Governments are periodically keen to deal with the regional inequalities in the UK. Basically, a huge chunk of Britain's jobs and economy are in the south-east of England, near the capital. Government policies to readdress this have been of limited long-term success.

Here in Westminster, many of the office blocks are taken up by civil servants. A small number of civil servants need to be near central government, such as people working on policy who need to interact with Ministers. But for the vast majority of jobs, it wouldn't matter if they were in Liverpool, Aberdeen, Wigan, Stoke-on-Trent, Sheffield, Gwent, Grimethorpe, or Grimsby. Telephone, internet and videoconferencing would ensure they could keep in good contact with London.

Moving out most civil service jobs from London would promote economic development in the rest of the country, and it would help relieve pressure off London's property prices. Such a move would reduce the cost of government, as the offices would be cheaper and the civil servants would not need to receive a London weighting to cover the expensive cost of living in the capital.

The government has been doing this in a minor way. Now it should go the full hog.