Levelling Up Debate
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
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Levelling Up
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that England is the most centralised democratic country, and that the greater the centralisation that a country has, the greater the regional inequality. Here we have competitive funding decided by Ministers in London as the answer to devolution. Can the Minister tell us what he understands by the word “devolution”? Can you have devolution without transferring real power and long-term finance to local and regional governments?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I fear that this is a mixing up of issues. We need to see that the levelling-up agenda is around the duty of a national Government helping to level up all areas of the United Kingdom, while devolution of funding is also occurring, as I have already mentioned.