As the world goes to hell in a hand cart [thanks, Donald] many may wonder why on earth devolution is still a pressing issue. But I would argue that never has it been more necessary to sort out a proper constitutional settlement that redresses some of the political and economic imbalances that are the hallmarks of the UK.
As we celebrate all things Yorkshire with the fifth anniversary of Yorkshire Bylines it is timely to reflect just what a big deal devolution is, or could be, to the region.
UK centralisation harms the regions – not least, Yorkshire
I’ve written about the great unresolved ‘English question’ before: how we are still one of the most centralised and regionally-imbalanced nations in the developed world, despite attempts to decentralise in the early years of Blair with the advent of the Scottish parliament, the Welsh Assembly and Stormont in Northern Ireland. England got Regional Development Agencies [RDAs] – a first stepping stone to getting some proper joined-up thinking at regional level on crucial things like planning, infrastructure projects and skills.
We haven’t moved on much from those initiatives. Yes, we have combined authorities in some areas, headed up by directly elected ‘metro’ mayors, but this is a far cry from what was envisaged in the early noughties.
The problem is, as Andy Westwood and Mike Kenny note in their paper for the Economics Observatory on regional inequalities:
“The UK – England in particular – has some of the deepest spatial inequalities and regional productivity divergence among the OECD countries. These differences have been increasing for over three decades, with London’s productivity now more than one and a half times the UK average.”
It doesn’t have to be like this.
The Campaign for the English Regions
In 1999, the Campaign for Yorkshire was established: the one region (outside of London) not defined by a compass point, but by being just Yorkshire – God’s own county. What London had been granted with the powers bestowed on it through the Greater London Assembly, we wanted too.
Or as The Guardian put it at the time: “… now the devolution cork is out of the bottle, now that Scotland and Wales have their own fancy assemblies, there are those in God’s own county who want a piece of the democratic action”.
In March 2000, a few of us launched Campaign for the English Regions with the aim of getting a manifesto commitment from the government for legislation to allow referendums to trigger regional assemblies after the next election. We had the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, fighting our corner and a devolution precedent from the new Labour government. What could possibly go wrong?
Slow progress has been made
In 2001, I rather grandly published the Campaign for Yorkshire’s White Paper, Giving the People a Voice, making the case for regional government and attempting to explain what powers it should have and why. My closing remarks were that “what currently exists cannot hold”. Well it seems that it can, because to date we have not made that much progress with genuine devolution, thanks in the main to having 14 years of a Tory government that did little to address regional imbalances economically.
In fairness, metro mayors have helped the conversation along, and their powers have grown over the last few years. But the Tory programme of levelling up simply didn’t happen. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research wrote last year that “the combination of insufficient central government resources and the slow disbursement of relatively small pots of money has meant that Levelling Up has been a policy failure”.
So, what now for devolution?
Strong regional economies to counter global trade chaos
Undoubtedly, the reordering of the global economy and the possibility of a new world order is overshadowing everything at the moment. We are a major trading nation and the impact of Trump’s tariffs and the ensuing global instability will impact our economy.
That, though, makes the case for a stronger political infrastructure that can meet the challenges and build resilience throughout the country. Stronger regional economies are better placed to absorb the international shock waves rather than relying on the centre.
This Labour government has already shown its willingness to take devolution rather more seriously than the Tories. Within days of winning the election, Starmer invited all the mayors to a roundtable in Number 10, and an English Devolution White Paper followed a few months later. Rachel Reeves, at last year’s Labour Party conference, promised “[to] power growth in every part of Britain” because regional growth is national growth.
The White Paper went further than many expected, announcing a plan of local government reorganisation that introduces unitarisation across the board (abolishing ‘two-tier’ county and district councils), widening devolution to the rest of England, single-pot ‘integrated settlements to the six “top-tier established mayoralties”, and reformed decision making with new powers announced around spatial development and planning.
Competencies may include transport and local infrastructure, skills and employment support, housing and strategic planning, economic development and regeneration, environment and climate change, health, wellbeing and public service reform, and public safety.
The Labour government – promising signs of a regional approach
I now sit on the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party and we’ve had more conversations about devolution – including the very important but often overlooked one on accountability and governance – than I was expecting.
“The country remains too centralised, with the economic potential of too many regions and communities ignored. Our labour market fails to provide secure jobs and, as a result, for far too many people work does not pay”, stated the Labour manifesto.
A year on, we’re facing a new economic turmoil that makes a regional strategy all the more vital. We are all more exposed because of the greater connectivity and dependence on other economies. Our cities and regions need to be equipped to deal with turbulence as much as the national government does. This makes as much sense for Yorkshire as for anywhere else. Maybe this time the English question will be finally settled.
