The APPG for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods

All–Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) are informal, cross-party groups within parliament. APPGs are made up of MPs and members of the House of Lords who share an interest in a specific policy area.

Local Trust’s experience of delivering the Big Local programme highlighted what works in improving social and economic outcomes at a neighbourhood level. A key insight from the programme was that the Big Local areas that saw early success generally had access to social infrastructure.  

This motivated our collaborative research with the Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion, which identified a subset of communities that face the double disadvantage of high levels of deprivation and low levels of social infrastructure, forming the foundation of the APPG.  

This group of neighbourhoods – often concentrated in housing estates on the edges of post-industrial towns and cities, in former mining communities in the north, and in coastal areas in the south east – appeared to be doing significantly worse than other places that were otherwise equally deprived.  

The APPG for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods looked at the broad range of issues faced by these communities, from education, skills and health, to physical and digital connectivity. 

Together, the APPG’s 70+ parliamentary members, alongside its external members drawn largely from the third sector, explored how local and central government, and communities themselves, could best work together to improve the prospects of ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods and their residents.  

The APPG’s work brought together insights and expertise from over 60 speakers across policy, academia and civil society, alongside representatives from Big Local, working to improve their communities in ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods throughout the country. 

Between June 2020 and March 2024, the APPG held evidence sessions, produced numerous reports, and conducted a major inquiry into the government’s levelling up agenda.  

Following the publication of the Levelling Up the United Kingdom White Paper in the spring of 2022, the inquiry examined how closely the government’s policy programme aligned with the needs and aspirations of people living in the most deprived or ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods, producing a final report: A Neighbourhood Strategy for National Renewal.  

More than twenty representatives from Big Local and its sister programme, Creative Civic Change,  joined evidence hearings to share their stories.