LEEDS AND LIVERPOOL RACE FOR POWERS

 

NEXT CITY DEALS ?

Following Greater Manchester’s devolution deal, the race by other northern combined authorities is on with a vengeance. In Leeds last week the Deputy Prime Minister announced that packages for Leeds and Sheffield would be agreed before the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. Lord Heseltine is trying to bang heads together in Liverpool which is displaying its usual propensity for internal bickering. Meanwhile talks are under way amongst Lancashire’s myriad number of councils to try and get the first powerhouse deal outside the major cities.

 

I have attended a number of devolution conferences in the last week and watched nearly all of the BBC’s regional debates across England. My worst fears have been confirmed. Apart from the city regionalists, people from smaller towns and rural areas are hopelessly divided on what devolution they want. There is no clarity on how to solve the issue of English votes for English laws. There was virtually no debate on how an elected Lords could represent the North and not just the South East.

 

So it looks as if the Tories get back we will have piecemeal devolution to a number of city regions with little for the rest of the North which will be left with its confusing patchwork of district, met and county councils and ad hoc bodies created to deal with major infrastructure issues. Labour’s promise of a comprehensive constitutional convention seems worth voting for.

 

A couple of final thoughts on the position of Leeds and Liverpool. The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg told us in Leeds that we should not presume that Leeds (and Sheffield) would have to have elected mayors. This seems strange when the government, in the shape of George Osborne, insisted on it in Greater Manchester as a democratic requirement. Will Leeds and Sheffield get less powers in return for no elected mayor? Is Clegg doing his own thing in Yorkshire? This is what happens with a piecemeal approach. Different strokes for different folks ends in chaos.

 

In Liverpool Jo Anderson continues with his schizophrenic performance. He has used leadership and imagination to save the city’s libraries but on the issue of devolution he is not handling things well. He needs to work with Phil Davies, the leader of the Combined Authority, not continue to make snide comments about part time politicians meeting every four weeks. Also his ambition to be the elected metro mayor takes no account of the democratic processes of the Labour Party. If an elected mayor was on offer, Phil Davies or Jane Kennedy (the current Merseyside Police Commissioner) might at least want to offer an alternative to Joe’s coronation. The important thing here is that all the infighting is putting off the government from granting the Liverpool City Region its powers. It is also fuelling the prejudices of those who claim that nothing really changes in Liverpool. It is manifestly not true but people need to stop shooting themselves in the foot.

 

UKIP FOX SHOT

 

The much derided European Court of Justice has come to David Cameron’s rescue. So we can stop benefit tourism after all. It is a much exaggerated problem anyway. Most foreign workers want to come here make our sandwiches, pick our potatoes and pay their taxes.

 

The interesting question is whether it will slow UKIP’s momentum in next week’s Rochester by election. At the moment it looks as if the reckless Reckless will win. The Tory candidate is very poor. If UKIP do win, the Tories need to steady their nerve and pro European Conservatives need to have the guts to speak up for the EU and not just leave it to Ken Clarke.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

THE YEAR OF THE ECONOMIC TURN

 

 

The year ends with the Chancellor smirking and Ed Balls going red in the face.

 

The Tory baiting of Ed Balls during the Autumn Statement debate brought parliament to a new low, but Balls had wound them up for years with his flat lining gestures. They are now redundant. 2013 saw the debate move from double and triple dip recessions to modest optimism about growth. It would be handy if the recovery could be based on manufacturing and exports rather than consumer and housing spending in 2014, but at the moment George Osborne is winning the plaudits. Labour ends the year relying heavily on their argument that the cost of living is the real issue.

 

This Christmas the Conservatives find themselves in a strange position. They lag behind Labour in the polls but in normal circumstances, they would expect to be able to surge past the opposition with the usual pre election sweeteners in the last full year of the parliament. However uncertainty over UKIP and how they will perform against Lib Dems has led to a pessimistic spirit this festive season.

 

When the tuition fees issue was at its height, there were forecasts that the Lib Dems would be sending their MPs elected in 2015 to Westminster in a taxi again. This year they showed signs that the darkest years that saw them virtually cleared out of Town Halls in the north may be over. They held the Eastleigh by election and leader Nick Clegg got support for policies at his party conference that would have seen grass roots revolts under previous Lib Dem leaders.

 

Ed Miliband is never likely to gain the adulation that Tony Blair enjoyed before he took office in 1997 but this year he has strengthened his position as party leader. By focusing on the cost of living he struck a rapport with voters and forced Ministers to take notice. There are many questions around his promise of an energy price freeze but it has made the political weather this autumn.

 

Miliband also won plaudits for his stance on military intervention in Syria. It led directly to the Americans having second thoughts. Whilst the war drags on and the poor refugees suffer, we are in a better place in the Middle East overall. Chemical weapons have been removed in Syria and the Iranians are coming in from the diplomatic cold.

 

In local politics we saw the Conservative regime of Geoff Driver defeated in Lancashire whilst two leading females departed in less than happy circumstances. Marie Rimmer lost her battle for the leadership of St Helens Council whilst Salford Chief Executive Barbara Spicer fell out with the Mayor of Salford. Happily Barbara has a new job heading up the Skills Funding Agency. Personnel changes are the least of the problems for Town Halls set against the continuing rounds of spending cuts.

 

 

The possibility of an energy gap has become more real this year as we wrestle with the problem of keeping prices down whilst dealing with global warming. The weather was rarely out of the headlines in 2013. A bitter winter was followed by a great summer. The Philippines typhoon was followed by a major battering for the coasts of the North West and Yorkshire. Fracking and nuclear power have risen up the agenda this year.

 

We are likely to be better connected after decisions taken in 2013. Final plans for the new Mersey Gateway Bridge were approved; the northern Rail Hub in Manchester got the green light; and consultations began on HS2.

 

The year saw the death of two of the twentieth century’s great figures; Nelson Mandela and Margaret Thatcher. Their politics were very different but they both made a difference and that’s all we can hope to do each in our own way.

 

Have a peaceful Christmas

 

 

 

 

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.