Labour promised as it came into government that it would bring in a ‘Take Back Control’ Bill to return power from Whitehall and Westminster to local communities across England.  If it actually moves in that direction, it will deserve heartfelt support from Liberal Democrats.  But the indications of what is intended provided in the King’s Speech debate and the accompanying Briefing Note are not encouraging.

The English Devolution Bill, we are told, defines local leaders as mayors of Combined and Combined County Authorities.  ‘Mayors are critical to delivering economic growth and will be vital partners’ with central government.  The Bill will put ‘a more ambitious standardised devolution framework into legislation’, modelled on the devolution deals negotiated with existing metro mayors in Manchester, Birmingham and elsewhere.  And ‘the Government will establish a new council of the nations and regions’, in which ‘the mayors of combined authorities’ will represent English interests.

‘New powers for mayoral combined authorities’ may be a step forward from micro-management of regional and local government from the Treasury and other Whitehall Departments.  But it’s not democratic local government as Liberals understand it, nor would it provide the regional counterweight to London which we have long called for.  Labour appear to be following their Conservative predecessors in wanting to replace democratic local government, within reach of the people whom it serves, with strong mayors with limited democratic scrutiny while in office who will carry out centrally-funded strategies within tight national guidelines.

My perspective on this is shaped by what has happened to local government in Yorkshire.  In Bradford and Leeds, Council wards have 12,000-20,000 voters – too large for most voters to have any contact with their Councillors or for Councillors to know enough about the area they represent.  It’s too soon to judge the impact of West Yorkshire’s combined authority mayor, who ‘works with’ five large local authorities, though her visibility with central government has been a plus.  18 of the 20 local authorities in Yorkshire supported a regional assembly for all of Yorkshire in representations to the Conservative government a few years ago.  But Michael Gove and others insisted on extending the metro-mayor model into the county’s four corners, despite North Yorkshire lacking a metropolitan centre and East Yorkshire torn between coastal towns, commuting to York and Leeds, and Hull.  North Yorkshire’s districts have now been abolished and replaced by a unitary authority covering a vast geographical area, with York itself left outside, with in addition an elected mayor and combined authority who covers both the new authority and York.  It’s a mess, and at the time of writing town councils have not yet been created for districts which have substantial populations, historic local communities and abandoned town halls.

Michael Gove has not imposed ‘a standardised devolution framework’ across England, nor a standardised unitary local authority within that.  Harrogate, with nearly 200,000 people in its district, was judged too small to be viable, while Rutland remains a ‘unitary county authority with 40,000.  London has in effect a regional government with boroughs beneath it.  Two-tier local government remains in scattered places, and town/parish councils are thicker in well-to-do areas than poor.  It’s a mess.

Democracy should be grounded at the local level.  The more distant authority is, the more mistrustful of authority citizens will be.  England now has fewer elected representatives per head of population, and fewer levels of government, than any other advanced democracy.  It also has the most centralised system of taxation and public expenditure, which means that ‘devolution’ in practice means decentralization of provision under central direction.  Public mistrust of ‘Westminster politics’ is now at an all-time high; the revival of local democracy, I would argue, is a vital part of rebuilding public trust.  And if we are to revive the left-behind towns and cities of England we need an institutionalised counterweight to London, stronger than the collected mayors of (often-artificial) combined authorities can provide.

So Liberal Democrats will approach the English Devolution Bill with caution and unease.  Liberalism and local democracy grew up together.  Labour nationalised, and Conservatives then privatised, many of the services that Liberal local authorities had built from the late 19^th century on.  How about a campaign to restore local democracy now?

* William Wallace is Liberal Democrat spokesman on constitutional issues in the Lords.