I wrote an opinion piece for LibDem Voice on 26th August arguing for devolution for the regions. My piece elicited a mixed response. The events of the last few days, in my opinion, have made this viewpoint more mainstream and catapulted this issue up the political agenda. We have a once in a lifetime chance to change the way we are governed in this country for the better and repair the damage done by scandal, expenses and the notion that we are governed by a small number of people from the same socio-economic background. We have an opportunity to re-invent a truly democratic model of governance at a national and local level.
The Labour party want to pass devolved power on to totally unelected quangos – Local Enterprise Partnerships. Who appoints the leaders of these partnerships? Isn’t this another case of a mini ‘House of Lords’ for each region where significant decisions are made by those appointed by the vested interests we should be challenging? Surely this is a recipe for gerrymandering and placemen and women.
The Conservatives really want an English parliament. They realise they have blown their credibility north of the border – that will not repair in my generation. An English parliament will cement a Conservative majority and dominance by London and the South East to the detriment of the other regions of England. This is why they want to run Scottish and English devolution in parallel – it is the quickest, simplest (and least fair) way of doing it. These Conservatives are not stupid – they sense a way of quickly cementing a near permanent majority and a domination of decision making for generations to come.
The Lib Dem proposals come closest to what is needed but, dare I say, are way too timid. They could lead to a patchwork approach to democracy across the country where opposite sides of the street are governed in different ways.
We don’t need extra tiers of governance – we need a total re-think of how we are governed, from parish/town council upwards. We need to be brave and bold. Hand in hand with this could go the abolition of an appointed House of Lords, electoral reform and a change to local governance that would be far-reaching and give each region the power to decide its own future.
My question is are the Lib Dems going to be bold enough and brave enough to be radical about this issue and propose the sort of reforms the nation is crying out for. I am convinced that if they are, they can take the electorate with them and create and lead the agenda on this. The electorate is sick and tired of decisions being made on our behalf by the small and exclusive Westminster and Whitehall ‘elite’. This is a once in a generation opportunity to give power back to the people and return this country to a truly democratic model of governance. Is the Liberal Democrat party up for this challenge?
* Wayne Chadburn is a member of the Liberal Democrats and Penistone Town Council
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23 Comments
” We don’t need extra tiers of governance – we need a total re-think of how we are governed, from parish/town council upwards ”
Really are you sure!!
If my memory serves me correctly the Liberal Democratic party were at the forefront of the campaign for a YES vote in the North East referendum in 2004, despite we now apparently learn they were fully aware that the North East Assembly would be nothing more than a toothless talking shop, and in no way equal in status or power to the devolved assemblies in Scotland and Wales.
The population of the North East were fully aware that it was nothing more than a giant con, yet the LibDems still full to the gunnels today of the senior people who were enthusiastic to impose that con on the people of the North East, are now coming out with the same discredited rubbish.
You have history on this matter, you cannot be trusted, it is in the public domain in black and white.Do not trust the Liberal Democrats on devolution for England, for they speak with forked tongue.
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/47275/Campaignanalysisreport_18896-13984__E__N__S__W__.pdf
The only solution that could be trusted is an English parliament outside London serving the whole of England apart from London which already has de factor devolution of its own in a federal system, and it should be somewhere like York completely seperate from British Westminster stuffed with celtic apologists,. A warning should also be posted in 10 foot letters that any input from Labour and the LibDems who were prepared to sell the North East down the river, should be only touched with the largest barge pole available.
When the English Parliament has jurisdiction over matters English, they can then decide to migrate power down to smaller authorities, decided by politicians who alone have the best interests of the English at heart.
I assume from the title of this piece and its focus on democratic empowerment you’re proposing a UK federalism referendum? If so, do you envisage a Scottish styled debate? What makes you think your argument would win such a vote? Obviously, if that’s not what you’re inferring the article would be a nonsense, because it’d be about forcing democratic and systematic change on people (which is exactly what Alex Salmond is proposing today!).
It’s as if you’re deliberately avoiding talking about the practical realities of what your proposing, and I don’t understand why. I’m not against what you’re saying in principle, but if I had to go to a ballot box on the strength of this article, I’d probably choose the safer “status quo” option because there’s so little hard facts presented. With such bold and deep reaching changes we would need a more detailed explanation of how we might go about it.
May I add:
We already have a hotchpotch of areas,where there are county councils, and areas, where there are only unitary authorities. To add another hotchpotch, i.e. of council with varying degrees of devolved powers, is undesirable.
Especially with cuts in staffing numbers in recent years, it is debatable as to whether the smaller unitary authorities have necessary range of skills to take on more powers.
With people commuting over ever increasing distances and generally being more mobile, the need for forums to deal effectively with regional matters is increasing.
Actually, yes, we do need a rethink of government from parish council upwards. Having looked into it more, local government in England is a mess. The unitary authority is the exception not the rule, so you end up with situation where responsibilities that depend on eachother are split between different county and district councils, creating jobs for placeholders and party line people but creating confusion, inefficiency and delivering no real quality.
We should restructure local government onto the unitary authority model and transfer some responsibility for local budgets down to that level. That reduces job role duplication and the proliferation of powerless politicians and brings some accountability down to peoples’ communities where they have a hope of influencing decisions as individuals.
For England as a whole, the regional assemblies solution is the best. Raddiy is being (deliberately?) obtuse when he argues that the talking shop of 2004 is what Lib Dems want or wanted. The fact is that in 2004, the Welsh Assembly was also a powerless talking shop and the Scottish Parliament had far fewer powers, but that subsequently more responsibility has been passed out to them with Lib Dem support. That was the intention with the North East, set it up now, empower it when we can. Empowered assemblies bringing accountability out from Westminster is what we’d want for the regions now.
However, stopped clocks two times a day, it is correct to observe that there is no real groundswell of support for the idea. The solution most likely to succeed now while still being any good at all is to beef up the London and Welsh Assemblies to the same level that the Scottish Parliament ends up at, and then create an English Parliament that would have the same responsibilities as them. West Lothian Question answered, Tory dominance in England irrelevant to Westminster politics as devolved matters are devolved in each constituent part of the UK and have nothing to do with Westminster anymore. And assuming the English Parliament follows the trend and is constituted in the same way as the London, Wales and Scottish devolved bodies, single-party dominance will be unlikely without a serious landslide victory anyway.
An English Parliament wouldn’t really achieve much on the locally accountable government front, but there’s no reason why it needs to be the end of the road for reform. English regions could end up being granted equal status outside England within the UK, if they get a democratic mandate for it, Cornwall maybe, Yorkshire an outside chance. More if the English Parliament fails to deliver better governance than Westminster.
I would be happy to see the whole London And The South East thing hived off into a greater Greater London, with a UK-wide funding solution that then more reliably links spending in England to the spending in the South East – at the moment, Barnett makes sure that Scotland and Wales get topped up to reflect spending in ‘England’, but in actuality almost all of that ‘England’ spending lands in London and its commuter belt in the southeast. But any solution absolutely must separate London and England out at least in that statistical sense so that the whole country can benefit from government infrastructure projects and suchlike. Perhaps if the infrastructure were less inadequate outside of London and the South East, the regional hubs would have better luck in attracting private spending and then be able to generate sustained economic revival.
There is no better time than now to push for regional English devolution. A number of facts seem blindingly obvious to me:
1) A single English Parliament would be mere duplication of the Commons. England is 85% of the UK. That would be an absurd tier of government to add, whether as a separate parliament or a subset of Commons MPs with a nightmare of different classes of MPs.
2) An English Parliament would still be too remote for the diverse corners of the country.
3) Any parliaments with significant tax and spend powers needs to be large enough in electorate to have enough clout to make sensible use of those powers. With the exception of Yorkshire perhaps, the counties of England are too small, but the current “EU regions” are of a similar size to Scotland which, self-evidently, has turned out to be a reasonably satisfactory approach for Scots.
4) There are those people who claim that “dividing up England” somehow “destroys its identity”. This is narrow nationalism at its worst. Such people need to learn the difference between a nation and a set administrative divisions. England is a diverse country – as are most countries all but the smallest. England will still be England whether it has no parliament, one parliament or 8-10 different regional parliaments.
5) People don’t want more politicians. The answer to that is not to add more tiers of government but to have different tiers of politicians. Surely it is self-evident that the best and easiest solution to that, to accompany regional devolution. is to eliminate the county councils as administrative units and create all unitary authorities. In, for example, the six counties of Eastern England, that would eliminate over 300 county councillors to be replaced by a parliament with perhaps 125 members (similar in design to the Scottish Parliament).
6) Anyone trying to sell the idea of regional devolution needs to take (5) into account right from the outset or they will be doomed to failure by those clamouring for fewer politicians.
7) The over-arching principle must be that all citizens are equal. Whatever the borders of the regions may be, it must be the case that every citizen of the UK gets a devolved parliament. We can’t have some regions (or nations such as Scotland) or large cities having devolved powers whilst other parts of the country – perhaps rural counties – do not. It would follow from such a scenario that MPs from areas such as Greater Manchester or London, were they to get increased devolution, would be voting on affairs that do no affect their constituency but would affect the lives of people in rural areas which had not been offered any form of regional devolution. That is simply a transfer of the West Lothian Question from Scottish MPs to a subset of English MPs, which is even more of nightmare scenario.
@ Raddiy
You need to broaden your reading mate. Have a look at this: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmodpm/62/62.pdf
Strengthen county councils. The following have been run at county level over the years
1.Police.
2. Education.
3. County council roads( in 1960s motorways were designed by CC), waste, quarries
4. County courts.
5. County regiments
6. Commerce- often in county towns
7. Cricket.
8. Many sports have county teams
9. Dioceses of cathedrals are roughly county based.
10. River boards used to run water and sewerage treatment until 1974.
Counties date back to mid Saxon times and many people are till loyal to them. Many district councils are too small to have specialised expertise which causes failure in planning but county councils are large enough often to have at least one expert.
Beef up county councils and if they need additional expertise ( say flood engineers- chartered civil engineers) or archaeologists. Let local people decide where boundaries should exist. The changes to boundaries which started post WW2 and especially under Heath destroyed local accountability. If it takes more than half an hour to travel to a meeting ,it is very difficult to attend and stops councilors and civil servants being held to account.
Good government requires highly competent people of good character to be in the vast majority and if they are not present in sufficient numbers, then structure is irrelevant .
I think Wayne suggestions are in te right direction but to get there we need to strenghen the Localism Act n terms of trigger referendums .We should not impose but enable the electorate to shape the right type of governance that best suits their state ,region , county or district .We shouldnt let the Tories or UKIP bounce parliament into english nationalism but agree with Nick Clegg constitutional reform i well overdue.
A good contribution to the debate is Tomothy Garton Ash’s piece dated 21 September, probably in today’s Guardian.
Your thinking on all these constitutional issues is admirable. But who is actually listening to the Lib Dems anymore.? Your first, and more immediate task is to come to terms with the fact that the Coalition ended at 7am last Friday the 19th Sept. I sense a few LD’s have grasped it, but be assured, by mid October it [the end of Coalition ], will be in no doubt.
What Michael Kilpatrick says.
I’ve always been a sceptical devolver. It seems we as a party have sometimes been too quick to support regional or national assemblies for their own sake. The question is how to devolve power without increasing the cost and complexity of the whole. That to me is the litmus test. It seems that just adding regional assemblies onto what we have is surely a non-starter. But if regional assemblies REPLACE a layer (and county-wide seems to be the right layer to go with) that’s a different kettle of fish. And intuitively the Euro constituencies seems like the right size. We have one regional assembly already – London, so there’s a template already.
Then everyone in the UK would have their local borough, a regional assembly (or national for Wales & Scotland) and the UK parliament.
It is unfortunate but I would suggest that the only body which will have the democratic credentials to create valid regions within England allowed to have real powers would have to consist of English MPs alone. 🙁 My only hope is that such a body could vote itself out of existence asap though the example of the Lib Dems’ own ‘English Party ‘ does not give one too much hope on this one.
It is all very well for politicians of the three established parties to waffle on about constitutional conventions and grand committees. I doubt very much whether the people of England are going to allow them to settle these issues at their own pace.
Alistair Darling yesterday told Mr Marr that:
“The agreement reached by the three parties, as far as I am concerned, is non-negotiable. It was promised, it has got to be delivered. Anyone who welches on that will pay a very heavy price for years to come. It is simply non-negotiable.”
Does anyone outside of possibly ‘The Quad’ plus Darling and Brown (and possibly Ed Miliband?) have a clue about precisely what was promised and with what authority or mandate? Is Britain these days run by a three-headed presidency ? – in which case, Farage’s crew are going to have a field day well-beyond Clacton. If so, wouldn’t it have been nice of someone (possibly Mr Putin or Mr Obama?) to tell the people of the UK?
Even the three headed Camilcleg does not appear to agree with itself about what it might have agreed and how this links or doesn’t with (a) the West Lothian Question (b) the Barnett Formula and (c) genuine English devolution (which I would suggest neither Tories nor Labour really want). ‘Linkage’ or ‘parallel development’ are very different concepts.
England’s present very limited City Regions are arguably nearly all currently deliberately artificially-small and not regions at all. Tories and Blairites are both centralising control freaks at heart who want to use this current panic to foist ‘Elected Mayors’ on the current city regions with little extra powers and to pretend that is devolution. This is not a plate which we should find at all palatable.
@Michael Kilpatrick 22nd Sep ’14 – 11:17am
Some good thoughts. I’ll re-read and think further.
“Any parliaments with significant tax and spend powers needs to be large enough in electorate to have enough clout to make sensible use of those powers. With the exception of Yorkshire perhaps, the counties of England are too small…”
Lancashire, on ancient boundaries including Manchester and Liverpool, would be big too. A region of that form includes two major cities with differing perspectives, to counter city-state notions which might be encouraged if unitary authorities were extended (in geography or powers). I don’t know how people in Blackpool, Lancaster or Preston might think.
In another thread, somebody questioned how regional powers might work in the south east of England. London is too big to be merged into a greater region; depending on the size of the greater region, London would swallow it up or be swamped by it. In terms of planning and housing, London creates huge distortions and stresses.
London and south east of England power distribution would have to be different; they’d need their own settlements to make decisions between themselves. But everywhere else has similar challenges (eg Leeds versus Bradford versus Manchester).
Distributing power to regions is not like organising a series of Penguin books. Some will have taller spines than others, and all of the jackets will display different colours.
Julian Tisi
A major reason why local democracy fails is that people with responsible jobs do not have the time to be councilors. When Heath merged many town councils into metropolitan councils many people who had experience did not have the time to spend more than half an hour travelling to meetings. A highly experienced foremen and /or engineer can can look at proposed development and know within minutes whether the plans are practical while 10 useless councilors can waffle on for hours and still not perceive the problems in a proposed plan. If councilors include good architects, foremen, engineers and surveyors , they know the local firms and which are good , average or poor. Some firms can be good at certain projects but if they operate outside their expertise , they can cause problems.
Many of the problems of RDAs were that they just employed ex – council officials and built unnecessary buildings.
When Buckingham and Kent are located within the SEEDA area, then travelling from rural east Kent to North Buckingham takes too long for meaningful consultation.
Communication routes centre on county towns and large cities: therefore travelling across regions can take hours. The great development in 19C local government occurred because many of the councilors were people who gave the World the Industrial revolution. Many councilors and officials cannot understand a plan , let alone appreciate the problems in accurately assessing the specification, supervising construction and making sure the structure is delivered on time and with minimal snags. The Scottish Parliament and the Rotherham paedophile scandal shows what happens when any form of government lacks people with the competence and character.
@Julian Tisi 22nd Sep ’14 – 1:15pm
“But if regional assemblies REPLACE a layer (and county-wide seems to be the right layer to go with) that’s a different kettle of fish.”
I’d ask who is being replaced, too. Quangos and health trusts and development agencies all have to go into the pot for disassembly.
I’d ask more questions about the role of assembly member. Is this a two day a week job, on basic expenses, away from another job? Is this a super-social-worker role? How much money will be available for back office assistance? All three questions are pertinent to public and political perceptions.
What we need is to get moving while the inevitable opposition is still confused & unsure of itself. We dont need to re-invent the wheel right now. The idea of encouraging existing Local Councils to Co-operate across Political & Geographical boundaries to demand Power from Westminster seems to me the quickest way to get this Movement off the ground.
In the comments on Wayne’s earlier post (linked at the top of this article) David Allen said:
“This is an idea whose time has come. When the Scottish Yes campaign has been narrowly defeated despite moral victory, the Tories and Labour will sneakily pull all their devo-max promises back off the table. Then the SNP will loudly cry foul, and vow to carry on their Home Rule campaign until they can win at the second attempt. Then people like Farage, the English Democrats and the Tory Right will jump up, and shout that it is high time we heard from the English for a change, and that we should demand an English Parliament.”
Take a bow David. Pretty well spot on I would say.
During the current so-called austerity, Local Councils have actually cut costs unlike central government.
Although the cuts were indirectly forced on Councils by the government, Councils do seem to have been better able and better motivated to make cuts than politicians at Westminster.
@paul barker 22nd Sep ’14 – 4:56pm
“What we need is to get moving while the inevitable opposition is still confused & unsure of itself.”
Whaddya mean, like? Get going because the opposition are confused and unsure? Unlike, say, LibDems?
@David Evershed 22nd Sep ’14 – 7:20pm
“Although the cuts were indirectly forced on Councils by the government, Councils do seem to have been better able and better motivated to make cuts than politicians at Westminster.”
Council workers, officers and members are close to where services are provided. It is their role to determine whether a change in service provision means “cut” or “efficiency”. Consequently, they are more likely to make the best decision overall.
So if we seek greater efficiency (measured on caring rather than cash values), we would spread power from Westminster (or from an English Chamber). Local people make good decisions. We do not have a clue what regional people think and UK government hasn’t trusted them to make meaningful decisions. We have to try and make mistakes and not be embarrassed (I’m not asking much).
Phil Beesley
I have spoken to a LA engineer who could not understand thermal expansion of steel, this is week 1 ,A Level physics and he admitted he did not understand the physics. This engineer also did not understand latest contract law , such as using NEC3, which has been supported by the Cabinet Office since 2005: the consequence was the contractor took the council for a ride.
A major reason why outsourcing fails is that councils lack the staff who understand and can solve the problems: consequently the contract written keeps all the responsibility with the council.
I have dealt with councilors whose reading is so poor that they take a very long time to read a page of A4. I would suggest that the poorest members of society often within the inner cities have the poorest council officials and councilors. Where there are plenty of retired active professional people who take an interest in local affairs , then the council is often better run. When a local person is a retired chartered engineer who has been involved in construction projects worth £100ms or even £Bs, they are better than the local officials. When retired people include ex-military who have worked undercover in N Ireland and been involved in anti-terrorist work , they are more skilled than the local police. Successful people rarely live in poor areas!
Michael Kilpatrick makes the most sensible and important points here. An English Parliament would not devolve power . Then unless we go for a system which devolves power fairly across the whole country and not just to a few big urban areas, we shall not have an improved democracy. This suggests to me the forming of unitary authorities, which can vary in size according to local circumstances, taking account of historical community links; we should avoid the bureaucrats idea that every area should be done according to a uniform arithmetic and take account of local feelings.
I agree also with those who say we do not want more politicians ( the number of volunteers is declining anyway) nor do we want more tiers. However, we should be more radical in applying the principle from the EU down to parish and town councils, that decisions should be made at the lowest possible level, bearing in mind the advantages when decisions are made either cooperatively between levels or in some cases at a higher level. As a district councillor I feel the frustrations constantly of people who assume that I can immediately deal with issues which are the remit of the County councillor; often the County is too remote.
We need to first sort out the basic principles for devolving power and then work out the details; this matter needs an urgent start and we as a party need to be heard loud and clear, but it should not be so rushed that we make a mess of it.
Nigel Jones
Can you define which powers should be at district and which at county. Also define technical skills required of officers. The sooner the details are discussed , the sooner the problems can be identified. There is a shortage of technical skills and we need to define them , which level of government and at which location. An example would be flooding : do we have enough chartered civil engineers who can design flood mitigation measures and of those we have where are they located?
When it comes to planning the skills required are numerous. Do district councils have all the skills and if not where are they deficient? Archaeology is increasingly becoming important: where there are brownfield sites where the top 1- to 1.5m has been disturbed it is relatively minor but a road in Wiltshire may require extensive work. Contaminated land expertise is important in former industrial areas but far less so in rural areas.
We need to define skills required at the following levels
1. District
2. County
3. Urban areas
4. Rural areas
5. Define skills needed according to location.
6. Define historical loyalties and connections.
Some districts or councils may act independently, others work together and share certain skills. A council such as Wiltshire due to archaeology may become lead for archaeology for all councils. Cleveland because of heavy industry may become lea d council for contaminated land.
The original laws for England came about when Aethelbert, King Of Kent discussed with his people and combined Saxon Law with the first five books of The Old Testament and The Gospels in 650 AD. Sine of Wessex in 700 AD, Offa of Mercia in 750AD and Alfred in 870 AD all carried out the drafting of new laws combining Saxon Law with that of the Bible. If people can come together 1364 years ago and decide how their country is to be governed , then we can do it today. In 1100 , William I respected The Laws of Edward the Confessor. Henry 1 issued The Charter of Liberties which was in part to restore the Laws of Edward the Confessor. By the time of Magna Carta in 1215, The English had been drafting laws under which they agreed to be ruled, for over 500 years before Magna Carta .
Any changes must not increase the number of politicians, state employees, annual cost, increase in buildings or time it take for people to travel to see their elected representative. Changes must increase responsibility of politicians and state employees and make them accountable for failures. Changes must create a governing class. All constituencies for Parliament t must include equal numbers of people.
If People Power is to mean anything , then the people are sovereign and the politicians and and state employees are subordinate to the will of the people. The failures of Rotherham and Scottish Parliament shows politicians and state employees want rank , reward BUT NOT RESPONSIBILITY.