‘Levelling up’ has been tried before – so where did we go wrong?
It is now more than 50 years since I first wrestled with the restructuring of local government. After the Conservatives won the 1970 general election, I was sidekick to Peter Walker, secretary of state for the newly created Department of the Environment, and our attempts to change things faced entrenched resistance.
It would be understandable, therefore, if I were to say that I know where the bodies are buried. Michael Gove’s new white paper on “levelling up” makes it clear that, far from being buried, the bodies are alive and very much kicking.
In the white paper, Gove has proposed cautious, evolutionary moves towards greater devolution, achieved by agreement. I cannot criticise him for this. Time and again I faced the same pressures, and was able to persuade colleagues to accept only partial and gradual shifts in the status quo.
The objections came from all directions. The Treasury wants to maintain its tenacious grip on expenditure. The Whitehall barons fight to preserve their functional powers. Local councillors resist the abolition of their jobs, and members of parliament are deeply suspicious of change that creates local figures more powerful than them and deprives them of the foot soldiers they need to hold their seats.
In the 1970s, we tried and failed to bring in a proposal commissioned by Labour from John Redcliffe-Maud. He suggested replacing the existing 1,300 authorities, many of which reflected an England where the only means of transport were by foot, cart or horse, with 60 unitary authorities and metropolitan authorities covering the larger conurbations. Peter Walker found a compromise that reduced the number of authorities to just over 300 by introducing a two-tier structure based on counties and districts,
Read more on theguardian.com
