Category: Devolution

IS DEVOLUTION DRIVE SLOWING TO A STANDSTILL?

 

 

BACK IN YOUR BOX!

The government’s commitment to devolving power to the North was the subject of sharp disagreement amongst top speakers during the first week of the International Festival of Business in Liverpool.

Lord Heseltine said it was a casualty of Brexit and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said he felt the government was putting him “back in the box”. However, the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands begged to differ. Andy Street told the audience of business people, he didn’t feel that he is being put back in any sort of box and, with the help of the private sector, the Midlands Engine was roaring with 12,000 housing starts and half a billion from the government to clear brownfield sites.

These exchanges came on a day when the Festival had lined up an impressive range of guests to discuss urban policy. Five English mayors joined forces to renew their call to demand greater devolution of powers particularly concerning apprenticeship funds.

The government’s Apprenticeship Levy Scheme is intended to fund new apprenticeships through a levy of 0.5% on the wage bill of large employers. It raises £3bn a year and is meant to pay for apprenticeships. However, over a billion is languishing in Treasury coffers according to Andy Burnham and the most recent figures show apprenticeships dropping!

The main challenge for these mayors is economic improvement, so what have they achieved in their first year. They are often dealing with strategic issues that don’t yield instant results. For instance, Steve Rotheram (Liverpool City Region) said his priorities were ultrafast broadband and the green energy coast around Liverpool Bay. Andy Burnham (Greater Manchester) saw the need for quick “retail” wins like a free bus pass for 16-18-year olds.

There are to be new regional industrial strategies for Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, but not elsewhere apparently. This is evidence of the piecemeal approach being adopted by the government and whilst Sir Howard Bernstein continued to criticise the Regional Development Agency structure at the Downtown Festival conference, the fact remains that it had the advantage of being coherent across the country.

MALE AND PALE.

All English city region mayors are male, and, except for London’s Sadiq Khan who attended the Festival this week, they are all white. So, theatre director Jude Kelly returned to the city of her birth to decry this state of affairs. She uttered a profound truth about the regeneration and devolution debate, that it seems to almost exclusively interest blokes. That is so correct. I attend far more conferences on this subject than is good for me and the absence of woman, and even more, the ethnic communities is so striking.

Kelly said this would only change through education and the use of female role models to inspire young women to take an interest in engineering, regeneration and devolution.

Andy Burnham opined that at least the mayoral model was rid of the petty point scoring of Westminster which he was happy to leave behind.

No time was given by the moderator for the audience to ask any questions, which was unfortunate. I would have asked if the Labour or Conservative Party would consider all women shortlists for the next round of contests in 2020.

There was evidence of international interest in the Festival, particularly from China. It has two more weeks to run which is shorter than previous Festivals, but I picked up a feeling that the next one could be consolidated into one intensive week of high quality events. That said, congratulations are due to Max Steinberg and his team for bringing the world of business to Liverpool.

 

DEVOLUTION FRUSTRATIONS.

 

THE CITY REGIONS.

Whether it’s the power to direct the skills agenda that would best benefit northern business or yet another report recommending northern rail between Manchester and Leeds (HS3), there a feeling abroad that devolution is a half-hearted business as far as the government is concerned.

That feeling emerged from two excellent Downtown in Business events that I attended this week, along with another one in Manchester looking forward to next week’s MIPIM gathering in Cannes and the sub regional mayor’s forthcoming crucial spatial strategy.

First up was the event with the two sub regional mayors. Andy Burnham has several frustrations. The Greater Manchester mayor believes the English regions are being ignored by the government in the Brexit talks. He wants HS2 and HS3 built at the same time but is dealing with organisations like Highways England and Network Rail that are not accountable locally.

Finally, Burnham thinks the Department for Education are as much use as a chocolate teapot when it comes to the skills agenda.

Steve Rotheram, mayor of the Liverpool City Region, shared the Downtown platform with Burnham and shares his frustration over the skills agenda. Both men want a clear pathway for youngsters who choose not to go to university, to access the vocational training that will lead to good jobs without student debt round their necks.

Burnham claimed that the lack of skills meant £40,000 computer coding jobs were going unfilled in Manchester but youngsters in Oldham and Rochdale weren.t being given the vision to apply for them.

The route to university is clear but the vocational path is not, and the Department for Education is to blame, according to the mayors because they are not in touch with local needs.

And in case Whitehall believes this is a Labour winge, apparently Tory West Midlands mayor Andy Street is equally critical.

The mayors should be given control of post 16 education.

LANCASHIRE.

At least Manchester and Liverpool have devolution deals, the already chaotic picture in Lancashire went from bad to worse this week when Pendle announced it wanted to break away from Lancashire and the Northern Powerhouse Minister, Jake Berry, opined that it would be a good idea.

Geoff Driver, the Conservative leader of Lancashire, was not amused. It is a distraction from his efforts to try to get the county to unite around a devolution proposal that would be lead by whoever was leader of Lancashire County Council. Driver told the Downtown lunch that it had to be that way. The county’s budget was £750m compared to a district council like South Ribble that was administering £13m.

His economic case is sound, but I fear that the districts will not agree to county leadership in this form. It might work if there was a leader of the Lancashire Combined Authority that could be from anywhere presiding over a Cabinet that was weighted to reflect the heft of the county council.

WARRINGTON AND CHESHIRE.

This is another area unlikely to agree a devolution deal. Meanwhile Warrington itself goes from strength to strength. It is determined not to be overwhelmed by its proximity to the Manchester and Liverpool sub regions.

Business networking that is commonplace in the cities, has been piecemeal in Warrington….till now. Let’s welcome The Business Exchange by Warrington&Co which will see events and get togethers with the lively group of entrepreneurs in the town

MIPIM.

Perhaps Warrington will soon be represented at MIPIM, the world’s property market, which meets in Cannes next week. Downtown hosted a preview of the event in Manchester which has had a presence at the resort for years. Simon Bedford of Deloitte and Tom Higgins of Laing O’ Rourke said the key value of MIPIM was that people there had time to network with each other and while final deals weren’t necessarily done, the initial approaches were certainly made on millions of pounds of property deals.

The panellists also gave their observations on the Greater Manchester economy that they said was buoyant despite Brexit doubts. Tom Higgins suggested that the London market had become saturated and investors were keen to put their money into the city centre. It was agreed that if families were going to be attracted to town centre living, councils would have a big part o play in providing schools and health centres.

Homes would need to be affordable, but land values were shooting up. Would home buyers benefit from streamlined off site house building methods? We’ll see.

There was recognition that the picture outside the city centre was more stressed with high streets suffering from the retail crisis brought on by on-line shopping.

Andy Burnham’s spatial strategy, expected shortly, would need to address the needs of Bolton, Rochdale, Stockport etc.

So, the current comment on devolution and the Northern Powerhouse is that progress is patchy.

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CHIEF SECRETARY TRUSS ONE TO WATCH

 

TRUSS GETS THE DOWNTOWN MESSAGE.

My 40 years of covering ministerial visits to the North have left me a bit jaded. They are billed as opportunities for ministers to get out of the Westminster bubble and hear what “real people” are saying. One of two things then happen. Eager ministerial aides pack the programme with too many events so nobody has a satisfactory dialogue, or the dreaded call to Return to The Bubble comes and the event is cancelled or curtailed at the last minute.

This nearly happened this week when regional Conservatives, led by Knowsley businessman Tony Caldera, had set up an excellent visit to Merseyside by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liz Truss. Luckily a call to return for a three-line whip didn’t materialise and Downtown was able to host a gathering of the leaders of the business community on Merseyside with a powerful Treasury Minister. Liz Truss has had a colourful career which perhaps contributed to the relaxed and frank way she handled questions at the Downtown event. At the end of the day the Treasury calls the shots and an hour with the Chief Secretary in listening and delivering mode was very useful.

The main message from Merseyside business was that the region was on the up. The local economy had grown by £30bn since 2010. Max Steinberg, chair of this year’s International Festival of Business, was in particularly upbeat mood. As he thrust festival publicity leaflets towards Ms Truss he announced that 13,000 delegates had already signed up for the event.

Mark Basnett told the meeting that the Local Enterprise Partnership had just received a further tranche of money this very week. Phil Redmond (Merseyfilm) was told by the Minister that she had been a fan of Grange Hill, before he stressed the need to refocus on the importance of the cultural economy ten years after Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture. Bringing Channel Four to Liverpool would help.

This week has seen Town Halls announcing big increases in council tax and the minister was pressed on this. Liz Truss believed the future lay in council’s funding themselves locally. A time when central government grant disappears isn’t far away.

The Minister had come armed with statistics showing the growth of the Mersey docks with most exports going to Europe. This provoked a flurry of questions on Brexit. Mark Povall from Liverpool Airport wanted reassurance on the very basic issue of whether the current freedom of the skies arrangements would continue with Europe. Airlines were having to plan for 2019.The Chief Secretary didn’t directly address the issue but said £3bn had been put aside for Brexit preparations.

Perhaps most interesting was the Minister’s observation about connectivity. We have just had yet another plan from Transport for the North (TfN) about what we want. She urged us to concentrate on intracity projects rather than the entire HS3. The thinking appears to be that the Treasury will back projects where there is intensive use (Liverpool-Manchester, Leeds-Manchester) but fast journeys across the whole North might not get the funding.

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BOTH SIDES SHOULD STOP THE EURO TRASH TALK

 

IDEAS FOR THE NORTH AFTER BREXIT.

 

It’s a shame that SAS (Strong and Stable) Theresa May and Jean Claude Juncker can’t stop the trash talking ahead of their Brexit fight. They should learn from the dignified approach of boxers Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko who avoided throwing chairs or making lurid threats against each other but delivered a huge success.

The UK government and the EU officials are as bad as each other. Mrs May’s ministers are adopting an arrogant and ignorant approach to the Brexit talks. But talk of bills escalating now to £100 bn from the European side can only serve to turn public opinion in Britain from a 52/48 divide to 60/40 for Leave. Very depressing.

If we do eventually leave, many questions about the future of the North will need to be answered. Among them are what is going to happen when we lose EU regional development funding and agricultural subsidies?

Common Futures Network (CFN) has been peering into the post Brexit world. It is an independent forum of economists, planners, housing experts, engineers and development interests.

In a report out this weekend they note that while Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have developed national frameworks, there is no equivalent for England. The report is right to say that the need to address the “English question” was demonstrated by the sharp divisions shown up last June between towns and big cities and the North and London. The destruction of the Regional Development Agencies and their replacement by hardly visible Local Enterprise Partnerships was exactly the wrong thing to do in my opinion.

The CFN report calls for a new regional development fund to replace the EU structural fund and for a comprehensive deal for England’s regions, in addition to its cities and city-regions. This is the right approach. This weekend newly elected city region mayors are starting their work in Merseyside and Greater Manchester. We must wait to see what they achieve and meanwhile turn our attention to the areas of the North outside these conurbations. The CFN report calls for a comprehensive rural programme, a need to identify new development areas to accommodate a population growth of 9 million by 2040 and a drive to manage the growth of the London megaregion.

Let’s hope the government has time to address these issues whilst it is arm wrestling Mr Juncker after the election.

CANDIDATES SLOTTING INTO PLACE.

Nominations close next week for the General Election and the parties have been rushing to choose candidates. Ironically it has been the Conservatives who’ve had most to do because their constituency chairs believed SAS Theresa May when she said there would be no election until 2020. Opposition parties feared she was fibbing and mostly selected candidates last autumn.

This week has seen Esther McVey become the candidate for Tatton. The constituency never fails to have a high-profile MP. Since Neil Hamilton was kicked out twenty years ago, he’s been followed by Martin Bell, George Osborne and now McVey. How her scouse vowels will go down in the leafy lanes of Knutsford remains to be seen.

 Wirral West has made an excellent choice in Knowsley businessman Tony Caldeira who will have no rest from the campaign trail after running for Liverpool City Region Mayor.

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