Alex Norris MP (Labour Shadow Minister for Leveling-Up), Sir David Lidington (former Conservative Cabinet Minister), Jessica Studdert (Deputy Director, NewLocal) and Bren Albiston (Chair SLL Constitution Committee) discuss English devolution, the Levelling Up Bill and Labour's proposed Take Back Control Bill.
John Denham
Alright, good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm John Denham and I'm the director of the Centre for English Identity and Politics. We still have one or two people joining us, but one or two people who seem to be locked out. Uh, but uh, we'll get underway as. Quickly as possible. At least I can do the introduction. For those of you. Who are on? The call the topic today is taking. That control making English devolution work. And we've got a great panel who are going to you're going to hear from very shortly, Alex Norris, Labour MP for Nottingham North. He had previously been a City Council in Nottingham and since 2021 he's been the shadow minister for levelling up part of Leeds and Andy's team Sir David Lidington was was the conservative. MP for Aylesbury from 1992 to 2019. Six years as Minister of State for Europe and under Theresa May was leader of the House and then Minister of the Cabinet Office, where, though not formally given this name, was widely regarded as the de facto Deputy Prime Minister, we have Jessica Stoddart, who's the Deputy chief executive of new, local and independent think tank and. Network of local. Priorities, who aim to transform public services and unlock community power, and finally, Bren Alberston, a lawyer who is the chair of the Society of Labour Lawyers Constitutional Committee, just quickly on the call, you'll see, hopefully that there's a chat function which is to enable people on the call to talk amongst themselves. If you have a question that you would like to put to the panel, please put those in under the Q&A function. That's the one. I'll be monitoring and I will be trying to put questions or at least the gist of people's questions to the panel and I'll take as many of those as I possibly can. The background to this, of course, is a very live debate about English devolution. There's levelling up legislation making its way through parliament at the moment, implementing some of the policies in the governments, levelling up White Paper. Keir Starmer, in line it has to be said, with every single leader of the opposition in my lifetime, has promised an unprecedented shift of power. And why to all to local authorities, but has promised a taking back control Bill as one of the key items in the first King's Speech in the new parliament. And yet progress on the. And is relatively slow. I would suggest. So what we want to do today is really try to get underneath the arguments that are shaping English devolution policy and to work out what could be done to make it move more quickly and particularly to make it effective. So I'm gonna go first to. Alex to set out a perhaps something of Labour's aspirations and how labour policy is taking shape. And perhaps if you could, Alex, the difference is as you see it, between what you might be wanting to do and what's currently making its way through Parliament so over. To you.
Alex Niven
Thanks, John. There's no better way than the moderator starting by saying how unoriginal your plans are. Always. If nothing else, that sets me a low bar to clear, but I'll take that and the spirits it's intended and we'll see how it gets on. I mean the question first of all is you know why English devolution, what is what is it in service of? And and so far primarily I think it's been seen through an economic lens. It's why it's so intrinsically bound up in the levelling up agenda. The point of saying that if we want decent, skilled work in all nations, regions, subregions across all communities in this country. Then we believe that putting those levers and the resources in the hands of local people is the best way of shaping that. You know that it sounds actually matter because there's there's political consensus on it. It's not, and it's important that we. Start from there. And from that you can build on to questions of you know what, what you could do so on on more direct social programmes for good as well. But at the moment it's. Primarily I think. Through through an economic lens. And and what is it? Well, what is it is relatively simple. It's a shift of money and power from Whitehall to town hall and in its nature, you know, generally combined authorities and local authorities rather than directly to local authorities. And that is always. An issue I. Think with worth teasing out, which we will. Do in due course. The challenge with the status quo is that what we have is a relatively arbitrary and inconsistent set up. It would be very hard to explain to a just in, you know, not particularly interested in this area observer about why we have what we. Have now and you know one of our thing our. Particular things we. Need to as well as deepen the settlement with an expansion of the powers and resources available, which I'll touch on in a second. We need to widen participation and get to to the extent that it's possible to get everybody into arrangements that can allow them to receive such powers should they wish for that to be the case. On the on the power point of view, we are in, I always. Want a better phrase than? That's just you're a better phrase maker than me. But I want a better phrase than an arms race, but we're in, I think, a very positive arms race with the government that you know, in in January, as you said, Kiir set out with this take back control speech, a series of areas around skills, around housing, around transport. That we wanted to go further in the devolved settlement here. And you know what we've seen in the Trailblazer deals contains elements of that, not all of it, we particularly think should be going further on skills beyond the adult skills budget. We also think should be going further on real localisation of DWP and employment support more generally. We think you could get into culture spending as well. So there remains some some areas of difference of that. And and that would be very much the focus of of, as you say, legislation very early on. It were there to be a change of government. He's probably useful to say at this point as well, John, and to give hopefully spark some, maybe spark some questions from the audience too, is that this is in service of you know better economy of levelling up of you know having communities where across the country with better prospects, you know as I say primarily it's been economic. But I don't think we should set our our ambitions only at that. I believe that you know, I'm I'm not one who generally exaggerates, but I think this is one of the key tools in rescuing our democracy. You know, I I suspect we're all here because we love our democracy and we're interested in it, in its, in its operation. So I suspect we share an anxiety. And we open social. Media about where it where it is. And where it feels like. And this is, you know it, this is the title of the seminar. It's what we heard in 2016. It's what we heard as far back 2014 about a desire wants the public to take back control. The yes devolution because we believe it will deliver better economic outcomes. The devolution because the process of devolution of howling. Having greater power and control over your lives and your communities is has a high degree of expectation amongst the public that we absolutely must meet. And I'll I'll come the little points come onto after that in in a second. But I first just want to deal with money because it is a devolution of of of power and money. We have to do it again. This is a point of difference between the two parties. At the moment. We've got to get away from The Hunger Games beauty parades again, however, you want to characterise it, style the funding that have led to very. The kind of very eccentric outcomes in funding that if again, you're trying to explain someone from another country. Or another planet. You you wouldn't be able to do so. We have to get, you know, those processes are debilitating. You know, constantly jumping through those hoops takes so much steam out of local authorities, not to mention the disappointment with the communities because you always. Engage with the community to work up such bids, so we have to get to a more consolidated fund funding settlement targeted at deprivation and need and and that and that again is is one of the sort of the pillars of our approach. But if what. And I'll I'll finish on this point today. We're we're an introductory remarks about, I have a habit of getting going sometimes, but we if what people get from devolution is a shift of power from the centre to sub regional bodies that would be a good thing for all the reasons that that. We will discuss. Today, that will not be taking back control. Not even close. This has to be. You know and. And lots of people on this call having looked at who's here, I know who are working in the. Space, which is very exciting. It has to be a double devolution model that that respects that yes, the centre does things for, you know, local authorities and command authorities that they could do for themselves. But those local authorities can do things for communities. That they can do for themselves and that has to be a shift of power. And we've staked out, you know, Lisa, late last year staked out the community right to buy, for example, building out from the right to bid in the local. Some act similarly. You know we will be coming forth in in due course with mirroring commitments around the right to challenge, which hasn't worked, but that principle of getting the public into decision making on the services that affect their lives, that's hugely important. We have to deliver meaningful Community power, otherwise this will be very, very interesting for people like us. This will drive. Better economic outcomes, and it will leave all the the public challenge still underneath it, and we absolutely must meet that that test. So I I hopefully have provoked a number of issues there for for other panellists and for for the audience, John, but I'll probably put a cork in it at this.
John Denham
Alex, thank you very much indeed. That's a very good and and and when we brief introduction, we'll come back, I think and pick up quite a few of the points you've raised there. During discussion and apologies, by the way, to anybody who's joined slightly late, we had some technical problems with some of the people who had registered, but.
David Lidington
All with us now. David, can I come to you? And interested. Really. In you were in government for a lot of the period of time from the original northern powerhouse. And so through other discussions. I'd be interested in your sense of how conservative policy has evolved and why perhaps it's in the shape that it is today.
Speaker 6
Yeah, thanks. Thanks, John. There's a lot in what Alex said that I I would agree with. I think if you look at my parties history on this, you you go back to a a view at the time, you know, thinking back to the Thatcher government in particular that. Spending borrowing here at at local authority level was getting out of hand and I think with I'm convinced with the active support of the the civil service in Whitehall that that government then sought to solve the problems by centralising decision making, imposing controls. From the centre we saw John Prescott when Labour came to office in 1997. You know, trying to put powers into regional development authorities though, though again there were. The two problems I think with that one was that there was a still a very strong degree of central control and successive governments. Conservative labour have wrestled with this tension between the the idea on the one hand, that of of autonomy, for whether for local or sub, regional or regional bodies. And on the other hand, the wish to see them as implementing bodies there to ensure that the central government's policies were carried out effectively at local or regional level. I think the problem with the DA's also had been that they were seen as. In my view, correctly as as being just too remote, there are two. They were too big to to really connect with with anybody's sense of place, and particularly if you represent a seat as I did in the Southeast of England, you know, the Southeast area, just just stretching from Thanet. To Milton Keynes, via the Isle of Wight, really didn't add up to anything that people thought they belonged. So the tendency then in Conservative Party was the right we gotta get rid of all of this. What was very striking is that when George Osborne. He came in he in by 2010, he'd had a term as the Member of Parliament for a constituency just South of Manchester. Tatton and he changed his views and the the coalition governments approach and the subsequent Cameron government approach was very much driven, I think, by George Osborne's Energy and commitment. And in, if you look back in the years since 2010, I think the appetite of coalition and conservative governments for devolution, of the kind we're discussing has depended hugely upon how interested and keen the the the. That the Central Secretary of State was in driving that agenda forward. For Osborne, this was about economic regeneration more than anything else. And he looked at Greater Manchester on his constituency doorstep. He felt having talked to Labour parties where the Conservative Party leaders in local government, there was a possibility of a deal there and he was excited by the prospect of the new arrangements. Leading to regeneration of Greater Manchester and he saw this as the the Trailblazer for something that could be used to regenerate northern conurbations without which happening. It would be very difficult to get overall UK. A economic regeneration and competitiveness, and I think Osborne saw we couldn't simply rely on London and the SE indefinitely to be the engines of growth, with George, as always, you know, there was a, a, a little dimension. I think there's few of us who have been elected, politicians who, who, who, who, if we we look into our most souls would would would pretend that we're. Spotlessly clean and clear of any any sort of political overtones, and do for Osborne clearly there was a thought. Well, actually this works. Then that might get the Conservative Party some more support. Make us more credible in the north of England, we seem to be delivering something that's putting power into their hands. And I think as we went on with this model of an executive mayor on a on a sort of metropolitan area basis, you saw some of the the problems that are that arose even in Greater Manchester. It was not easy I think to get all the local authorities. Sign up to the eventual deal in South Yorkshire. I could remember business leaders telling me that either every local authority in that area was labour. They had taken a very long time and was very tense negotiations before they finally. They agreed on the mayoral model to which they would all subscribe. And when we look. At the some of the difficulties in the current settlement and some of the inconsistencies, we can see that powers differ from one place to another. Andy Burnham exercises the powers of a police and crime Commissioner, Andy St, in the West Midlands. Does not do that the. He governments in the last 16 years have insisted on a mayoral model and I think that that does a has acted as a as a disincentive in some parts of the country who would like to embrace this devolutionary agenda, but who do not want the mayoral model that goes with it at the moment? I don't think that until very recently, huge thought has been given to non metropolitan areas and how you deal with. Those and of course, there has been really no precept arrangements, but there's there's no real devolution of revenue raising or or borrowing powers to any any significant extent. There's a difference between how other democracies with with a longer. History of devolution operate and there's always been and continues to be, a tension within the Conservative Party over the need for financial control. On the one hand, and a wish to devolve power on the other. And also between the tendency to look to work within a an area that has a coherent economic geography and on the other hand, an attachment to historic boundaries and to people sense of place and identity and economic geographies and the. The sense of historic identity and of of, of places that are belonging do not always coincide neatly, and that does make for some problems and and we've seen the see the attention. Differ depending on who you know, who has been in senior office. I think it's it's fair to say that this was not something that was top of the agenda in Theresa May's time as Prime Minister. I think the the new energy behind it in more recent years is less to do with Boris Johnson than actually do to that, that Michael Gove. Genuinely believes in this agenda and has earlier taken the lead in trying to make it happen in Whitehall, as we're seeing with the levels. Bill, at the moment, you know at least there you have some statutory framework for for devolution that you have a, a, an obligation on government to. To produce annual statements of progress on its its missions, on levelling up this provision for. And by county authorities to be created with devolved powers. Although still the. The the lean towards the mayoral model, but I think there's still some important questions that whoever is elected in a general election next year is are going to have to address. I mean, one is to what extent A devolutionary model at let us call it subregional level. Should be compulsory. Because we think that's makes for good governance or should it be bottom up as it has been up till now and in kind still to go with bottom up, although personally I would get rid of two tier local authorities and I would have unitary boroughs and counties. And I think that in turn would make the sub regional devolution. Easier to move towards.
Then should it be based? Should should the sub regional devolution be based on city regions in effect as it has up till now? And if not, what are the boundaries? Because if you're going for county level authorities, you're going to be dealing with devolved authorities that have smaller? Populations than they do now, but have a degree of certainly historic coherence and a a genuine sense of people's part, that they belong. On to these so you know I I only have to raise the suggestion that you merge Devon and Cornwall before you give them devolutionary powers. That you you will immediately see where the rations will start to rise. If if we we simply try to insist that that there's a, there's a an arbitrary population level which devolved sub regional body has to meet. Then fine. And to what extent should we devolve tax revenues? To what extent should we devolve borrowing powers? And I'm broadly looking looking very seriously at what countries like Germany do. And Germany, you have an A certain amount of tax revenues allocated to the lender for for them to determine how it should be? Spent, but I think Rachel Reeves every bit as much as Jeremy Hunt. Is going to be be be very vigilant about not losing too much control when it's national government, but will get blamed if overall national borrowing or overall national spending and and tax take starts to run out of control. And I don't think anybody has. Yet come up with a the the answer to this conundrum. But I I also believe that well, while I support what Alex said about. The democratic importance of devolution, our final point is this. I think in the current constitutional environment, devolution in England is the great missing element from the 1998 constitutional settlement. It's a bit that was left unfinished along with the House of Lords. And the. It it it it it at the moment we have a United Kingdom where you have devolved Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and. England where? This is not this is. It's not clear what is English and what is United Kingdom when it comes to policy making or accountability, and that, I think makes a greater friction between the centre and the devolved governments and parliaments, and it also means that England is now the largest. People, the English, the largest people in Europe that don't have any sort of parliament or assembly of their. Own. So I think that we need both changes to the structure of Whitehall to enable the English interest to be better and more transparently represented when it comes to government decisions. And and I think that we need to have a devolutionary settlement in England, I would add Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland too, which in my judgement are all far too centralised at the. Moment, but I think. It becomes easier for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland to find themselves a comfortable place. In a United Kingdom where they are part of a pattern of devolution which is happening in all four of the United Kingdom nations.
John Denham
Thank you very much indeed. A whole series of questions there for our discussion later on, if people are interested in the governance of England as a whole. If you look on our website, you can see our recent seminar with Diane Coyle and others looking at how England should be governed at the Centre. But. And we go now from the centre to the to the, to the very local. And I I think Alex already touched on the the tension between the level of structures that are needed for economic development and the communities in which people actually live. So I'd like to bring Jess in now to talk about the community empowerment aspect for this devolution debate.
Jessica Studdert
Thank you so much, John and thanks. Thanks for the opportunity to be part of this discussion. Really agree with so much of the analysis from Alex and David. So far I I think it's just important to to kind of reflect at this stage. We're actually 10 years into devolution as a formal policy. The first deal with. Greater Manchester was done in 2014, so it it it feels like that in that 10 years there's obviously been progress, but it's been, it's been in a particular model and it's been quite stop. Start and and it sort of feels like the the recent recent progression of the devolution framework, which finally set out what had been kind of rather untransparent and lack unclear sort of asymmetric as David was was saying, devolution of powers that some people have some things and some others don't. And the trail blazer devolution deals have really broken through new ground, so it is possible now to say that funds devolve. Are devolved, not just delegated with a strong degree of oversight and the the single pot has been a a big breakthrough. So what we have seen so far overall is quite a tightly managed form of devolution, which has been done on the terms of the centre. And some departments have been able to be completely disengaged. Some have been active, but it hasn't been a kind of whole government approach today, so. Obviously, whoever wins the next general election, whichever party might do so, they will be at the beginning of five years in in power where it is possible to set up a more kind of a long term long term clear direction of travel. And it's really good and it's obviously referred to arms race. It's really good that there is a degree of cross party consensus. It's the right, it's the right. Model. It's theirs aren't going to go away. They can't be disbanded like RA's were disbanded and they're obviously using using their platform and and advocating for more for more powers. So there there is a case that there's an inherited framework and so there's a sense of. What's done a bit faster? What's expanded? A bit. More and it's great to hear Alex's ideas for what Labour would potentially do. I just wanted to sort of set out a few, a few areas where I think it. Could be a. Bit more ambitious and. I guess to date it feels like the starting point of devolution. Obviously it's had an economic driver primarily. But the starting point really has been what's government prepared to let go of rather than what would enable all parts of our country to genuinely thrive? And if you had that kind of broader starting point, it would open up questions about well-being about resilience, about economic inclusion and and some of the. Some of the factors that local governments in places grapple with and the current model is quite a specific focus on specific central government functions from particular departments. Reallocate. Did, but largely the same but just reallocated to combined authorities. So just to. Kind of set three particular areas on the table for for discussion. Firstly around that as John was mentioning the. Kind of community. Community powered aspects of devolution, obviously, and the title of this session sort of reflects it. The idea that the backdrop that we're all working to is this rising sense of. Daily Nation from decision making in the sense that people don't feel the system is working for them. So devolution should be an opportunity to really Dr subsidiarity, which is a. Word, but effectively people feeling that decisions are made closer to them close to the lowest possible level to them and where possible with their active participation. But the devolution model to date, where new democratic elements have largely just begun and ended with the introduction of mayors. I'm messy. Had positive benefits. They've certainly become strong figureheads for the subregions they represent, and they've certainly using their soft convening power really well across the sub regions and they're they're working together and they're really pushing the pushing the envelope in terms of what more powers they could get from the central government. So they're setting the pace of the. Debate on devolution to a large extent. But it's important to note that the where people have been offered a vote on whether they want a new mayor, they have tended to reject them. So it it's it's arguable that that in itself gives people a sense of more democratic kind of ownership and and and and participate. So a few kind of suggestions. There's a whole range of real innovation being driven from local government largely, but increasingly some mayoral combined authorities looking at using more deliberative democracy and more direct participative elements drawing people into both direct. Community LED decision making processes and how budgets might be spent locally in neighbourhoods, but also drawing people into some of those more strategic decision makings over how to tackle climate. Change. I don't see any reason why people in a sub region can't have more say over transport investment. People know intimately how how their transport networks are working or are not. They have a valid say, so I I wonder whether in the future more kind of requirements could be built in to have ongoing. Deliberation into the deal making process, so existing deals or expanded ones building and hardwire a sense of ongoing deliberative democracy. I think that I I sort of hesitate to require areas to do things. It's not part of my sort of localist philosophy, but it's certainly kind of in, in keeping with a lot of what is happening locally anyway and increasing amounts of increasing amounts of various people are really understanding that. Getting people together to kind of discuss trade-offs, move towards consensus building is a really important way of making effective decisions and and and crucially having people feel they've got input into those. Visions labours take back control. Bill is certainly an opportunity to consider not just from the kind of top down what powers can go into areas, but from the bottom up and in parallel. What rights you can give communities and what level of kind of expectation of participation they can be given and and Alex mentioned. Labour have already committed to community right to. Buy which would? Support community ownership of important local assets. I think there's scope for thinking about what rights communities might have to shape public services and to participate in the design and delivery of services that matter to them that they use directly. And I think there's certainly lots of learnings to be done from the shortcomings of the Localism Act, which did have some new community, right. But they were quite weak, sometimes set up in opposition to local authorities and of course, accompanied by austerity. So there was limited capacity to kind of respond to those rights. So I think if if devolution is seen as both kind of reallocating power from whiteboard departments and reallocating power up to communities. To create that expectation of participation, you could begin to create a different a different expectation of what it means to be in a in a democratic area in a combined authority area, and what. How you might participate outside of traditional elections? I think Labour have also looked at local public accounts committees, which are always a a, a great idea. We we we can see how the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee plays a quite a valuable role in understanding and driving accountability for public spend. I think there is an opportunity to create these at the combined authority level, which would really kind of drive that line of sight over public spend and activity in an area. I think they're at their most. At their at their most. Effective, they would hold kind of open, transparent inquiries. Potentially communities would be able to kind of trigger her petitions, but to trigger inquiries into issues. I think if they had a line of sight across, not just combined authority or local authorities then, but all public sector spend in an area, they would be quite powerful vehicles understanding how. How public money is spent in an area and certainly open transparency to communities within within those areas. Secondly, just a cut, so a couple of other areas. To date, and it's been mentioned already, it's obviously been quite a specific economic growth focus through devolution. This doesn't necessarily have to be how it was, in fact, the Greater Manchester Councils, whose whose collaborative working over the over the decades and years really did inform the model of devolution we see now. In Greater Manchester, there was always a sense that one side of the coin is economic growth and the other side is public service reform and growth and better growth and and more. Powerful growth levers designed to create the opportunities, but public service reform is designed to support people to take advantage of those opportunities and remove barriers to work, particularly health barriers and and I think if you talk to but GM and the authorities in Greater Manchester really over the years they've taken a lot of learning. From being part of schemes like that. Your place, but they were also one of the whole place community budget pilots and around 2011 they then got health devolution way ahead of where we're now with integrated care systems which are which are everywhere. So there's a sort of sense that although Greater Manchester can be seen as a sort of poster. For effective devolution, actually a lot of their collaborative working has been around public service reform, which they continue to this day as well as the economic growth side. So I think that there's there's there's ways in which. Elements of public services could be put on the table with devolution and certainly some of the big health big spending departments like health DF E and A and a large extent DWP have been slightly absent. The division agenda and and we're seeing more of a place focus coming from the Department of Health. It's just that it's quite misaligned from devolution, so integrated care systems have grown up on hospital footprints rather than democratic boundaries, and there's gonna be a time at which there's gonna be need to be some realignment of that. At the moment we've got different parts of Whitehall with a different. Understanding and definition of places that aren't necessarily talking to each. Other so if you did that from the perspective of what would help people thrive, you could you could have questions like what? Why? Why not devolve early years? Why not think about how over the life course areas can have more, more control over? The system supports them and finally, I'm glad somebody has already mentioned physical devolution because I was going to. Bring it up. I think fiscal devolution is inevitable. It's the inevitable next step. It's it's where the trailblazer areas should must go. Despite 10 years of devolution, we still are an outlier internationally in terms of the degree of fiscal centralisation. Still, only 5% of all taxation. In the UK. Is local and that compares with about 30% in Germany, more like 50% in Canada and I think there's also increasing recognition. That we are on the one hand, we're highly fiscally centralised and on the other hand, we are significantly regionally unequal and that these two things might be linked, and this is certainly backed up by OCD data and politicians do tend to be cautious about fiscal devolution.
Well, let me just do my final pitch for fiscal devolution. I think there's a strong case for setting out an element of what currently goes nationally in income tax and VAT to be retained locally in different areas, which would drive different incentives for growth. And there's a principle behind business rates localization, which is already occurring, which is that local areas need more control over their own taxation. So I will leave it there and hope we can carry on the discussion.
John Denham
We pick up on that as we go along. All of this. Has to be translated into legislation in some ways, and the the, the, the next speaker final speaker is Brent Alston, who's been giving some thought to whether we should be looking at quite a different legal structure. Or the the powers and the accountability of local government brain.
Bren Albiston
Thanks, John. Yes, so I'm going to talk about turning policy into law and some of the difficulties with that generally and specifically about this kind of policy agenda. But I think first we need to be clear that legislation of this kind seeking to achieve the kind of structural change envisaged by both parties. Is fundamentally constitutional in nature, and this constitutional dimension needs to be considered very carefully, in my view, governance reform in England can no longer be seen as a simple exercise of reforming local government, but as a transition to devolved government and without this fundamental shift in mindset. Any programme of reform is likely to reproduce and indeed make worse the problems which already exist in the current system. With that said, before I go to talk more specifically about the legislative challenges faced with this kind of initiative, the difficulties with turning either parties, devolution, aspirations into law are largely the same As for any other project. And as a legal practitioner, I see. These problems time and time again. I I would recommend. Anybody to read? Justice David Goddard's excellent book making laws that work. And he's identified a number of common issues which, as I say, have come across most days of my working life. So the first problem is what he refers to as the damp squib. That is legislation that is enacted. But would the world doesn't change, or at least not very. Much a common problem that leads to this is that people whose behaviour the legislation is intended to influence are not aware of it or don't understand it. This can be ameliorated. Through ensuring that the law and information about is accessible. If key actors are not aware of the law or its implications for them. What enables them to do or requires them to do, then their behaviour will not change and they will and the law will not work. Another common factor is that the people who are supposed to benefit from the change do not have the knowledge, skills, or most importantly, resources, particularly financial resources, to be able to use the law effectively. Further, it may be that institutions tasked with carrying through the actions legislated for don't do it or don't do it very well. Or where enforcement miscues, that is where the institutions tasked with enforcing the legislation don't understand it and don't use it as intended. It may equally be a problem that the law. It is too big and becomes unwieldy. The next issue sort of headline is overshoot. That is where the laws achieve what was intended to achieve. That fails to stop there. That can increase the cost of administering law and causes other systemic issues. Then there's nasty surprises. Overshoots. It may be that the law produces other unexpected undesirable results. The typical result. This typically results from a failure to think through the long term consequences of a law and how people respond to it. It may be that nastier surprises can result from a lack of institutional capacity or will to administer the law as intended, and then finally the backfire, IE where the law creates perverse results. What an economist might call the Cobra effect, which is named after a famous case in Colonial India when the colonial authorities paid people to hunt and kill cobras over. Instead, there to people breeding cobras to kill them to hand. And skins. Yeah, paying for them. The thread that runs through all these issues is behaviour people not behaving as desired, not changing the, not changing their behaviour or changing their behaviour in a way that's that fires in order to avoid these issues, justice Goddard identified a number of specific questions when thinking about drafting legislation. But can be distilled into broadly 4 questions to the first, what is the situation now? Well, England is in every meaningful sense. As David and other speakers have touched on the constitutional odd one out. Once there are several areas of England which do have some degree of devolution. There is no uniform devolution of powers across the country and there is a patchwork of different arrangements with wildly different powers of responsibilities. This leads to confusion for the public and other constitutional actors, which in turn leads to a lack of accountability. Further, what powers have been devolved or consolidated are very limited, particularly with. When compared to the range powers available to other devolved governments. Indeed, these arrangements have largely simply inherited powers that have always been exercised outside the federal government, alongside certain further powers granted pursuant to the Localism Act and the new trailblazer arrangements. Consequence in England is left to be governed directly by the UK Government and UK ministers. Indeed, even when, where, where there has been a degree of devolution origination, such arrangements are still are still best described as local rather than devolved government. Therefore, when we are thinking about the further development of devolution in England, we have to consider how any new legislative framework will deal with this patchwork and a shortcomings, but also if there's anything about it we're saving, such as the relative flexibility of the current arrangements, together with considering what we definitely want to get rid of. Such as, for example, the current method of awarding grants to different local developed governments, as well as thinking about. What is there already that needs improving upon? The next heading is how will legislation change what happens in the short and long term. This is of course dependent on what we want the legislation to achieve. The take Back Control Act has been billed as the greatest transfer of powers from the Centre since evolution in the 1990s. A number of specific powers or areas of policy have been identified as part of that process over each and everyone of these areas once devolved. Could have a number of aspects affects rather intended and unintended. I can't speak to those specific policies, but what I can speak to are possibly the constitutional effects of this type of change more broadly. For example, the programme of devolution of powers will fundamentally alter the relationship between the centre and the periphery. Therefore, consideration must be given to the mechanisms and institutions required to manage their change and its effects in the. Further, as more and more competences are devolved, some central government departments will find that they have progressively different degrees of responsibility across England, such that policy formation and execution becomes more difficult. Therefore, thought must be given to how this? Is managed. The central point being, they must not only consider how each of the fresh head of of policy areas will affect service delivery, how all these changes will work together as a package. And affect. What will and what effect will have on the government and the functions of the state more broadly, particularly the relationships between constitutional actors? Three, how sure are we that legislation will in fact create the change? Well, one positive aspect of our current devolution arrangements in England is that we have almost an act by accident on a number of experiments as to whether devolution is sought by local communities and their representatives as well as the willingness of those representatives to use those powers once devolved. Others will be better able to tell. You if that is. Necessarily leads to better policy outcomes, but the consensus is that better policy outcomes will likely result. However, an important part of ensuring this is the case is that there are sufficient means to monitor the use of these powers and hold these newly empowered decision makers to account. And of course, it may be that there is requirement for some kind of mechanism to compel the relevant actors to take action. And then finally, if we're not very sure what? What this means, or that the effects or how? What does that mean for the design of the legislation? Or should we legislate at all? As I said, ultimately we cannot be sure what the effectiveness of these changes will be. Therefore there needs to be sufficient flexibility built into the legislative framework to manage that uncertainty and ensure that lessons can be learned and changes made. That being said, there's flexibility needs to be tempered. Against the need for certain. And not only for constitutional actors about the public as well, and I can talk more about this, more specific sort of legal changes we might want to. Kick off and. Talk about later, but I think that's a good sort. Of overview of the. Key constitutional constitutional challenges we have to.
JD
Bren, thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed. So a range of challenges, could I I've got a few questions in the Q&A, but could I just say to participants put some do put some questions and into the Q&A function and I'll try and raise. Those but Alex. Could I come back to you First off? With if you. Like implicit challenges from from the from what? You've heard so far. It has been a long drawn out. Process to get where we are today. You could go back to John Gummer's government office of the Regions in 1994, I suppose via Rdas and here we are. Two questions. Do you really ask what? Specifically, do you think a new government could do to speed up the process? Yes. And secondly, and you touched on this earlier, but perhaps you could expand a bit, what's the balance going to be between continuing the deal, the deal based process area by area and actually giving local areas powers as of rights and and and will those be to localities? As we have them or will there be a requirement to to come up, you know, following David's point, a particular regional structure or economic functional geography? So how how do we actually speed up if this is so important to our vision of having that is governed and and how much of the powers as all right?
AN
So I mean those those are very important questions. I mean it's you posed me those questions from Southampton, which I think is probably quite an interesting test case of Hampshire. And so and and that I mean. The the thing for us is that we want to get away from a deal based model. That means that those geographies are top down. You know your two major. Levels of geography and governance model. I have to be a little bit careful about as as you're sort of pulling, pulling my punches a little bit earlier around where we are in the policy process, but just if you're going to get. Everybody in you. Have to do something different on your approach to geography and governance. So that's about as far as I'm willing to go on. That credit, but. I hope you kind of see the. Implication within that. And and then. The second point. On the on the harmony. And this is, you know, this is really important, any government, any new government would inherit a settlement that has evolved asymmetrically over however long you want to date it, whether you want say 10 years or or. Longer. What you can't do, you know this isn't a what are the things that me and Lisa really think this the, the, the, the country should be structured as and completely reboot the thing that's not. Going to work. That's not going. To happen you have to build on what you've got to build out from what you've got. I think one of the ways that you can have a greater deal of harmonisation. We're seeing anyway in the in the in the deals that are are now coming through the the sort of post white paper deals for all the negotiations, they look very, very. Similar and we are seeing a greater alignment of them. The way in which I think you could speed up alignment and I I'm pretty sure at least as announced as before. So I don't think I'm. Gonna get some light to down, but to give and you know, I push this amendment in the levelling up bill as well a right to request. So for one you know. On devolved authority combined authority to say, well, actually we don't have.
Unlike, you know, another part of the country, if they can have that, we should be able to have it and that that would be the the expectation would be that that power would be granted. And I think you'd start to see the herding, then you wouldn't get rid of all your variants, but short of blowing the whole thing up, it's going to be difficult to do that anywhere. Now that wouldn't be desirable. So I I think that's one model to try and get yourself in then to a greater degree. Of kind of uniformity and and and and and you know and things that are for the public slightly more accessible and and understandable.
JD
Thanks very much. Hurts if. I could go. A little bit further, I understand your your hesitation about the policy process at this stage ahead of an election, but to what extent? If you took your right to request Powers, had already gone to somebody else? To what extent do you think the central government is going to need to set conditions as to who can exercise that that right to request? I suppose if I picked up something from from David's opening, would you say to Devon and Cornwall? I'm sorry, but you're just gonna have to overcome. Long periods of rivalry and resentment in order to get these powers. Or would it be more a matter of Cornwall should be able? To get what Cornwall wants.
Speaker 4
Well, I I start from the from the principle that we ought to have access to these powers by dint of our common personhood. You know, I still I've said this to you before. John. Jesse, you've heard me say this, but I I take it quite personally. But when you know originally when when decisions were being made by ministers, you know, there was a judgement made about the quality of the leadership and. And the readiness in Manchester, a judgement made about the quality of the leadership and the readiness in Nottingham, I've lived half my life in Manchester, half my life in Nottingham and noting it was go fishing. Obviously Manchester have steamed forward and really made good with that. You know, I still say that quite personally and maybe there was an argument for that in the early. Days when you.
Speaker 3
Were make you know.
Speaker 4
When you were proving the the concept OK, I. Don't think the case is that strong now. If we're saying that those powers are good when exercised locally, and that's just, you know, local decision makers want to and get their community involved, that actually I think should be the the, the, the, the, the balance of power should be on those those opportunities going out to to all to all really rather than. A notional sense of, you know, white all being able to pick who's good and who's not. And you know I I say this slightly cherishing, but not not wholly. You know, we still only have to do better than Whitehall, you know. That's the bar here. This is not will, you know, will new revolt arrangements make immediate utopia? Well, no, they'll be tricky. That things will be challenging. That I don't think the status quo is delivering so much for us that we should be. We should fear the chance for a bit of yes, the new and the novel.
Speaker 1
Thanks very much indeed, tempting though it is to continue to quiz you alone on all the answers to these questions, I want to why the discussion, and firstly, could I just can I come to you with a question raised by Richard Keeley, which is, I mean, because you're the you've advocated clearly for, for the, for the broadest devolution, if you like in this discussion. And he raises the question about post code lotteries and. The the likelihood in reality that some Whitehall ministers at every party will say, well, we can't let these things go because we'll get different services in different places or different outcomes. What's what's your? Argument to the post code lottery case that's put for resisting change.
Speaker 5
So my argument is that we already have a massive postcode lottery under a highly centralised system and the biggest postcode lottery is that of life chances. We have highly unequal life expectancies that really vary according to place, so there's a there's an extent to. Essentialized system and kind of universal services, where they exist, are not actually meeting. Those facing marginalisation and and facing extreme health inequalities. So I think there's a strong case and actually this is quite important for. Kind of people on. The left and the the progressive kind of moves. Where there might have been a sense that a kind of big society level intervention is the best for tackling inequalities. Actually, we're such an unequal society that an approach that really goes where people start from and builds out but puts them at the centre and listens to the experience of people who are facing poverty. And gives them a voice and a role in the service response and the state response that would help them get on in life. So I think that there's a need to. There's a need to sort of understand the post code lottery sees uniformity of service output, but is a bit blind to the service outcomes and and and it's those outcomes I think. Devolution has a real opportunity to to to meet more effectively.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Could I go, David to to you with the question from David Sweeting, really he's sort of reflected back something you said. You know, we come across with regional and sub regional governance and then they get they get introduced, then they get abolished. Firstly, is this going to be? The fate of combined. And I suppose secondly to you, having been in government, what do you think governments could do to ensure that they're you don't get these huge swings of policy approach every time there's a change of government or indeed a change of minister?
Speaker 6
They I think that the the the answer to the first question is from Sweeting. Is is clearly ultimately a set of arrangements that are brought into being by statute. Can be abolished by statute. I think the the the way to entrench these is to buttress them with a system of institutional working and law that gives them duties to to perform and also to. To do so in a way so. That the you know, the main political parties at national level all feel that they want to have an influence over those sub regional bodies. They want their man or woman elected as mayor or or leader of this group, rather than saying, let's get rid of them. So I mean, one of the other questions I I saw in the chats talked about is that we we've been talking about sort of allocating budgets as evidence of of of devolution. What about? Having duties and I do think this is this is key. So I remember a conversation I had with Andy Burnham when I was at the Cabinet Office and, you know, exploring his appetite for taking on some of the criminal justice functions and and you could, I think, make a good argument for saying that community sentences, treatment orders. Possibly even the the the low security prisons. Perhaps open prisons could be devolved, at least perhaps we could experiment with that to start with, to see how it worked and and as part and say you devolve the duty to have an effective crime prevention strategy. To that sub regional level so you could go, you could go about it in different ways and I and I think rather than imposing a single set of rules, I would I would. Allow experiment innovation. See what works there been cases and probation is the most egregious recent example where you know government tried for all well intended reasons. The Big Bang approach to reform and it proved absolutely disastrous in practise. Whereas there were pilot projects that, if built upon, might have had a better outcome, I think institutionally I think that you need to set up a structure in the Cabinet Office which. I think ought to be the department dealing with constitutional affairs. It's gone. Went with Michael Gove because of Michael's particular interest in that. But I think it should sit in the Cabinet Office and the Cabinet Office would then have a relationship on behalf of the UK Government with the devolved English. Authorities, as it does with the devolved governments and parliaments of Scotland, Wales. And Northern Ireland as well. So you build it into that structure, you bring together probably a national forum of mayors or leaders of these sub regional authorities who would meet with secretaries of state or ministers of state concerned, perhaps as a a sort of. Special Cabinet Committee of some. Kind each year you you. Would need to look at. Accountability to to to to does the mayor have to produce an annual report which the Public Accounts Committee looks at, as well as being accountable to local to their own assembly or or or Council I I I don't have sort of set views on these things, but I think we need to explore and create. And institutional structure that ensures that these arrangements were capable of changing evolution are seen as a natural and and permanent part of the the constitutional order.
Speaker 1
Thank you, David. When can I? Come to you then, to follow up that and and Dave's referred to a question. I think that is by by Mark Sanford, which is the extent to which, in your view, there should be a shift to having a discussion between local and central about things that central governments already doing where the locality says, well, we could do that better to actually can you get more entrenchment out of placing legal duties. What is the potential, as David is suggesting, for having some sort of joint forum or joint decision making between localities in the centre and as as as a quick one, the short answer please, are there other ways of entrenching what a new government does, which makes it harder to to get rid of than than, for example, RDA's to be abolished?
Speaker 3
Yeah. So I. Think the the question. I take the entrenchment points together, I think so. I mean, in my view and it's not view shared by everybody is that it's. There are there. Are relatively straightforward ways for in in, in trenching bits of legislation. I mean, there's there's a, there's a tension and a debate between. You know what? What? Should look like. Should it be? Should it be there? Should it be a a formal mechanism? Or should we try and engender some kind of political entrenchment where the political, you know, cost of of making changes is so significant that nobody would want to do? It at all or? But I think we've seen that that kind of political entrenchment relies on a on a fundamental understanding and agreement about the rules of the game, which has broken down over the last a little while. And so in my view, that kind of entrenchment doesn't work or or at least becoming, it's becoming a lot less effective. The legal mechanisms there is nothing in my view, in our constitutional order which will prevent us from having what's called manner and form of entrenchment, which is effectively effectively where a a piece of legislation says this part of this legislation will not be amended, say, for, you know, through the special mechanism. And then you can then entrench that vegetation and stuff. It's called double entrenchment and there's nothing, there's there's there's nothing that you stop me from doing that. You know the institutions for for managing that relationship between the the centre and the periphery, obviously going to be key. There is a, of course, a difficulty with who will be on those kind of committees that you know and particularly on an All England basis where you know. We have a a significant difference in the level of devolution. Across the country, so, you know, will it be mayors only? Will it be, you know, combined authority executives only or will it be the highest person in that particular geographical area will have an invitation?
Speaker 6
To these things.
Speaker 3
And then what? What would it seek to achieve? Because clearly where you've got different areas of devolution, they won't all have the same interests and being there. So if you've devolved certain aspects of healthcare where they where their level of devolution hasn't occurred elsewhere, then you know there's no point in having people from that region. They're the same way because they won't be the necessity for them to have a joined up policy. Bridge, where they're sort of seen as positive. So I think there's there's a lot of, there's a, there's a lot of issues there that need to be specifically dealt with and to a degree, I mean the law, can the law can set out a framework within which they can work. But you know, as we've seen, I think with other intergovernmental. Relation institutions, relationships. It's really about people turning up and wanting. To make them. Work and the law can't make them do that. It it can make it difficult for them not to do it. And make the punishments for not doing it, you know more or less severe, but there's there's only so much a piece of legislation can do, and it and it. Goes back to. What I was saying earlier about behaviour. It's about changing behaviours and if the law doesn't do that effectively either because it can't or it's not drafted correctly. And that's, you know, that's where we have to. To put our focus.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. So to some extent, entrenchment has to be political and behavioural. It can't simply be at the. Or a a legal concept is perhaps what I I I hate being said there and you picked up, I think a point made and I don't think it's necessarily answer to it by an anonymous attendee who's just pointing out the difficulty of representation of localities where some areas have no deal. Some areas have trailblazers, some areas. Have something in between, Jessica. Could I come back to you with a question from Sean Roberts? The new, the newest kid on the block, but actually not part of Michael Gove's devolution agenda. Our Integrated care boards within the NHS and the suggestion by by Sean is, is that they're not really effectively accountable democratically. What would you say were the options of making them? Well, if you agree with that of making integrated care boards more Democratic, could subject to more democratic oversight in the future.
Speaker 5
It's a really, I mean it's a really good question and I think that's one of the one of the challenges is the the geography of integrated care systems and the boards that's at the. Top of them. Is is decoupled from the economic geography of devolution, apart from in some places like Greater Manchester where they're coterminus. And I think that there's a there's a need to kind of what they're what they present an opportunity to do is to look at whole population at that level health. Needs and then they have a strong principle of subsidiarity through the to the place level and to the neighbourhood level, and there's a promise not yet anywhere fulfilled to then use those as a vehicle for more integration and certainly I mean we do work with a few different health systems in different ways and I. Think it is. It's true to say that the health. The health kind of infrastructure is talking to local government for the first time in a much more substantive way, and is is, is, is finding out about what it means to work in a in a democratic, democratically accountable framework. But I think that eventually these, these different conceptions of place. Coming from Whitehall are gonna have to align and local authorities. It's very it's very patchy how much they're able to participate in and and and bring their oversight of of health outcomes. To bear on health strategies, clearly there's everyone kind of everyone knows what Marmot has added to the debate. There's a real understanding that social determinants of health outcomes that rest in place, and not all clinically led really need to be brought to bear to be effective. And I think that there's there. There is a real opportunity there. To and and I and I don't see that Labour's gonna are gonna unpick those. New health structures, but I think it is going to be. A challenge that. We've got these two different different conceptions of place. They're going to have to be reconciled at some stage, and then you can really begin to look at what public sector funding goes into a place and how horizontally it can be a bit better aligned for impact. And then crucially, how communities. To be a bit more. Involved and engaged in in the system and how it works for them.
Speaker 1
Thank. Thanks very much. Alex, can I come back to you with a couple of themes from that discussion the the 1st is what thought you have given to trying to make the the Alex Norris bill an irreversible piece of legislation, which means that it is not immediately unpicked further down the line. But seriously, have you thought about this problem? Of entrenchment. And secondly, I think I might, in your opening remarks, you acknowledge that the discussion at the moment has largely been about economic growth and levelling up. But there are these big issues that Jess has raised about other public services that have been raised in the questions about ICP. Is that part for now in your thinking or is that something you see as coming onto the agenda, say, within the first term of the Labour government?
Speaker 4
Yeah, I mean the, the, the ICB's point is such an interesting one in the sense that you know, you look at all the blood, sweat and tears that you know I let's say take me for my community, not seen the blood, sweat and tears that we have to exercise in order to get the adult skills budget devolved to us. And then on. The other hand, you're talking multiple billions of. Pounds worth of spend in our integrated care. And that's done. And there's all, you know, there's all that very, very little chatter about oversight and impact and and all those things. There's a real kind of. It there's an. An incongruity of those two conversations, now and again, this this might be a judgement about what my colleagues and successive leaders have thought. Well, the the this current leaders thought of me, but I did the health and care bill before I did the levelling up, bill one, then the other either side of a reshuffle and. You know, we, we'd have to let integrated care board that in you know for what whether for better or for worse. And I think the point about scrutiny is one well made. You know, we have to let them bend in. What we're not gonna be able to do is find some sort of magic alignment of boundaries. There's a question that one of the first questions was, you know, why don't we replicate what they do? In other places where they've made this work well, well, a lot of those places have a high degree of alignment on, you know, traditional provinces or whatever. That is not us, and David made the point about policing that adds another degree of of of trickiness. But that is the world as it is. You know, I think we have to work. You know, work on what we've got in front of us before trying to add those extra bits in. So that's probably around the house way of saying I believe that's that is a part conversation at this stage job then on on entrenchment. I mean, I I take the view that you know we we. Know we can't. No group of people can bind others in the future, either parliaments or communities. If these things can be done, there has to be a. Degree to which they can be undone. My firm belief is the more democracy you transfer, the harder it is for a minister to come or certainly a stroke of a pen to take that away. You know that that's there's no precedent that I can think of for that. I mean, we got really upset when basically at the stroke of a pen, the minister changed the voting system for police and crime Commissioners, which is I think quite an important and serious thing to have done. But I can. I'm willing to accept that the grand scheme of things might not be the top issue facing the Nation Today. But that is about as far as it can be done and the but the kind of pregnant in that is the point that just made in local communities seek to discontinue or to change their model that might, that should probably come to the degree of sadness, but we should respect that, you know, this is about taking back control and this is about local decision making. Then it should be that you know and. I would hope that's not the case, but that you know that that can be the case and I I don't think that that is the end of. The world, if that is the case, that's for communities to decide.
Speaker 1
Thanks very much. Can I can I? Also put to. You while you're on the spot, another question from an anonymous attendee. There's a very specific point about replacement of EU funding and how monies are distributed across the regions, but I suppose my my more general point is. It's very clear that you won't be able to. Level up, unless there's a level of resource in each part of England that enables people to meet their needs overtime. Rachel is not gonna. Rachel is not going to be pleased if you make any promises on this. Web This this webinar but. Could we at least? I suppose that everyone's looking for an. Acknowledgement that that is understood as a question that in government has to be faced. At at at at some point and I'm just wondering whether you see that through. To an extension of what we've seen in the past, which is specific pots of money that have been targeted at particular problems, or whether you do see this as more fundamentally something that gets part of the local government formula or is it perhaps the thing in between, which is the, the, the the model in the trailblazer. Areas where you have. Some sums of government money that are evolved as a single plot pot with flexibility. I mean all of those things could be fiscally neutral, but they're different ways of approaching it and they have different degrees of if you like, rights to be exercised, powers at local level. And I just wondered. Where you are in thinking about or how you assess the options that you see there at the moment. I think you said the opening you didn't like the The Hunger Games bidding for pots. So we can we we assume there won't be more of those, but I'd be interested to know what your think thoughts are on fiscal issue.
Speaker 4
Yeah, I'm excited. I'm. I'm. I'm a little less enthused by by fiscal devolution, I think there are things. There are freedoms. You could give communities you know and there is a growing sense certainly amongst the big cities, that they want to have the ability to levy some sort of overnight tax on on tourism in order to help promote. About the night time offer that that seems to be the sort of freedom we should be able to have, and you can win. That argument with. Your Community should be able to do that. We went through a similar process. We've got a workplace parking levy in Nottingham. You pay for anything more than after your first hand spaces. You pay a certain fee and that goes into to funding our public transport again. That was a very painful decade long process. We went with our community, but we should have the freedom to do that and and. In general, I would lean towards that. I have an issue. With, you know kind. Of picking a percentage and saying we're going to devolve X percentage. I have no problem with, you know, as we've seen the trailblazers more consolidated budgets and greater freedoms. Yeah, fewer ring fences. That's that's that's a good thing. But but at least then you've got a general a greater sense of what kind of freedoms you're trying to give, rather than a a kind of a nebulous, amorphous financial freedom that for not a particularly clear I believe reason, but. For why so I'm a bit more. Hawkish on that. There is the problem and can cause pregnant. In that EU. Funds more desperately hope you can come. To me on that one is that the I don't wanna make a particularly hard political point about this, but the shared prosperity fund, the the there isn't, you know, the the promises aren't being. Kept. So there is an issue there that and that isn't a revenue neutral issue. So I have to. Be a little bit careful there. And then similarly. You know again. Probably very brave to take this head. On given our experience in Nottingham, but you know. Where we've seen local authorities fail. There's a question in in the questions about whether that was a failure of scrutiny and oversight, and perhaps to a degree that you know better scrutiny would have been might have, you know, been a Canary in the mines sooner in. Those communities and in mind. But in reality, we do know local government and local authorities. You know, we're actively encouraged to as well by by ministers at the time, have taken on a newer range of say, commercial investments that traditionally wasn't their territory in order to meet gaps in their funding. And that's had some good benefits at some places that had some very, very difficult. Happened and elsewhere. So again we inherit A funding landscape that's very, very challenged. Now, I can't tell you you know where where we not least. You know, we look back a year, the difference we are to where we were even 12 months ago. So to project for 12 months you know we we have to wait for the election. We're afraid for that on that. But but I as I said I I would want to recognise that it is a distressed landscape.
Speaker 1
Well, I'll just make an intervention for the chair. Won't ask you to respond, but one. One option about the gleaming tabs of Woking might be to reestablish a statutory Audit Commission that can actually provide a proper support for local Public Accounts Committee in a way that has almost disappeared from local government finance at the moment. I'm just gonna go quickly. Ran to Jess and then David, and then I just as a note of warning, I'm going to. Ask each person to say one, well, three of you say one thing you'd like to see in a take back control Bill and Alex would give us one thing that's going to be in a take back control Bill. If you think you're in a position to do that, but Jess, you've written this week in municipal journal about total total place, which was a labour. Initiative that I was involved in back of the time, the Labour government to pool public service budget. So one minute to make a pitch to Alex on total play, specifically about why the the flexible use of public spending perhaps could be on the future government agenda.
Speaker 5
Yeah. Well, total place like is unfinished business for labour. I think it began to look at the effectiveness of spend across a place and all the different kind of silos that come into a place. It began to take a place based look with the citizen at the centre. Where there was duplication and waste potentially where the the the system didn't make sense from the point of view of the individual, and it began a process of saying there may be some wasted duplication that could be removed by taking a more place based app. Which and it never got time to get going, and of course a new government came in. But there was a different approach to finding efficiencies and that focused very much on keeping silos intact, but finding efficiencies within them and potentially outsourcing potentially cutting budget. But thirteen years on. The limits that's been maxed out as an approach and we know that public sectors on its on its knees in various different places. So I I I fundamentally believe that the there's no new funding on the horizon, there's no more efficiencies to be squeezed out of the system. The only way forward for public sector reform is to look at the effectiveness of existing spend and how it's allocated across the place rather than departmental silos, which are functional and historic, and I think have diminishing the terms. Maybe more will be written than a 300 word MJ column on that at some stage.
Speaker 1
We'll look forward to that, David. I, there's a Jamie bit the old Cliff question, which is essentially aimed at labour, but it's it's a reasonable question for anybody who's interested in politics is. How do you? Cut the Gordian knots on housing. You need more houses and element to that is more planning permissions, although it's not all about planning permissions if you localise. Doesn't that mean the nimbys always winning? You don't get any house building, but if you do it from the centre, doesn't it just become politically impossible? So how? How would you?
Speaker 6
Say that problem could be resolved because we've been going around this for years now. Yeah, you do. You you do. You do 2 things. I I I, I I represent it. Nearly 30 years. One of the conditions in England that actually had the fastest rate of housing, housing growth and new building, but and huge but huge pressures and controversial 2 things. The two answers that John, one I do think that having a sort of sub regional level of to to to deal with housing and planning strategies is a way of dealing with this that is more likely to be effective. Neither just the centre or the local government here doing it, Sir. Plan didn't work brilliantly, but it worked after a fashion. For many years, and I suspect that a government of whatever stripe is gonna have to reinvent something like serpan for the SE. Again, the other thing I can say this I'm out of the out of Parliament now is is political leadership and it means being prepared to make the. Argument to people who are instinctively resistant. And I mean, my my personal experience is that you found that when you started saying to run full of people who were, you know, with grey or white hair, they they needed more housing. They, they bristle. Then you said. How many of you have got children or grandchildren who are in full time jobs but cannot afford to get? Onto the first rung of the housing lab and are really struggling. You started to see the grey and white heads node. You didn't win them over instantly, but you've got to actually find a way of expressing the argument that cuts through to those people apart. All the other stuff like improve the design of this, get the infrastructure in at the start, not ten or 20 years after the housing is being built it it sequencing is important as well.
Speaker 1
OK. Thank you. I'm gonna thank the panel in advance because this has been a very rich discussion, but one sentence each. Brendan, Jess, David and then Alex. Wish wish list for a take. Back control Bill Brent.
Speaker 3
I think my number one wish would be that the tech back control bill both consolidates what's there already and then clarifies how things are moved forward in the future, whether that's through having a right to whatever somebody else has got as Alex talked about earlier or some other mechanism for drawing down powers and responsibilities. That's clear to the actors involved.
Speaker 5
A new series of community rights to participate so that power is enabled from the ground up, while it's also pushed out from the top down, but crucially backed up with long term stable funding for local government. Since when economic growth emits more, but in the short term we need stable three-year five year funding? Settlements for local governments, so that. As capacity can be focused on on working out with communities, not up the governments hierarchy.
Speaker 1
Thank you, David.
Speaker 6
To provide the legal and institutional framework within which the central government of the UK and the devolved governments within sub regions of England should cooperate, work together in partnership on common challenges, we will not deal with net 0. Or an industrial strategy or digital transformation by trying to micromanage it from an office in Whitehall, you will need that partnership.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Alex.
Speaker 4
I get the final word. I mean I I'm gonna say cause it's there's easier ones I could do. I'm gonna avoid the lay up and say the community power, you know, I know that that hasn't. And what wasn't and just wasn't able to quite stimulate too much conversation on it. Devolution to new and novel structures is exciting and interesting and eye-catching. And making the settlement, you know more consolidated, as others have said, is really, really important that Community power should be on the same footing as that. If we really want the benefits of devolution beyond just economic ones.
Speaker
OK.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much indeed. And that was that was a great answer. Great suggestions. I think it's been a very rich discussion, shedding lots of light on different angles of this question and clearly a shared commitment to see things happen in the future and learn the lessons from the past. Thank you very much indeed. Every thank you on the call. Sorry for the questions that I wasn't or I failed to take, that's my fault. Not yours. And we'll keep you in touch and send everybody links to the video when it's being posted. Thank you very much indeed.