England ‘needs a decade of devolution’

11 Sep 14
A ‘decade of devolution’ across a host of public services is needed to decentralise the governance of England and pass controls held in Whitehall to major cities and counties, the Institute for Public Policy Research North has said.

By Richard Johnstone | 12 September 2014

A ‘decade of devolution’ across a host of public services is needed to decentralise the governance of England and pass controls held in Whitehall to major cities and counties, the Institute for Public Policy Research North has said.

A report by the think-tank published today said that amid increasing all-party consensus over devolution of funding and powers in England, there was a need for a 10-year roadmap to devolve powers.

As many as the 40 government functions across 13 Whitehall departments should be localised, the Decentralisation Decade report stated, including economic development and infrastructure such as housing and transport, education and skills, back-to-work schemes such as the Work Programme, and criminal justice and probation.

As part of the programme, fiscal devolution should form a central plank of the 2015 Comprehensive Spending Review, with long-term funding settlements, perhaps over five years agreed with combined authorities for city regions and new ‘county combined authorities’ created in two-tier areas.

Eventually, control over property taxes and business rates to be devolved to these areas, and a proportion of income tax.

However, this was likely be asymmetrical across England because not every area will want, or be able, to proceed at the same pace.

Publishing the report today, IPPR North director Ed Cox said that ahead of next week’s Scottish independence referendum, it was clear that the Scottish Parliament would get more powers, which without action would widen the gap with local leaders across England.

‘Now is the time to redress the balance and devolve powers to English city-regions,’ he said.

‘England’s 80-year experiment with centralisation has failed. It’s England’s turn for a ‘devo-more’ moment and there is a growing political consensus in Westminster on the need to answer “the English question”. Our plan for a decade of devolution is a practical roadmap that politicians can rally round.’

Speaking at the launch of the report later today, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is expected to say that now is the time to ‘push for action on decentralisation’.

‘You only need look at how the Scottish Referendum debate has re-energised people’s interest and engagement in politics over the last few weeks to see that this is an idea whose time has come,’ he said.

Successive governments, from both left and right, have concentrated power in Whitehall, he said, but the coalition government was delivering real power and control to local areas.

‘We’ve passed the Localism Act giving more legal powers to local people, communities and councils to help them do what they think is best for their local areas. We’ve localised business rates, enabling communities to benefit more as their local economy grows. Our Tax Increment Financing reforms give every local authority the opportunity to borrow funds for vital local infrastructure projects against future business rates.

‘And back in the summer, I announced the first of our new Growth Deals. These innovative deals extend the powers that we’ve already given to our cities’ leaders more widely, with access to a £12bn pot of funding in the coming years.’

A consensus was now emerging amongst the UK’s three main political parties to extend devolution and decentralisation in the future, he said.

‘The reality is that our great cities like Sheffield, Newcastle, Glasgow and Leeds aren’t just competing with each other for investment. They’ve also got to stand up against other global cities Frankfurt, Sao Paulo, Madrid and Shanghai.

‘We need to think about how we can exploit the greater local powers we’ve created to accelerate economic growth across the North.’ 

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