In my time as leader of the Conservative Group on Bradford Council, I sat through a lot of meetings about what they call 'devolution' down in Whitehall. Some of these meetings were in public including Bradford's Corporate Scrutiny and the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA). Others were cross party but private - cosy (and they were too) meetings prior to the public WYCA meetings and enthusiastic jaunts down to meet people in London. Some were internal party meetings with other West Yorkshire group leaders, with the wider Yorkshire 'Conservative Family' of MPs and leaders. A few were with advisors to ministers of one sort or another (as an aside many of these advisors now seem to be MPs).
You'll probably have read about the antics and shenanigans around Yorkshire devolution captured in David Cameron's snarky "we just thought people in Yorkshire hated everyone else, we didn't realise they hated each other so much." There's a reason for all these problems - rather there's two reasons: firstly Yorkshire is a lot more Tory than people think and secondly the most powerful position (at least while there's a Conservative government) in the county isn't a mayor or a metropolitan leader, it's the leader of North Yorkshire County Council.
We were trapped between the model preferred by Whitehall - "functional city region governance" as they like to call it - which proposed a mayoral model for the Leeds City Region that included Harrogate, Selby, Craven and York but not the rest of North Yorkshire, and the varied political preferences of local politicians. Now Labour leaders in West Yorkshire did not like the government's model much (most of them at least) because, after some frantic calculator wielding, they worked out that it might result in a Tory mayor, and that would never do. Meanwhile Tory leaders in West Yorkshire were happy with this idea since it gave us a chance of winning plus a permanent and strong Conservative voice under any governance model.
The bigger problem, however, was that this Leeds City Region model was not acceptable to North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC). Quite understandably NYCC were miffed at the prospect that a large part of the county would be lumped in with Leeds leading inevitably to a new unitary council of Harrogate, Craven and York (and god knows what with the remainder of the county). This existential worry was couched in terms of 'transport powers' currently residing with the county but that would need to transfer to (or be shared with in some occult manner) the new mayoral authority. Leaders from Craven and Harrogate were keen on close links with Leeds - unsurprising given the geography of the old West Riding - but the county leadership was implacably opposed.
Meanwhile some of West Yorkshire's Conservative MPs had set themselves against the idea of devolution. This combined two objections: devolution was just another tier of government and unnecessary; and devolving to West Yorkshire just creates yet another powerful Labour voice. In North Yorkshire, the MPs (all Conservatives) were less cynical but just as doubtful and influenced by the view that any devolution settlement should not break up NYCC.
From out of this confusion came a new proposal (slightly sloppily) dubbed Greater Yorkshire. This called for an elected mayor for all the county except the four South Yorkshire councils (who were building up into their own row about devolution) - West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, York, and East Riding. This idea was (slighted reluctantly and very slowly) drawn up by NYCC and put to government. If George Osborne had shown even the slightest nous or even a modicum of cynical party preference that would have been an end to the matter. But his ministerial team (this is what happens when you appoint people as ministers in a Conservative government who aren't conservatives) were too wrapped up in the technocratic Heseltine model of city-region governance and a load of shuttling back and forth between Leeds City Hall and officials in The Treasury and elsewhere in Whitehall.
The impasse could not be resolved under a government with no or a small majority. And to make matters more confusing (and probably worse) the row in South Yorkshire over Sheffield City Region blew up and two councils, Doncaster and Barnsley, stalked out to join a new proposal, one backed by NYCC and the five West Yorkshire councils, One Yorkshire. The problem with this was that (while the opinions of us Conservative leaders in West Yorkshire didn't matter much) not only were some MPs still opposed but the idea clashed with the already agreed deal with Sheffield City Region and the four South Yorkshire councils. It did not matter that Doncaster and Barnsley were in a huff about the arrangement they had agreed to, it was going to happen, they were going to elect a mayor and that was the end of it.
This pretty much brings me to the end of my tenure as leader of Bradford's Conservative Group. Since then things have moved on as South Yorkshire has elected a major and a devolution settlement for West Yorkshire is agreed (we will be electing a mayor next year). You can read and comment on the wondrous cascade of cash (in truth it's not that wondrous and not that much cash) that will flow to West Yorkshire once a nice mayor is installed in a smart Leeds office. There will be money to build Leeds (just Leeds not the rest of the city-region) that ultimate symbol of metropolitan virility, a tram system, as well as a little bit more control over colleges and some money for housing. West Yorkshire gets a little regeneration slush fund of £38m a year - remember that the budgets for the five councils add up to over £5 billion - that our new mayor will splurge on pet schemes designed to get him or her re-elected.
This is not devolution but the further emasculation of local government. The model proposed does not offer any say over most things government does to or for people, lacks real accountability and is immune to real scrutiny. Do people in West Yorkshire really want a tram system, especially one that does not go anywhere near where they live or work? Are we going to get an expensive and self-important elected mayor to run the buses and FE colleges and why is this somehow a good idea?
For me there is a missed opportunity here, an opportunity killed by the cynicism of municipal leaders who are prepared to smash up 150 years of city governance in return for a little bit of central government cash. That opportunity was for the leaders of Yorkshire - political, municipal and business - to insist that the right settlement for Yorkshire isn't a bunch of squabbling mayors and leaders but a proper Yorkshire Parliament with the same sort of devolved powers as Wales or Scotland. If the history of how we didn't get to an agreed (or agreeable) devolution settlement for Yorkshire says anything, it's that chopping Yorkshire up into competing pieces doesn't work and results in inequitable arrangements, poor governance and bad leadership. Sadly, this is what we're getting.
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2 comments:
Interesting to note that the population of Yorkshire is almost identical to Scotland - if the Jocks can have their own parliament, why can't Yorkshire?
The downside risk, of course, is getting a Yorkshire version of that mad, Wee Krankie woman. Every bit as deranged, but with muscles in her spit too.
Tough call.
Agreed, wee Krankie & the Spiteful Nannying Party have replicated the failures of Whitehall centralisation on a regional scale.
The only devolution that will work is by copying what is proven to work elsewhere.
Using the Swiss canton model where near everything is done locally, take it back to shire level.
Swiss pop of 8 million & 26 cantons.
Krankie and the Natzis have centralised everything they could in Edinburgh as long as the could stick scotland in the name somewhere.
All the govt areas they have centralised are performing noticeably worse than the English run ones, ( transport, education, health, etc etc)
So devolution is no guarantee of success unless it is made truly local to allow local knowledge and competencies to come into play.
Just look at the relative performance in the current panic, the natzi game plan is to wreck any rebound in the economy, blame the eeeevil tories, then get in power.
Similarly 85% of Scottish public expenditure has always been to our money into the bottomless pit of greater glasgow, the profitable areas of the east coast have been shafted. True localism is a partial cure for this tendancy.
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