An English Devolution Perspective

Scotland will go to the polls in 2014 on whether or not they should become Independent from the rest of the UK.  Personally I would rather Scotland stays in the Union.  However I do accept it is a choice in which the Scottish people have to make their own judgement on.

A more  pressing matter for me personally is the future of England and the English regions.  Whatever the outcome of the Scottish referendum, an imbalance now exists within the UK as MPs from all nations of the Union can vote on English only matters.  However, English MPs cannot vote on policy areas which have been devolved to the National Parliaments or Assemblies of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.  I fully agree that something needs to be done to correct this imbalance.

There are two suggestions I would not agree with.  One is that you have some sittings in Westminster that only England based MPs can take part in.  Even if the English MPs were to be given higher salaries to reflect the fact that they would be doing more work, it would create a complicated situation where some members of the same house would be more important than other members.  For me, in any democratic body an individual vote should be equal.

The second option I would not favour is that of an English Parliament.  For me, the big disadvantage of no English devolution is the lack of locally elected politicians with clout who could argue the case of inward investment to the business world for the area in which they represent.  Also, I don't see the point in having a second parliament based in London. It would be another decision making machine that would be too remote from the great cities of the north like Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle etc.

On that note, seeing cities around the country introduce elected mayors is a measure which I consider to be a positive step.  Moving on from elected mayors, another idea of interest is City regions.  As a Merseysider, but not quite from Liverpool itself, I can state there are a number of towns around the outskirts of Liverpool in which the people would still class themselves as Liverpudlians, despite not being in the official population count.  This is a situation repeated in other northern cities.  Although the official population count of Manchester is half a million, such population figures can be misleading due to the neighbouring areas which are excluded.  I do have some suspicion that boundaries have been erected or maintained for convenience.

Back in my native Merseyside and the town of Formby in which I mainly grew up, there is little debate that Formby is economically and culturally linked with the great City that is Liverpool.  However there are other towns with less affiliation with Liverpool, such as Southport which is eight miles north of Formby.  Southport is a traditional seaside town with tourism very much key in the Town's economy.  Although, it should also be pointed out that there are also residents in Southport who commute to Liverpool, Preston or beyond.  Sections of Southport's population have long argued for a return to their traditional county, Lancashire.  Some Merseysiders would understandably view this as snobbery.  That said, such towns would still need consideration in a new English devolution model, even if they don't wish to be linked to a City region.  On that note, a drawback of City Regions is that you could see a regional map with some towns clearly linked to a City, and others either enclaved separately out on their own or being forced into an uneasy co-existence which is perhaps no good for anyone.

Another idea that comes up for discussion from time to time is English Regional Assemblies.  This would be my own preferred model for devolution.  People may well ask what powers should be devolved?  I believe a sensible approach would be to follow the principle of subsidiarity, as laid out in article five on the Treaty of European Union.  That means the decision is taken at the closest possible level to the citizen.  For example, UK Defence Policy would logically require policy making to remain at national level.  However, on the other side of the coin, an area such as nature conservation or tourism would require a very limited role from Central Government.

The North East voted against a regional assembly in 2004.  I do understand the reason in which many voters in the North East voted against the proposal, in that there was a fear it would merely mean another unnecessary tier of government.  My answer is simple.  Take a leaf out of previous proposals to reform the House of Lords, which would have seen the number of members almost halved.  We could simply do something similar with the House of Commons.  This could mean that some of the MPs who would lose out on a seat at national level, could instead contest a seat in a regional assembly.  That way some of those turkeys sitting at Westminster would not necessarily be voting for Christmas!