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Empowering the regions
BILL KIRKMAN
The Angel of the North statue ... the north-east region has been most enthusiastic about Prescott's proposals.
UNDER plans announced by the United Kingdom Government, English regions may soon be able to decide to have elected regional assemblies. In making the announcement, the deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, explained that the idea was to give to England some of the advantages already enjoyed by Scotland and Wales under the system of devolved government now in place there.
The decision will be put by referendum to the vote of electors in the different regions. It will be up to them to decide. Regional government will not be forced on them.
Some of the reactions have been predictable. Opposition politicians have raised fears of increased bureaucracy. Some business leaders have talked of damage to business interests. It is too early to say whether the idea of regional assemblies will catch the popular imagination, but my instinctive feeling is that regionalism's may have come.
Much of the negative reaction has been so predictable that it can safely be discounted. Opposition parties inevitably oppose; it is their job, though it would be good if politicians of any party sometimes admitted that they do not have a monopoly of good ideas. Representatives of business tend to oppose any kind of extension of government. One can see why, but their opposition is frequently a kind of automatic reaction, supported by predictions of doom, gloom and disaster, and equally frequently the predictions prove to be, like the reports of Dr. Johnson's death, greatly exaggerated.
None of this, of course, is an argument for regional assemblies. There is an argument for them, however, in the quite widespread feeling that there is far too much power concentrated in central hands, and that in the issues which matter to people in their daily lives government does not engage with them.
For many years there has been a steady growth in the centralisation of power. It has been brought about by governments, of both political complexions, eroding much of the power that used to reside with locally elected councils. (This growth, incidentally, has been accompanied by a proclaimed belief in "giving power to the people".)
The devolution of political power to Scotland, and to a lesser extent to Wales, has changed the political landscape. So has the return of an assembly and executive for greater London (I write "return" because there used to be a greater London council until it was abolished under Margaret Thatcher.) The chance to exert some control over local affairs has proved to be attractive, particularly in Scotland, and the effects have been largely beneficial.
Furthermore, the dire predictions have not been fulfilled. Devolution has not brought about the dissolution of the U.K.. Business activity has not ceased in Edinburgh. The citizens of the devolved parts of the U.K. have not been weighed down with an impossible burden of taxation.
It is indeed arguable that devolution, particularly in Scotland, has made it more likely that the U.K. will survive as a political entity. So alienated at one time had the Scots become from the U.K. government that there was a real possibility that they would demand independence.
What all this means is that there is some experience on which to base a decision, and when people examine what has happened they may well decide that the reality bears little resemblance to what the doom merchants predict. They may, to the contrary, decide that the democratic advantages of regional government outweigh the risks.
The debate has only just begun. How the decision goes will doubtless depend a great deal on local circumstances, not least on the extent to which there is a sense of identity in any particular region. That certainly differs, and it is probably true to say that there is no English region that has such a defined discrete identity as Scotland, or Wales. That said, it is broadly the case that those regions which are farthest from London (for example, the north-east, and the West country) are most strongly conscious of their separateness.
It is possible — indeed it is quite likely — that the choice in a referendum (and even the decision whether to have one) will be different in different parts of the country. What can be said at this stage is that regionalism should not be dismissed as a party political gimmick. Nor should we assume that it will not happen because it has not happened before. That sort of argument has been applied to virtually every constitutional development (using referendums and introducing an ombudsman system are two notable examples), and it is nonsense.
The writer is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. E-mail him at wpk1000@cam.ac.uk
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