From metro mayors to Manchester: a devolution revolution?
Establishing ‘Manchesterism’ across the UK to ‘take power out of Westminster’ is the Burnham government’s Big Idea. Building on 30 years of decentralising governmental powers, a new go-getting No.10 North in Manchester will anchor regional initiatives, becoming a hub where ‘power is going to flow, energy is going to flow, new ideas come through’. Metro and regional mayors will gain local tax-raising powers, giving ‘every local leader’ the ‘power and resources to improve public transport, build homes and create jobs’. Alongside established national assemblies in Scotland and Wales, some claim a ‘devolution revolution’ will create a new devolved, federalised state.
Centre for Cities notes that the UK is the G7’s ‘most centralised’ country with 95 per cent of tax revenue going to central government. Fiscal devolution is intended to replace inflexible national priorities with space for local innovation, creating productivity gains such as in Manchester under Mayor Burnham. But sceptics doubt such successes are transferable and worry that community control, scrutinised by Local Audit Offices, will merely relocate the bureaucracy. A new local tourist tax has already provoked uproar. Communities fear they will have little control over spending while suspecting the government is circumventing national commitments to not raise taxes. Ironically, weakening a common national approach leaves regions wary of being played off against each other, warning that Britain will not become richer by making regions such as London poorer.
If the promise of devolution is to bring power closer to people, critics fear it could instead strengthen bureaucracy. No.10 North talks of local initiative, but is run by the head of the Civil Service, Antonia Romeo, dubbed ‘the most powerful woman in Britain’. A Civil Service review is further consolidating central administrative power. Scottish and Welsh executives may be elected, but critics point to the influence of officials, committees and experts, alongside economic and public-service failures. Can metro mayors buck this trend? Or do new unitary authorities replacing two-tier councils suggest the direction of travel may be away from local accountability? Certainly, many doubt that any forms of local government act in their interests. Whether it is the inability to empty the bins, enforced low-traffic neighbourhoods or anti-racist action plans, all appear to reflect official agendas rather than local aspirations.
Critics argue that 30 years of devolution has simply emboldened regional nationalists who loathe Britain – as illustrated by a meeting of the leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in September – and has entrenched identity politics through stakeholder status and representative committees who gain power in devolved settings. Ten years after Brexit’s vote to reclaim national sovereignty, the New Statesman says the country faces ‘The British Question’, reflecting a ‘crisis of confidence in ourselves, in our history, our mission, our purpose, our character’. Rather than a benign Holyrood model, could Burnham’s devolution plans produce an ‘Ulsterisation’ of Britain – institutionalising already evident regional disparities and tensions, and further fuelling forces pulling the country apart?
Will the King of the North prove to be a man of the people, or is devolution’s promise to restore local initiative and accountability doomed to end in failure? If Britain is too centralised, then what measures are required to kickstart greater dynamism? Ultimately, could the devolution revolution revitalise Britain, or will it accelerate the fragmentation of the United Kingdom?
