind at the end of the industrial revolution. 

Almost a century has passed since the Industrial Transference Board was established in 1928, which Paul Swinney at the Centre for Cities says is “the earliest levelling up policy we have been able to find”.

“It was basically the Government paying people to leave depressed areas to move to more prosperous areas, which would be absolute heresy today to have a policy like that,” he says. Almost 150,000 moved, largely from Scotland and the north of England to the South East and Midlands.

“The second one was in 1934 which was the Special Areas Act which was much more focused on trying to bring jobs to people, rather than taking people to jobs. That was setting up industrial estates in depressed parts of the country,” says Swinney.

One of its legacies is the Team Valley estate in Gateshead, less than 10 miles from Nissan’s factory and home to businesses employing more than 20,000 people today.

A long series of redevelopment policies were needed because of shifts in the global and domestic economies.

Britain was the leading nation of the industrial revolution, developing to become the first modern world economy.

Cities including Manchester – dubbed Cottonopolis for its dominant textile industry – Sheffield, Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow all boomed.

But as the 20th century aged, global rivals appeared. Manchester was among the first to stumble as Indian textiles were more competitive, says Swinney. More industries lost their edge, from coal and shipbuilding to, by the 1970s, chunks of Birmingham’s car industry.

Capital crunch

London was not spared either.

“London went from huge growth in the Victorian era and the first half of the 20th century to shrinking from 1951,” says Swinney.

In 1981, London had 800,000 fewer jobs than it did in 1951 following huge losses in manufacturing, but the capital and surrounding towns bounced back after betting big on a new industry – the emerging financial services market.