The King’s Speech saw Labour announce plans to ‘establish a new framework for English devolution, moving power out of Westminster and back to those who know their areas best’. Labour intends to both deepen devolution by affording more powers to existing combined authorities and widen devolution to the areas, covering roughly 50% of England’s population, that do not yet possess a ‘middle tier’ of government.
Given the significant trailing in party policy documents and announcements, it is little surprise that Labour wishes to make English devolution a legislative priority. However, questions remain over the form of the English Devolution Bill and the nature of Labour’s devolution plans more widely. This blog will outline five of the key unanswered questions that will shape the development of English devolution over the next parliamentary cycle.
What will England’s administrative geography look like?
There has been much talk about the need for Labour to ‘complete the map’ of devolution by ensuring that all areas of England possess a combined authority. The current model, and one that Labour has vowed to continue, encourages local councils to band together to submit bids for CA status, which comes with attendant increases in powers and funding, providing the proposed authorities represent a ‘functional economic area’.
This model’s merits lie in placing the impetus of CA formation with the councils themselves, but there are drawbacks to this approach. Firstly, much of the easy deals have been made when it comes to English devolution. Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool are coherent city regions that were natural candidates for combined authorities but, as the process of agreeing the North East MCA has shown, debates over the correct geography may be more fraught in areas with multiple economic centres and complex local identities.
Secondly, the ad-hoc, piecemeal bid process may result in combined authorities emerging by a process of ‘subtraction’, whereby their economic boundaries are determined by the formation of authorities around them (Plymouth and Cumbria have been cited as examples of this). This risks the formation of mid-tier institutions that conform neither to local identity nor economic imperatives. Some form of strategic oversight from the political centre will be needed to avoid this.
Lastly, the whole concept of a ‘functional economic area’ is subjective. Whilst the term tends to encompass elements such as travel to work and retail, the existence of a chamber of commerce, the geography of infrastructure and housing markets, there is no guarantee that these features will overlap neatly with one another. Moreover, existing and proposed CAs in the UK are much smaller than typical meso-level institutions across the OECD, which tend to have populations of 3-5 million (the current lower band for CA formation in the UK is 500000). Some economists have questioned whether the current CAs are of sufficient scale to affect meaningful economic policies in areas such as ‘foreign direct investment, supply chain development, skills training, innovation and R&D promotion’.
Which powers should be devolved?
There is a general consensus that there are core economic powers that could, and should, be devolved to combined authorities – policy levers associated with transport, planning, skills and local industrial strategy are all emphasised in Labour Party policy documents and the accompanying briefing for the King’s Speech. This aligns with Labour’s overarching growth-based agenda.
However, there are wider, long-term questions relating to English devolution. It remains unclear what the end destination of the English devolution programme is – is the aim merely to help deliver central government’s growth agenda, or address more fundamental problems of political and economic centralisation?
Policy experts have been advocating for a more radical approach. Place-based approaches to public service provision, social mobility promotion and cultural policy have been emphasised but represent a challenge to traditional Labour Party conceptions of egalitarian social policy delivered by a powerful central state. Moreover, sub-national entities often have a paradiplomatic capacity to advocate for regional interests and promote trade and investment beyond national borders (as is the case with the devolved nations). Long-held debates on the merits of fiscal devolution in the English context are likely to endure, even if Labour has been reluctant to countenance such an approach.
How will accountability be ensured?
Whilst Labour have outlined the increased powers they intend to deliver to combined authorities, they have yet to outline accountability mechanisms to ensure power is exercised responsibly. Both the Institute for Government and Productivity Institute have recently flagged this as a lacuna in the devolution policy debate, with the latter lamenting the focus on top-down accountability – making combined authorities accountable to central government – as opposed to giving combined authorities the tools to hold governments to account and making them more accountable to local people.
The establishment of robust forms of accountability is crucial to the success of the devolution agenda. Currently, combined authorities must establish an Overview and Scrutiny Committee and an Audit Committee, to which mayors and members of the CA cabinet must respond. However, most agree that such a model needs strengthening for more advanced devolution deals, with directly-elected scrutiny committees and the establishment of mayoral ‘question times’ potential policies which would increase the ability of the public to hold mayors to account.
Moreover, disappointingly low turnouts in the recent round of mayoral elections have blunted the notion that combined authorities would increase in profile and legitimacy as time goes on and demonstrate that bringing the public behind the devolution agenda will require work. Addressing incoherent geographical boundaries, boosting high-quality local media and better communication of which tiers of government are responsible for which services would likely help in addressing low turnout and stimulating the public to engage with new institutions. There is also a question of whether combined authorities will struggle for legitimacy if they are not rooted in any pre-existing sense of local or regional identity which can be leveraged to boost the civic capacity of new governing institutions.
What are the constitutional implications of further devolution?
Thus far, English devolution policy has been framed in developmental, not constitutional or democratic terms. There is divergence between the Labour Party leadership, who depict combined authorities largely as a conduit for economic growth and other commentators who view them as an opportunity to modernise the UK’s overcentralised and inert governance arrangements.
The success of the devolution agenda would inevitably bring these constitutional questions into sharp relief. If mayors develop a high degree of popularity and legitimacy as public decision-makers, this would lead to combined authorities gaining some form of constitutional standing either formally (by having their powers and existence entrenched in legislation, as is the case with the devolved nations) or informally (by garnering enough popularity and legitimacy that central government is politically constrained in their ability to override their decisions). Even if English devolution is not formally conceived of as a constitutional change, the creation of powerful new sites of devolved authority will alter the way political power is exercised and legitimated, and constrain the executive’s ability to act.
Furthermore, whilst it was self-evident that existing mayors required some form of formal institution for policy coordination and information sharing, there was nothing pre-determined about Labour’s proposed model. Their manifesto announced a Council of Nations and Regions in which mayors and leaders of the far more powerful and established devolved governments would meet. The federalist flavour of such an institution contradicts official Party policy but speaks to the need to situate English devolution within wider conversations about the UK’s territorial constitution. It also remains to be seen whether a Council of Nations and Regions would supersede or accompany existing arrangements for intergovernmental relations between the UK’s nations.
What values underpin Labour’s devolution plans?
The Labour leadership may feel vindicated in ignoring critics who, before the election, claimed they needed to articulate a much clearer national vision or political philosophy. However, whilst high-level values are not required to win elections, they are needed to navigate the inevitable tensions that will emerge between various policy commitments.
Thus far, Labour have presented greater devolution and economic growth as mutually reinforcing. However, divergence and disagreement are features, not bugs, of multi-level governance systems and the government must be aware of the potential dissonance between the wishes of devolved leaders and the imperatives of their centralised, ‘mission-driven’ approach. At some point, Labour will have to make sharp judgement calls over whether to tolerate policy divergence, most likely in the areas of planning and infrastructure development.
The case of the Scottish Parliament proves illuminating when considering this issue. The reserved powers model of devolution has afforded the Scottish Parliament significant power over swathes of economic and social policy which has, for the most part, been wielded without significant Westminster interference. At age 25, assessments indicate that devolution has not provided a significant boon to the Scottish economy but that the institution of the Scottish Parliament retains broad support and is more trusted than Westminster amongst Scots. Whether such a result would be considered a success for Labour with regards to English devolution is dependent on the values they hold regarding devolution.
Steph Coulter.
Steph is a researcher at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy and a contributing writer for the Constitution Society.
The Constitution Society is committed to the promotion of informed debate and is politically impartial. Any views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and not those of The Constitution Society.