Tag: Greater Manchester

MILIBAND RIGHT ON ONE THING-DEVOLUTION.

 

 

HANG ON MANCHESTER!

 

It has been a significant week for the future governance of the North of England. Exactly ten years after the people of the North East rejected the weak elected assembly on offer at the time, we now have the two major parties vying with each other to devolve real power to parts of the North

 

The Chancellor has promised major powers to Greater Manchester. Meanwhile the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has set out a more measured approach offering powers to the whole of the north of England and House of Lords reform to address our current under representation in the upper chamber.

 

My sources in Manchester tell me they have become exasperated by Ed Miliband’s approach of awaiting a constitutional convention. Although Manchester is a Labour authority it finds it easier to deal with the fast moving Tory George Osborne. However the Manchester leadership needs to recognise that city regions aren’t the whole north, that the Tories may not be in a position to deliver their promises come May and a convention with everyone having their say is the right approach.

 

It has always been a weakness of the city regionalists that they don’t see the need for democratic accountability. They have been dragged into accepting an elected conurbation mayor in 2017 if the Tories get back. Sir Richard Leese is the favourite to take this role but I don’t think that will happen. The Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd (who’s post will be taken over by the mayor) is a possible contender or possibly Jim McMahon, the leader of Oldham.

 

ED’S FULL CONSTITUTIONAL SOLUTION.

 

Some weeks ago I suggested a considered approach to the many constitutional issues that have arisen in England since the Scottish referendum vote. Ed Miliband’s plan provides for this.

 

He is looking at the wider picture- not just the city regions. He wants an English regions cabinet committee so that our problems are put at the heart of government and not forgotten by Whitehall civil servants. He also wants to address reform of the House of Lords once and for all by bringing the regions into the process. There is a crying need for this. It should be called the House of the South East at the moment. 31% of peers have their main residence in London and 23% in the South East. Just 5% of peers list their main residence in the North West and 4% in the North East. Miliband wants to create an elected Senate with representatives drawn from the nations, regions and cities of the United Kingdom.

 

At a time when the alienation of the people from politics is reaching dangerous proportions, this might be a way of turning things round. There are many misgivings about Ed Miliband and his leadership qualities but on this subject he has adopted a comprehensive approach to constitutional reform.

 

TORIES’ PIECEMEAL APPROACH.

 

Greater Manchester has been well run in the last few years. Its Combined Authority has been an exemplar of how councils with different political colours or aspirations can work together. One can understand the Chancellor’s wish to reward such progress, but he needs to look at the wider picture. The other city regions like West Yorkshire and Liverpool are promised powers, although not necessarily the same powers and on a different time scale. Then there is the suburban and rural North not covered by this. In other words if the Tories get back we will have a hotchpotch. This is intentional. The one size fits all approach is openly criticised but the Osborne way could also be a recipe for confusion and debilitating rivalry.

 

So if the Tories win we will have disparate devolution to some city regions, English votes for English laws and no reform of the House of Lords.

 

Labour’s constitutional convention approach should be supported.

 

 

 

 

 

THE UNFINISHED MAP OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

 

 

Forty years ago this week local government boundaries across the North were ripped up in a major reform of how we are governed locally. It was meant to herald a more efficient system of administration with functions being carried out at an appropriate level reflecting communities that people could identify with.

 

In fact the last forty years has seen continued tinkering with the system, the scrapping and then the reinventing of city regions and, in some areas, a refusal of people to come to terms with the 1974 settlement. There is still much to do.

 

In 1974 local government across the north consisted of a patchwork of county boroughs covering the main population centres with a series of small urban and rural councils around them with boundaries that did not reflect the urban expansion since the Second World War.

 

In 1969 very wise man called Lord Redcliffe-Maud proposed that most people should have one tier of local government. His idea was rejected but it remains the obvious solution to this day. Instead the Heath government decided to create metropolitan councils for West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside. They dealt with transport, police, fire and structural planning whilst metropolitan districts handled schools, housing, social services and collected the rates.

 

The old shire counties had chunks taken out of them. Yorkshire lost Saddleworth to Oldham and Todmorden to Lancashire. The Saddleworth White Rose Society still campaigns for the old historic boundary. Cheshire lost Wirral to Merseyside. Lancashire,who’s southern border had been the Mersey, lost communities from Stretford and Whiston and Ashton and Droylesden to the mets and in the North the Furness area to Cumbria. Perhaps most contentious was the incorporation of Southport into Merseyside. A Southport Party campaigning to return the resort to Lancashire has enjoyed poll success in Sefton Council elections.

 

 

 

Cities like Manchester were never happy with an upper tier authority over them and shed few tears when the metropolitan counties became collateral damage in a war between Margaret Thatcher and Ken Livingstone, leader of the Greater London Council in the mid 1980s.

 

There was turbulence in the shire counties too. In Lancashire, Blackpool and Blackburn became all purpose authorities in 1998. It was typical of the piecemeal nature of local government reform in recent decades. Why wasn’t Preston given unitary status? Why have 12 district councils in Lancashire and yet in 2009 reduce the number of councils in Cheshire to two?

 

There was a moment of hope that a real overall coherent vision would be given to all this when John Prescott proposed regional assemblies to democratise the work of the Regional Development Agencies. It would have required unitary local government throughout the North, reducing the number of politicians not increasing them as critics of Prescott mislead people into believing.

 

Prescott was replaced by the current Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles who vowed to oppose any more reorganisation. In fact under the current government we have seem the rise of Combined Authorities in Greater Manchester and soon in Merseyside and West Yorkshire. They are reinventions of the metropolitan councils of 1974 recognising that there is a need for strategic thinking in the mets.

 

In Greater Manchester the antagonisms of 1974-86 have been avoided. The jury is still out elsewhere particularly in the Liverpool City Region.

 

A plethora of initiatives have been launched by this government. Local Enterprise Partnerships, elected mayors, City Deals etc. It is a confusing mess which people don’t understand and have little democratic control over.

 

Forty years on from the reform of 1974 we await the government with the guts to override petty local politics and introduce root and branch reform of our constitution from the House of Lords to parish council.

 

 

 

STAND ASIDE MARY PORTAS. WHAT SHOPKEEPERS REALLY NEED.

 

 

 

 

BUDGET PREVIEW: BUSINESS RATES

 

Not only is the North having to give much needed train carriages to the South but small shopkeepers in Leeds and Liverpool are subsidising retailers in London’s Bond Street.

 

The Chancellor should use next week’s Budget to announce wholesale reform of business rates. They are based on the rental value of properties. Since the last revaluation, rents in London’s West End have gone up 72%. In Greater Manchester they have gone down 47% but rateable values have stayed the same. Not only has this led to the decimation of businesses in many of our out of town shopping streets but it means that London’s businesses are paying far less than they should be.

 

To add insult to injury the government has postponed the review due next year until 2017. Ministers claim 800,000 of 1.1 million businesses will benefit. Well not many of those will be in the North. Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce says their members are paying business rates set at the height of the market in 2008.

 

There are other factors driving demands for reform. Retailers are under pressure from internet firms who pay no business rates for their “shop fronts”. Furthermore a committee of MPs is questioning if the £2.3m allocated to the Mary Portas schemes has been spent. Sorry Mary but your high profile trips to our deserted High Streets aren’t the answer to this problem.

 

The House of Commons Business Select Committee wants the Chancellor to examine whether retailers taxes should be based on sales rather than rateable value.

 

BUDGET PREVIEW: OTHER MEASURES.

 

Next Wednesday won’t be an easy day for Ed Balls. On past Budget days he’s been able to taunt the Chancellor with gestures indicating the economy flat lining or falling living standards. This time most of the economic indicators are in George Osborne’s favour. This Budget is his last real chance to set the economic framework against which the General Election will be fought.

 

The British Chambers of Commerce say the size of the British economy will be back to 2008 levels by the summer and they even foresee interest rates of 0.75% by the end of next year. After five long years of 0.5% flat lining that would be a symbolic sign of real recovery.

 

So what will the Chancellor do with this improved economic outlook? An easing of the remorseless cuts in public spending looks unlikely. The recession’s legacy of a high deficit remains and the international picture offers many uncertainties.

 

He should take more steps to deal with youth unemployment, although in truth many measures have been tried.

 

There’s a bit of a campaign running to merge National Insurance and Income Tax on the basis that they amount to the same thing. But with 16% of people paying 40% Income Tax and National Insurance at around 12%, it would become obvious that a lot of people are paying more than half their income to the state.

 

And finally don’t forget that the £10.000 annual tax free allowance before paying income tax kicks in next month. The Lib Dems insist this was their policy forced on a reluctant Chancellor. Politically it will help to bind the Coalition together for the final 12 months of this parliament where the Finance Bill implementing this Budget will be part of a pretty thin Queen’s Speech.

 

 

 

 

 

 

MPs QUITTING AND THE FUTURE OF TOWNS

 

 

Bruce Katz is a brilliant American thinker on the future of metro cities. It was a privilege to hear him speak this month in Manchester Town Hall alongside Richard Leese, the architect of our own metro city in Greater Manchester.

 

Both men see the driver for the American and UK economies being in metro cities in the years to come. That certainly chimes with current government policy here where regional structures have been destroyed in favour of cities and local enterprise partnerships.

 

I have always thought the abolition of Yorkshire Forward and the North West Development Agency was a mistake and one of the reasons for that is that the policy of concentrating on boosting our cities leaves places like Keighley, Halifax, Burnley, and Skelmersdale out in the cold.

 

Urbanists will tell you that prosperity will eventually radiate out as the economy improves. I doubt it. The truth is more likely to align with the views of Brian Robson. He’s a distinguished professor and has written widely on urban policy. After hearing our American lecturer he told me bluntly that the cities were the future and people from the outlying Lancashire and Yorkshire towns would just have to travel into the metropolises of Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool to get work.

 

I don’t think Brian, who is a very civilised man is completely serious and our rural and semi rural towns will battle on with their efforts to attract specialised jobs and employers who see price advantages in setting up away from the conurbations. However it will be a battle. I was in Bolton recently and admire its magnificent Town Hall and theatre. But when you’ve said that, you’ve said it all. On this particular Saturday teatime the shops were shuttering up and it was impossible to find a decent restaurant. The danger of the current policy is that everything is gravitating to the big cities and out of town shopping malls, leaving our town centres devastated.

 

So as the future is the cities for the time being we had better to the analysis of Bruce Katz and Richard Leese. Americans are very alienated from their central government right now. Washington is almost paralysed as the Democrats and Tea Party Republicans fight themselves to a standstill. Katz quoted one senator who said “It comes to something when the biggest threat to the US government is the US Congress!”

 

According to Katz, into this void come the cities driving growth, education and infrastructure with central government left with social security, defence and regulatory functions. His model is North East Ohio, an area embracing Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown and Caton. He believes the critical mass of urban areas is essential to turning round communities where traditional industries have gone.

 

Richard Leese’s equivalent is the Combined Authority (CA) of Greater Manchester, a model soon to be followed on Merseyside and in West Yorkshire. He claimed the CA had given the area scale to embark on projects like Airport City and the Ethiad Campus in east Manchester. All that was needed, claimed Sir Richard, was for the government to allow real devolution.

 

The power of Katz and Leese arguments can’t be denied but the rest of the North has to be looked after too.

 

MPs QUITTING

 

Its that time in the parliamentary cycle when MPs have to make up their minds about whether they want to vacate their seats ahead of the General Election.

 

Shaun Woodward’s decision to quit as MP for St Helens South and Whiston brings back memories of the controversial way he was “parachuted” into the seat by the New Labour machine in 2001 after defecting from the Tories. A mischievous thought enters my head that we could see St Helens council leader Barry Grunewald going for the selection against Marie Rimmer who lost the leadership to him earlier this year.

 

Jack Straw, at the age of 67, has decided to stand down so Blackburn will be getting a new MP for only the third time since 1945. The seat would appropriately be represented by a member of the Asian community.

 

So would Manchester Gorton, but I am told that 83 year old Sir Gerald Kaufman has indicated to wants to stand again. He would be nearly ninety at the end of the next parliament. Perhaps he wants to be Father of the House. The problem is that Michael Meacher (Oldham West) also entered the Commons in 1970.

 

Tory vacancies will be few and far between in the North West this time, but Lorraine Fulbrook is standing down in South Ribble and in Ribble Valley there is the tricky issue of Nigel Evans. Currently sitting as an Independent pending his trial on sex charges, Evans tells me he is confident of being found not guilty and then standing as Conservative candidate at the next election.