By Richard Johnstone | 8 April 2014
Ed Miliband has today called on every council and local enterprise partnership in England to begin planning for a radical devolution of economic power from the next Labour government, aimed at unlocking growth across the country.
In a speech in Birmingham today, Miliband said a Labour administration would, from 2015, take action to boost prosperity in England outside London.
He highlighted that devolution to Scotland and Wales had clearly benefited those nations, but that productivity of regions outside London and the southeast was below the national average.
‘Britain will never be able to tackle the cost-of-living crisis and create the new jobs that are essential to it unless we break this pattern,’ Miliband said. ‘Unless we change from an economy based on the success of one city – our country’s capital – to all of our country’s great towns and cities.’
Miliband criticised the government’s decision to only devolve £2bn a year to the local growth fund from 2015, compared to the £49bn over four years, plus £9bn from European funding, recommended in Lord Heseltine’s growth review.
Labour’s own review, led by former transport secretary Lord Adonis, was looking to go further, Miliband said, and he was now writing to town halls to ask them to contribute.
In the letter to councils and LEPs, also signed by shadow chancellor Ed Balls, Miliband said Labour would improve governance of functional economic areas through expanding the use of combined authorities. LEP boundaries would also be changed so they matched these city and county regions.
This would allow these authorities and LEPs to be given powers to invest in transport and housing, as well as allowing for more local control over jobs and skills initiatives like the Work Programme.
The letter sent to every council leader stated: ‘We will therefore be inviting you to come forward with a package meeting the conditions set out in this letter in the first nine months of the next Parliament, and in return this major devolution can be finalised in the first spending review period of a Labour government.’
Labour’s message at the next election will be that devolving power from Whitehall to towns and cities was essential to generate the new jobs, Miliband concluded, with areas also given a proportion of localised funding so they can share in the proceeds of growth.
‘We propose a new bargain – cities and towns that come together with local businesses will be given historic new powers over transport, housing, skills and economic development.
‘We are determined to make our great cities and towns the powerhouses for the creation of good jobs.’
