The Prime Minister gave his big speech on “Levelling Up” and as we discovered it is still a slogan in search of policies. The only positive was a half-formed idea around further devolution. If the pandemic has taught us anything from the separate policies of devolved First Ministers, Track and Trace to the spotlight on Metro Mayors, it is that effective policy can only be delivered at a local level.
Our current constitutional settlement is obviously lopsided between Nations and the English Regions. What’s worse, government fiat often dictates spending. It is time to recast our country and develop a model that works for the whole country. Every company knows that the closer a service is to the people it serves the more responsive it is. And yet the dominance of the Treasury and Whitehall means the government pays lip service to this idea. Local government is given responsibility but starved of funding. There is another way.
As Liberal Democrats we are true believers in devolution and local government. Let’s devolve all domestic policy to the Nations and English Regions. Health, Education, Welfare. Let First Ministers and Regional Assemblies elected by proportional voting flourish. Let’s see truly integrated policies, coalitions and experimentation in government. We can reserve power over foreign and defence policies, national taxation and minimum standards in health and education to a much reduced House of Commons and finally abolish the House of Lords.
For this system to work, tax powers would be devolved to the Nations and Regions. The Bank of England would be reimagined like the US Federal Reserve System, Regional Governors in the Nations and Regions working with the London based Governor. Nations and Regions could decide on how they spent their Local Tax receipts whether to impose local sales or property taxes. Real responsibility in the regions rather than the beauty pageant for funding that exists now. We can abolish the Barnett formula that awards funding to the Nations and replace it with a system based on real purchasing power across the Nations and Regions.
If we are serious about broadening opportunities across our country, dealing with climate change and improving health outcomes then we need to be serious about local solutions for local problems. People are proud of their localities, let’s give them the power to change!
* John Armah is a member of City of Westminster Liberal Democrats and a digital transformation consultant based in London.
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28 Comments
Johnson refers to ‘levelling up’ as being like ‘spreading the jam further’. I call it ‘jam tomorrow’.
Interesting article except the single biggest issue is that the model means no English Parliament – so which body would legislate for criminal law in England? It would not be appropriate for a reformed House of Commons to be responsible for English only legislation as well as reserved UK matters. My preference would be that England gets its own Parliament with similar powers to the Scottish Parliament and within that model, English cities and regions get enhanced powers.
John
You write from the heart and head.
My issue with this is we are not like the US. As the husband of a wife born and bred in America, I know the country. Who doesn’t know, that it is hardly like us with its definitely very staunch and vociferous sense of individual states wanting devolved autonomy.
The UK rejected regional assemblies for the purpose of putting off New Labour in its version of devolved autonomy.
There is a feeling for regions, based on counties, and councils sometimes do mirror this. But most feel British. Many feel Scottish, Welsh, Irish, yes, English.
We might get more traction, if we join the few in general, who believe in it, and for being a party for an English Parliament.
Comments by the way, for new pal, here, John Armah, not my regular one, Mr Marriot, John also!
I am broadly in agreement with what Mr Armah is advocating. I would disagree only on the House of Lords. We need a revising chamber when it comes to federal law. As in Germany, this greatly reduced body could be like the Bundesrat, whose members are nominated by the Länder, not directly elected and largely reflect the political balance in each state.
Brad Barrows’ solution involving an ‘English Parliament’ would still leave us with the problem of too much domestic power residing in the south east, with one extra election we do not need, as we would still need to vote for members of a Federal Parliament to deal with supra national affairs on behalf of the whole U.K.
HOWEVER, before we even consider such a plan, let us first complete the process in England of abolishing the remaining County and District Councils and replacing them with Unitary Councils while retaining Town/Parish Councils. That’s what local government looks like in the other three U.K. ‘nations’ and that’s the kind of ‘levelling up’ we desperately need.
AND…..how about grasping the nettle of the reform of local government finance?
What is ‘levelling up’?How do you level up to Sunaks Richmond(shire) seat in say Barnsley? It is a meaningless slogan.There is a City fund foe them to ‘level up’ is this new ‘leveling up for only enriching rural areas that usually are Conservative.What methodology has been used to decide. To level up does need funds to go to those who need it ,A revolution in directing funds is needed
Principal tools in the pursuit and maintenance of an equitable and, therefore, a more efficient society, are taxation and government investment.
Have these been included in the « levelling up »speech?
Sorry but I am just so sick and tired of Johnson’s waffle on any subject he deems will give him the most publicity at any given moment, it is not the most enlightened contribution to this thread but just had to get it off my chest!!
Spooked by LD’s success in recent by-election Boris is now saying that levelling up means spending everywhere but unless you recognise decades (hundreds of years?) of levelling down nations and regions in favour of London and the SE of England the policy is limited from the off.
@ Nigel Hunter,
You ask “What is ‘levelling up” ?
It need not be a meaningless slogan. We need to start off with the observation that in any common currency area such as the UK is with its pound, the EU is with its euro, the USA with its dollar that the natural money flow will tend to be towards the more prosperous regions and away from the poorer ones. So, in the UK this means primarily towards the SE of England, in the EU it means towards the Netherlands and the Western Parts of Germany, in the USA it means towards Washingon DC (not technically a State) , Maryland, New Jersey (reportedly the wealthiest States on a per capita basis) and California.
So levelling up, or fiscal equalisation, can be said to be the process, by central government, of pushing that money back out again to both prevent inflation in the wealthy regions and utilise otherwise unused capacity in the poorer ones. If we had more levelling up then the difference between house prices, and wages, in Barnsley and Richmond would be less than it currently is.
The UK and USA do already engage in levelling up/fiscal equalisation, but probably not to the extent that is necessary or politically desirable. However, the EU is far worse. The almost total lack of it in the EU, is probably their biggest problem to be solved.
@ John Amagh,
“We can abolish the Barnett formula that awards funding to the Nations and replace it with a system based on real purchasing power across the Nations and Regions.”
What is this “system based on real purchasing power”? You are proposing to abolish something which is well defined, albeit somewhat imperfect, with only the vaguest notion of something different.
There will always be a need for some kind of fiscal adjustment formula to spread out the money from the wealthy to the poorer regions which has to be the responsibility of a central government. Devolution to the regions won’t solve anything. The richer ones won’t want to hand over what they see as their money to the poorer ones.
This is precisely the problem we see in the EU which is effectively a single country but with nearly all power devolved to the individual national components. The Germans don’t see why they should subsidise the Greeks and Italians, but they need to do that for the common currency to work effectively. This needs a strong EU central government to quell German opposition.
@Barry Lofty
“Sorry but I am just so sick and tired of Johnson’s waffle on any subject he deems will give him the most publicity at any given moment, it is not the most enlightened contribution to this thread but just had to get it off my chest!!”
Likewise
And this sort of issue:https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-bullingdon-club-appointment-b1885184.html#comments-area
just makes it all worse.
Noncomformist. This is Johnsons idea of levelling up to his low standards of ‘quality’. Lord G cannot do anything until Johnson tells him.It is utter pathetic I agree.
As you say it is just a sound bite that means little. He has to put structure and detail onto the table to prove he means it
@George Thomas – PLEASE stop calling him Boris. This plays right into the whole strategy that has put him where he is: Boris, the lovable, eccentric, tousle-haired rogue, rather than Johnson, the lying, unprincipled, heartless, destructive Tory that has ripped us out of Europe and is destroying our public services and our society. The language we use matters. Let’s not collude with the Tory media in sustaining this populist myth that he’s not really a politician, just lovable old Boris.
Nonconformistradical@ The Independent article sums it up completely, glad you are in agreement.
“What is this “system based on real purchasing power”? You are proposing to abolish something which is well defined, albeit somewhat imperfect, with only the vaguest notion of something different.”
A fair point.
Wouldn’t we manage better if – at all levels of society, including governments, rather more time was spent on at least outlining how something could be done before suggesting it should be done?
Not saying do a whole feasibility study at such a stage but at least give some thought to it. It might avoid wasting a load of time and money on something which just isn’t feasible (I’m not saying that in this particular case the suggestion might not be feasible – I don’t know)
In response to Peter Martin , every Chancellor of every political party has suggested the Barnett formula needs to be revised. The idea of using real purchasing power is rather simple. While incomes might be higher in London and the South East, the cost of housing is very high. While people in the North East of England may have lower salaries, their relatively lower housing costs often means they have greater real purchasing power then their higher paid Southern neighbours. This would underpin how you redistribute central government funding , a true picture of relative incomes.
Isn’t ANYBODY worried about the state of local government in England? Have any of you ever experienced it as a councillor at any of its levels, as I and a few others have, in my case in a representative career of some thirty years? Don’t you really care when your services are cut or palmed off to the private sector. Well if you aren’t what chance has Joe Public?
Since its golden days of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was where politicians such as the Chamberlains and Clement Attlee to name just a few, cut their political teeth, English local government has largely become an emasculated rump, peopled with voting fodder, which must drive some of its more forward thinking officers to despair and treated like the hungry hounds in the baronial hall of old, with the odd scrap of meat tossed away from the top table for them to fight over.
Electing City or Regional Mayors is not the answer. Streamlining and simplifying the structure of local government is, as well as returning some of its powers usurped over decades by governments of all political hues.
Come on, you Westminster politicians, give local people a chance to make their own decisions and elect people with a genuine interest in their area and stop behaving like ‘helicopter parents’, hovering over your offspring for fear that they might get something wrong!
John Marriott @ ” Isn’t anybody worried about the state of local Government in England” You are very passionate about this subject of which you have much experience, there is far too much interference from central government in local affairs and local population’s seem to be treated with indifference, maybe some lessons to be learned from the Chesham and Amersham by election result??
@ John Armah, (apologies for the previous mispelling)
Sure, any formula will need constant revision but this isn’t at all the same thing as your “abolition”.
Many homes in the SE are owner occupied. Wages are generally higher so it’s not correct to say the standard of living in most of the country is comparable. There’s a continuous movement of population towards the SE which is only explicable if we accept there is an economic gradient.
Do you have any suggestions on how to avoid the EU problem of the richer regions not wanting to share ‘their’ money with the poorer ones?
It’s possibly before your time, but somehow the general rising prosperity that the rest of the UK was starting to enjoy in the 60s wasn’t being shared with Northern Ireland. The government there had been ‘devolved’ to Stormont since its creation in the 1920s. Unemployment rates, and especially in the Catholic and Nationalist communities were way too high. The resultant social discontent boiled over into a civil war which cost far more than it would have taken to prevent in the first place. It took a while, but the settlement when it came was only possible due to the intervention of a strong Westminster based central government.
This is not to say that devolution can’t work. It works reasonably well in Federally organised countries like the USA but there has to be a strong central government which has the ultimate authority. It’s the one that really controls policy decisions. We probably all know the name of the US president, for example, but how many will be able to name any of the Governors of the US States?
Lord Kerslake penned a piece on this a few months back Kerslake: Levelling up set to become ‘synonymous with pork barrel politics
“it is Whitehall which is “calling the shots on the money”. “It is the exact opposite the devolution.”
He believes that the government needs to appoint a cabinet-level minister leading on levelling up. At the moment, the brief falls onto MHCLG minister of state Luke Hall’s shoulders, with the ministry being the lead department. But Lord Kerslake believes ideally it should be the chancellor himself who has key responsibility, “mirroring the example” of former chancellor George Osborne and his Northern Powerhouse agenda.
His advice to Mr Sunak on achieving levelling up is to “think about what the long-game ambition is, and crucially, how do we get the different drivers of levelling up to work together – so transport works with skills, which works with innovation in a place”. “Finally, he needs to have a plan on how we’re going to devolve power.”
The Treasury has a “critical role” in “getting devolution right”, he said: “Rishi should see devolution as the means by which we will deliver levelling up.”
I agree with this article, it is what the Lib Dems have long believed in.
Worth looking at this comment from Dominic Cummings on the Troy fiasco https://scontent-lhr8-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/215870509_10159415366673162_2082745671245985773_n.jpg?_nc_cat=111&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=L_P90Z1KpGEAX9ucc9Z&tn=Jz9EY-disK_CbIPE&_nc_ht=scontent-lhr8-1.xx&oh=e0304ccf7e481a64b7e66de99abb7b67&oe=60F644B8
Isn’t levelling up a populist phrase for getting statistical data for red wall seats nearer to the data for London and the South East ? It’s about data (and votes), not the needs of individual people. Conservative trickle down theory will still apply, but Boris will be able to show how these seats have more money spent in them, hiding the fact that, like London, the gap between the rich and the poor will not have been narrowed. Thus, some places will have new companies and government offices, which will attract new people to live there who earn more, but do only a tiny amount for ordinary local people.
There is already more money going to help struggling town centres and that is good, but with no real change in power structures or long term reversal of the decline in local public services, will people’s quality of life really improve ?
Geoffrey Payne 16th Jul ’21 – 2:51pm:
Worth looking at this comment from Dominic Cummings on the Troy fiasco.
Letting that wooden horse in was never a good idea.
@Jeff
The ‘Troy fiasco’? Hopefully a slip, perhaps even Freudian. On the other hand, to continue the theme, where IS Johnson’s Achilles heel? And come to think of it, who is the Helen, who caused all the trouble? Did both her first and surnames begin with P? My message to all those Red Wall seats, as Virgil famously wrote; “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes”😀😀
PS For those of you lacking a classical education, how about “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts”. Mind you, you could also Google it, as I did!
We don’t need more devolution. This will simply dilute government. What we need is better government. A change in the whole approach of Westminster, from simply governing by passing laws that say “you can’t do this” to a logical menu tree plan of where UK is going, 1-5-10-20 years hence.
I have to say I really appreciate the EU Commission for this kind of forward planning and the EU Parliament for their positive contributions. Wish I could say the same for UK Commons and Lords who seem stuck in a past view not a future aim.
@Antony Watts
“We don’t need more devolution”. Oh yes we do! What do you mean by “better government”? For me that means better LOCAL government, which we will only get with MORE devolution. Bring it on!!
“…….better LOCAL government, which we will only get with MORE devolution.”
Maybe. It depends on whether local government gets the increased powers to go alongside the extra responsibility.
There are quite a few examples to point to a downside in too much devolution.
1) The Northern Ireland Govt from 1921 onwards.
Known as ‘Stormont’ from 1932. Not the greatest success. IMO.
2) Puerto Rico.
They can’t decide if they want to share a government with the USA or be fully independent. They have settled on, IMO, an even worse compromise option. Essentially they are a fully devolved part of the USA with supposedly “full fiscal autonomy”. This gives them the responsibility for their own affairs but they don’t have the tools to get themselves out of a hole. The USA creates the dollars they use – not them.
They’d be better to copy the example of Hawaii, and if the rest of the USA doesn’t want to allow that then become fully independent. But this has to be their decision.
3) Italy, Greece, Portugal, Ireland ……..
All the countries which aren’t doing too well in the EU. They are essentially devolved governments of the EU which have the responsibility to run their economies, but not the power to make things happen. The ECB, which is the de facto EU government, creates euros. Not them.