Lord Hughes of Woodside
Main Page: Lord Hughes of Woodside (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Hughes of Woodside's debates with the Cabinet Office
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, the noble Lord has not asked me about the Silk commission but he will be aware that we are still discussing the extent of devolution with the Welsh Government. He will also be aware that England is at the moment a highly centralised state. The Government are happily discussing with a number of cities devolution to major city areas within England. I remind the House that the population of the local authority area of Birmingham is slightly larger than the population of Northern Ireland, so this is an important question for England as well.
My Lords, I declare an interest as one who took part in these debates. It is 20 or so years ago since the question arose; is it not surprising that we have no new answers?
My Lords, some dilemmas never go away. We have an asymmetrical system of devolution in this country and we have to make it work. As someone who has spent most of his political career in the north of England, I have doubts about the imbalance of advantage within England itself, but that is another issue which we will debate another time.