English Devolution Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Lord Berkeley
Main Page: Lord Berkeley (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Berkeley's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on a really interesting document. I wish her well, because the pressure has come from the mayors for devolution—rightly, in my opinion—and what they have come up with is a laudable solution to this. My noble friend’s challenge is how to deal with the other parts of England that are not subject to the current mayors. A variety of solutions are in the White Paper, which we all have to look at, but she is still trying to get more devolution to the other parts of the UK, which they all want. I have one question. The smallest area with a council currently is probably the City of London. How will she fit that into this new structure? Clearly, it does a good job, but it needs some kind of structure within this overall requirement. I congratulate my noble friend.