Scotland: Devolution

Lord Tope Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I detected some surprise when the Leader of the House said in her opening remarks that England is the most decentralised part of the United Kingdom. However, she is right. It is the most decentralised part of the United Kingdom as well as, by some measure, the largest. That is really a comment about the state of the other three countries of the United Kingdom. I have heard it said many times that Scotland has become far more centralised under its own Parliament than when it was ruled from Westminster. The fact remains that the four countries of the United Kingdom, and therefore the United Kingdom as a whole, are the most centralised countries in the European Union. What we will do about that, particularly in relation to England, is for me the real English question.

I accept, because it has been placed so high on the agenda, that the West Lothian question must be addressed. I have a lot of sympathy with my noble friend Lord Glasgow, who said that we have lived with this for 30, or even 300, years, let us leave it alone. However, it is on the agenda and we must deal with it. If we think that a solution can be found by some rearrangement within the UK Parliament, or even worse the creation of an English Parliament, we are fooling ourselves. That does absolutely nothing to deal with the question of the centralisation of power in England and the need to devolve power in England. If that is all that we Westminster politicians can come up with in this debate, then many of the people of England will be deeply disappointed. Addressing the question of devolution within England is the real and major English question, of which the West Lothian question is a part, but only a part.

The Leader seemed to be suggesting that the Localism Act, on which I and many noble Lords spent many happy hours, was all that was needed to devolve power in England. I accept that, if properly and effectively implemented, it would have been a good start to devolving some power to some communities in England. It was particularly unfortunate that it coincided with the time of the greatest budget cuts that local government has ever known. We were encouraging local government and local communities to devolve at just the time when the resources needed to do so were being taken away very quickly and in very large measure, which was very unfortunate.

At this point, I should declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. We still need to address the question of devolution to English communities, not just to local government, although we should remember that local government is made up of the elected represented representatives of local communities and has an important part to play. Even before the budget cuts, local government was working increasingly closely with other parts of the public sector and, especially, with the private sector. When we look at the devolution of power in England, it has to be to the whole community. We have to look at the public sector as a whole, not just one part of it, albeit an important part, called local government, and it has to involve the private sector in a new partnership relationship. City deals and the regional growth fund have been a very good start, but they are still central government giving money—very welcome and necessary money—and largesse to local government. We need to start to address the issue of local government in its representative role being able to raise more money and being responsible for the charging rate as well as receiving a greater share of the proceeds.

In the short time that remains to me, I shall say something about London because I think I am the only avowedly London politician who dares to speak in what appears to be a rather anti-London debate. I have had 40-plus years as a London politician, and in all that time I have heard my noble friend Lord Greaves telling me about the evils of the domination of London. I have tried over and over again to explain to him that there is a world of difference between government in London and the government of London. As I have been a London borough councillor for 40 years, I have to say to him that London or, as we in London usually call it, Whitehall, is frankly as far distant from the London Borough of Sutton as it ever is from Pendle or Newcastle. That is the issue, not the number of miles involved—the right to govern oneself. The dominance of London within the United Kingdom, certainly within England, is at least as important for London as it is for the rest of England and the rest of the United Kingdom.

One of the most encouraging things coming out of the debate about devolution within England is the joining together of Core Cities, which was originally formed to combat the influence of London, with the Greater London Authority and London Councils to recognise their shared interest in bringing about much greater devolution, not only to cities and the so-called city regions but within the United Kingdom. Every week, learned and erudite reports are being published—there are three more coming out in the next few months—about not whether to devolve but how to devolve real power and real fund-raising opportunities to local communities. The demand is there, the expectation is there, and it is now for government and all political parties to respond to that expectation.