Category: Devolution

ON ILKLEY MOOR BAR DEVO BILL.

 

Jim McMahon, the new Labour MP for Oldham West is right to express his “deep unease” about the Northern Powerhouse. However it is the only game in town right now and just over the Pennines from his town the pressure is on Leeds City Region to get a similar deal to Greater Manchester’s.

Last week a conference in Leeds frankly discussed the difficulties involved. The background is that there are broadly two rival views on the way forward for Yorkshire. One believes that the county has a brand to die for and needs a single area covering West, North and East Yorkshire. Sheffield and South Yorkshire already have a deal. The other vision is for a Leeds City Region which includes Harrogate, Craven, York and Selby. The argument here is that the North’s best hope is in harnessing the energy of its cities whilst the more rural areas take a slower path to devolution.

Tom Riordan, the able Chief Executive of Leeds City Council is in no doubt he needs the power and resources devolution can bring. The city is without a tram system or adequate flood defences for instance. He is not obsessed with rivalry with Manchester pointing to major differences between the two cities. Leeds is five times as large geographically with large communities nearby like Bradford and Huddersfield. He thinks press reports of infighting are exaggerated but acknowledges there is a problem with the government’s insistence on an elected mayor. The concept was rejected for the City of Leeds three years ago and it is an arguable point whether Chancellor George Osborne can say he has a General Election mandate to insist that his mayoral model covers a wider geographical area.

Riordan insists he is not anti the Yorkshire concept pointing to the county wide cooperation that brought the Tour de France to the county with such brilliant success but the city versus county argument remains fierce. Peter Box, the chair of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority thinks the county has four distinct economies and with South Yorkshire having already gone its own way, the Greater Yorkshire model is flawed. This is contested by Lord Haskins, the former boss of Northern Foods and now chair of the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership. He is a firm believer that the Yorkshire brand has worldwide recognition and should have governance structures to match to promote the county particularly for business in Europe.

While the rest of the county struggles to get its act together it is interesting to look at what is happening in Sheffield. Events there may portend issues that may arise in the Liverpool City and Greater Manchester regions as elections approach for an elected mayor next year. A row has broken out over whether the elected mayor for the whole city region has a veto over all matters within the city itself.

It is also worthy of note that each of these devolution deals is different. Sheffield’s City Region mayor has not been combined with the Police and Crime Commissioner nor could they get vital powers over 16 to 18 year old skills powers. This is why MP Jim McMahon is deeply uneasy about the devolution project which lacks a national framework and coherence.

 

2015: TORY TRIUMPH,TERROR AND REFUGEES

 

 The year has been book ended by acts of terror that reminded us that however much progress we make in computerisation, medical research or space travel, mankind’s capacity for violence is still there. The murderous Parisian attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo came in January, the one on the Bataclan Theatre in November. In between the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees tested the European Union to its limits. Linking the terror and the refugees was the widening war in Syria. It led to a decision that the UK should bomb Daesh with as yet unknown consequences for British politics.

What we do know is that in all likelihood 2015 saw the establishment of Conservative government in Britain until 2025. The run up to the contest in may was marked by squabbles over the TV debates and a skillful March budget by George Osborne where he determined that the Tories would fight the election on their Long Term Economic Plan. It was effective in reminding voters of the recovery that had taken place already and casting doubt on their Labour opponent’s economic competence. Ed Miliband made little headway with his plans for a mansion tax and freezing energy bills. However the Tories believed until the close of poll on May 7th that they had not done enough to win a majority. They were helped over the line by the surge in support for the Scottish Nationalists. The prospect of Ed Miliband and Alex Salmond running the country drove wavering voters into the Tory camp.

General Elections are always a time when the old guard hand on to new faces so 2015 saw northern legends like Jack Straw, David Blunkett and William Hague leave the Commons along with lesser lights like Grimsby’s Austin Mitchell and Salford’s Hazel Blears. The Class of ’15 will take time to build their reputations but quick out of the blocks has been left winger Cat Smith in Lancaster and William Wragg, the new Tory MP for Hazel Grove.

The year has also seen the final passing of two of the twentieth century’s leading Chancellors, Denis Healey and Geoffrey Howe. A miserable year for the Liberal Democrats was compounded by the death of their former leader Charles Kennedy.

General Election victory led to Tory hubris in the summer with plans for new laws curbing the unions, extra surveillance powers and cuts to tax credits. On the latter measure, by the autumn the Prime Minister was reminded that although he had a majority, it was only a slim one.

The most surprising consequence of the General Election was the victory of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, the most unlikely holder of the post since the 1920s. A combination of reckless decisions by some MPs in nominating him was followed by a surge of support motivated by years of frustration at the approach of New Labour. The Oldham by-election has entrenched Corbyn’s leadership with most of the parliamentary party in frustrated murmuring revolt.

It has been a bad year for the European Union. The long drawn out crisis over Greek debt followed by the divisions over the refugee migration may help turn Brits against the EU in such numbers that we vote to leave.

Devolution has moved on erratically across the North this year with deals being struck in Sheffield and Liverpool but Leeds and Lancashire still mired in disputes with North Yorkshire and Wyre Councils before packages can be agreed. Tony Lloyd was installed as interim elected mayor of Greater Manchester and as the year ended it looked as if Joe Anderson would head up the Liverpool City Region in succession to Phil Davies of Wirral.

But for devolution and the Northern Powerhouse to mean anything to ordinary people, it has to achieve things that matter. It looks as if transport might be the first such activity. After “pausing” the electrification of the Leeds-Manchester line in the summer, the government ended the year with substantial announcements on rail investment.

Have a peaceful Christmas.

 

LIVERPOOL DEAL DONE. NOW LEEDS IS THE PROBLEM

 

The road to the Northern Powerhouse is proving more rocky than originally anticipated. Rows about elected mayors, the boundaries of Combined Authority areas and the complete lack of democracy in setting it all up means the North presents a patchwork of progress and delay ahead of the crucial Autumn Statement.

It looks as if the resistance of St Helens, Wirral and Halton to an elected city region mayor has been overcome and they look set to join Greater Manchester and Sheffield will devolution deals done this month. In Lancashire Wyre Council are holding out against joining a county wide Combined Authority, but it is in Yorkshire that the bitterest row has broken out.

The leader of Kirklees Council, the area around Huddersfield, has accused North Yorkshire Council of “blatant self-interest and gerrymandering”. David Sheard is referring to the proposals for Greater Yorkshire that have been submitted to the government. This is a plan to bring Hull, York and four North Yorkshire districts together. The rival plan brings together West Yorkshire, based around Leeds but including Craven, Harrogate and Selby. North Yorkshire has refused to give over its transport and highways powers in those three districts. This would put a major curb on the transport and infrastructure role of the Leeds based city region.

Apart from the row over boundaries, there is a feeling that there is now less on the table for Leeds than when it was named a frontrunner for devolution in the summer. Envious eyes are being turned to the deal struck by Sheffield with some concluding that the idea of accepting an elected mayor for Leeds City Region with less powers than Sheffield got may not be worth doing.

It needs to be noted that Leeds City Region has already negotiated a growth deal investment fund of £600m, and it has control of the adult skills budget. It wants powers to manage European funding, an infrastructure levy ability and to run the buses, but talks seem to have stalled.

Even in Greater Manchester there is growing discontent with the total lack of public involvement in the Combined Authority deal. A group has been formed, the Greater Manchester Referendum Campaign for Democratic Devolution, and they will be targeting the wards of the ten leaders of Greater Manchester in next May’s elections.

They claim public awareness is low about the deal which is all about business and growth but very little about issues like social housing. They also worry about the accountability of people doing the deals now and how the city region mayor will be held accountable from 2017.

Concern about this issue was expressed at a high level meeting of the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) held in Liverpool this week. It concluded that for all the talk of the Northern Powerhouse there was no urban policy to back it up and answer questions about the unsustainable growth of London, how continuing support for the North over many decades was going to be achieved and what was to be the fate of smaller northern towns with little growth prospects.

One of the speakers at the TCPA meeting was Alan Harding from Liverpool University’s Heseltine Institute. He’ll be leaving in January to become economic adviser to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

 

POWERHOUSE REFUGE FOR BATTERED CHANCELLOR?

 

MY DEVOLUTION JOURNEY ACROSS THE NORTH

As the Chancellor reels from his drubbing at the hands of the House of Lords over tax credits, he can fall back for solace on his pet project the Northern Powerhouse. Or can he? A poll out this weekend shows only one in four people in the North believe it will deliver. This is hardly surprising as they have been shut out of a project that has been cooked up behind the closed doors of Whitehall and the Town Halls.

I have been to Sheffield and Liverpool this week finding out just where we are with the devolution deals. The most interesting meeting was was Downtown’s Devo Scouse event. The networking organisation has now brought together twelve business organisations who insist on having their say in shaping the devolution deal for the Liverpool City Region.

The magnificent dozen came together after seeing the devolution proposition Merseyside’s politicians had sent to the government. It amounted to a fifty item shopping list of demands with little evidence to back it up and a paragraph on elected mayors almost designed to antagonise a government determined to support the idea.

They are putting their ideas to the councillors on the Combined Authority this weekend but they better be quick. Insiders tell me a government response may come on Nov 11th, even ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review later next month. They have on board the doyen of devolution academics Professor Michael Parkinson (a possible independent mayoral candidate?) who told the Devo Scouse meeting that the City Region needed to produce evidence based solutions to the government’s problems over things like low skills, not the begging bowl. There needed to be more trust between the six districts that did form a coherent economic whole. There was no point having hang ups about Manchester which is currently the go to city for devolution. They had been at this business for 20 years not 20 months. Parkinson also observed that the politicians in Greater Manchester had their rows in private not on the front page of the echo.

Martin McTague of the Federation of Small Business praised the coming together of twelve business organisations and said Liverpool should pay attention to the details of devo deals done in Sheffield and the North East. They had been narrowly focused. One of the main issues that has caused disunity on Merseyside is the question of an elected city region mayor. The FSB spokesman said they should not get hung up about it because the ones agreed so far would only be chairs of the board of the Combined Authorities not an all powerful Boris type mayor.

The other devolution event I went to was organised by IPPR North in Sheffield. Former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott continued his campaign for a region rather than a city based approach to the Northern Powerhouse. I agree with him but I’m afraid that ship has sailed for the moment. Dan Jarvis, a Barnsley MP tipped as a possible future Labour leader acknowledged that Labour had been left trailing by George Osborne over the Northern Powerhouse. Christine Gaskell, Chair of the Cheshire and Warrington LEP reminded people of the power of her economy as a contributor to the Northern Powerhouse, whilst the only Tory speaker at the conference felt his Ribble Valley area was more an outhouse than a powerhouse.

OLDHAM BY ELECTION LATEST.

The selection of a new Labour candidate for Oldham West and Royton will take place on Bonfire Night. Those that choose politics over pyrotechnics may see the leader of Oldham Council Jim McMahon chosen as the standard bearer.

Jon Lansman,a London based veteran of the Labour left in the 1980s, has ruled himself out. There are a couple of local councillors from the Asian community who fancy their chances in a seat with a large South Asian population and I’ve heard that Phil Woolas the able MP for Oldham East, who was disqualified from office by an election court in 2011 has been sizing up his chances.

Voting is expected by the end of November so UKIP will need to get their skates on and may choose the impressive John Bickley who nearly won Heywood last year.