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Devolution Is Not Regionalism

As a party which places devolution at the core of our identity, we should be delighted that the government has announced a devolution bill as part of the king’s speech, at the opening of the current parliament, right? Well…

First, a short history lesson. During the Blair administration, there was said to be something of a turf war between Blair himself, who favoured a city-regions approach, and his deputy, John Prescott, who favoured regional government for the nine standard planning zones within England. Prescott won out, but there was little enthusiasm from the government for implementing his approach, and the Regional Development Agencies established as the first step towards regional government were abolished by the coalition government in 2010. Since then, regional disparities have increased, despite Boris Johnson’s talk of “levelling up”. The Prescott zones were the lesser of two evils in some respects. in that he was at least thinking on a regional scale, but the regions themselves had little history or local identification, splitting Wessex in half between artificial South West and South East zones.

This time round, it seems that the government is fully committed to Blair’s approach, reflecting Labour’s largely urban base. The king’s speech talks in terms of combined authorities and metro mayors. They have pledged to help plug “devolution deserts”, and reduce the previous government’s “piecemeal approach”, but their bill is unlikely to cover the whole of England. Akash Paun of the Institute for Government has said that “There has been good progress made over the last decade, and deals now cover about 50% of the country. If they get to 85% by the end of the parliament, that would be good progress.”

Rather than basically enlarged local councils, the Wessex Regionalists want a parliament with tax raising powers covering Wessex, the whole of Wessex, and nothing but Wessex. A parliament with extensive powers over such areas as health, planning, civil defence and the justice system. A truly regional parliament with powers comparable to those of Scotland or Wales. Some argue that it would be wrong for a region to have the powers of a nation, and that an English parliament is the solution. Our reply is that England is not comparable to the other nations of the United Kingdom, comprising some 85% of its population and 54% of its land mass. We do not oppose an English parliament in principle, but not as a substitute for strong regional government.

We believe that a large region like Wessex is a better analogue for those nations. A strong regional parliament for Wessex (and perhaps for other large regions like Mercia, Northumbria and East Anglia) would bring power closer to the people, rather than effectively acting as subcontractors for central government.

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