23 November 2001
Regions minister Nick Raynsford said the first assembly should be up and running by the end of this Parliament, expected to last until 2005/06. A white paper setting out guidelines for local referendums, along the lines of those for directly elected mayors, is expected to be published early in the new year. A bill could be drawn up in time for the next Queen's Speech in autumn 2002.
While campaigners welcomed a more definitive timetable from the government, local authorities reacted with caution. The Local Government Association, which has struggled to come up with an agreed political policy on regionalism, said it would support the right of individual authorities to press ahead with regional assemblies.
But Phil Swann, LGA director of communications, said they would not accept the requirement to have a predominately unitary council structure before the assemblies could be put in place.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions told Public Finance: 'The government is taking forward proposals for elected regional assemblies where people want them. These are not prescriptive and over the coming months ministers will decide on how their manifesto commitment, to go ahead with assemblies only where there are predominantly unitary councils, will be addressed.'
PFnov2001
