South West Constitutional Convention - November 23rd 2002

Regional Empowerment: a Conservative perspective
A personal view by Robert Key, MP for Salisbury

Bishops in the Constitution

When the Bishop of Exeter invited me to take part in your debate today, I replied that I can only speak for myself, not the Conservative Party, that I am a sceptic when it comes to regional government in the UK but that I have both feet firmly on the ground in recognizing the importance of proper strategic regional delivery of services and the over-arching importance of empowerment of those who are being governed.

It is a pleasure to meet under the Chairmanship of the Bishop of Exeter. Christianity is a very political faith with a small 'p' and our Bishops have a great deal to contribute to our political culture. Their leadership on great political and moral issues is a vital component of traditional western civilization. Since the seventh century the leaders of the Church in England have often taken an independent point of view, much to the displeasure of Popes and Princes alike. Michael Langrish is following in the tradition of his predecessor Bishop Trelawney, one of the Seven Bishops tried and acquitted under James II. Bishops know they are not the political decision makers - but their analysis, teaching and commitment add profoundly to the quality of debate and of our decisions.

Bishops are part of our constitutional arrangements. They sit, speak and vote in the House of Lords. Any re-ordering of the British constitution including both the reform of the House of Lords and proposals for regional government, affect them and us directly. So, of course they should play an active part in this debate.

In the Counties of the South West, only one MP has served for longer then me - the Member for Bournemouth East - and I believe I am the only one whose father served as a Lord Spiritual - when he was Bishop of Truro. I was born in war-ravaged Plymouth, brought up in Salisbury, translated to Truro and rehabilitated to Wiltshire. I have a deep love for our part of England.

Democratic deficit or voter fatigue?

I really do know how far the Isles of Scilly are from London - culturally and economically as well as geographically. I have experienced at first hand the deep frustration of Cornish people at the failure of national and local government to deliver policies, which make a difference to them. I salute the strengths of each one of our counties and I know from my own prosperous constituency that low unemployment also masks low wages and serious rural deprivation. Delivery of our great public services - health, education, and transport - has deteriorated. I have real difficulty in believing that another tier of politicians will do anything to address those issues.

Are we really looking at a democratic deficit? Or are we in fact looking at voter fatigue? Let us look at the numbers. An MP represents about 100,000 people, a County Councillor roughly 10,000 and a District Councillor about 2000. I vote on issues affecting 658 constituencies other than my own. Similarly, County and District Councillors decide issues affecting the lives of all the people in their County or District. At Westminster there are 51 MPs representing the wide range of interests in the SW Region. We are engaged in policy making and the legislative process, voting on the whole range of policies, on tax and spending, and in holding the Government to account.

Even after the debate on the Queen's Speech this week, a good case has not been made for an additional 30 - 35 Assemblymen, theoretically representing over 200,000 electors each and voting only on a narrow range of spending issues with no say on tax or policy. What would they be for? To what extent could they improve the accountability and transparency of those who tax and those who spend? The Government tells us an elected assembly would cost about £25 million a year to run. The direct budget responsibility would be about £300 million. The rest of the annual public spend of about £20 billion in the South West would remain with central government. This pocket assembly would certainly increase the potential for party strife, institutional inertia, delay in decision-making, departmental and local government turf-wars and the paralysis of good governance. It would add in spades to the very problems we are seeking to solve.

The Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill 2002

Let us look at what the Government has actually said since the Queen's Speech on 13th November. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has produced a set of answers to 'Frequently Asked Questions' on the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill. You will find this on their website.

The Government suggests that up to three regions might hold referenda in this Parliament. The Government will decide where referenda will be held after 'taking soundings'. Selected regions will then have a local government boundary review to impose unitary authorities. Exit the County and District Councils - inevitably. Then a single referendum will have two functions - to endorse the new unitary authority and to establish an assembly.

The ODPM answer to the question about another layer of bureaucracy is 'no'. 'By providing stronger scrutiny and improving co-ordination between existing bodies, elected regional assemblies should reduce bureaucracy.' 'It does not mean abolishing quangos but, in the case of the Regional Development Agencies, they will be accountable to the elected assembly. The assembly will also have significant influence over other bodies such as the Learning and Skills Council, the Small Business Service, the Strategic Rail Authority, the Environment Agency and cultural bodies, through making appointments, being consulted on strategies and co-coordinating activity'

So that's it - scrutiny, influence, patronage, consultation, co-ordination. No new regional policy-making. No new power. No new money from London - but maybe a rise in our Council Tax. Just the functions which already belong to the indirectly-elected current SW Regional Assembly - minus their 'social and economic partners'. Plus endless duplication and second-guessing of existing delivery systems as in health and 'culture'. This bears little resemblance to the Scottish Parliament for 5 million people (about the same as the South West) with a budget of £16.7 billion. We are not being offered regional government. The French or Germans or Spanish would not recognize it. And what sort of people would want to stand for election when the power will remain in London and the local influence will rest with your Council? It is a cruel delusion - and no-one should fall for it.

Study the Bill, the explanatory notes or the words of the Deputy Prime Minister and you will not discover any precise definition of the scope or functions of the new assembly. Nor will you discover how the Secretary of State is going to gauge or quantify the level of support he believes exists for a referendum. Read the referendum question before you vote and it does not tell you what you are voting for - it is not so much a blank cheque as a raffle ticket.

Is there a 'South West Region?

We cannot avoid considering something even more fundamental. Is 'The South West' a coherent region? Of course not! Cornwall is - and should have its own Assembly. Wiltshire is part of Wessex. Bristol is a city state - ranking with its neighbour, Birmingham. All the other counties are just that. If it ain't bust don't fix it. We should not abandon current good practice, nor 1000 years of heritage.

And what is the 'South West' anyway? The proposed boundaries of the regions have been decided by John Prescott and he says he won't change them. But he didn't think them up. For purposes of Government administration during the Second World War, the country had been divided into convenient administrative units. So the 'South West' is a creature designed by a committee. It has no heart. It has no soul. It is not something for which people down the ages would have risked their lives. At Agincourt it wouldn't have gone down well if Henry V had cried, 'God for Harry, the South West Region and St. George' -or even St. Endellion.

Just maybe, Churchill could have appealed successfully to 'fight them on the beaches of the West of England'. That has a ring to it. But the West of England is not be the same as the South West - you'd have to leave out Gloucester and Bristol and put them in with the West Midlands. And you'd have to leave out Wiltshire and create Central Southern England - already known for 1500 years as Wessex (and our Earl and Countess of Wessex are welding such a region back together again).

Then there's 'The English Question'. The creation of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly has stripped English and Welsh MPs of responsibility for devolved issues. They no longer handle constituency casework on education, health, social services, housing, planning, for example. In theory they should concern themselves only with 'reserved' issues such as defence and Foreign Affairs. In practice they come to Westminster and vote on issues affecting my constituents, not theirs and for which they have no responsibility to their own electors. This is widely seen us unfair, unjustified and undemocratic. It has to stop. It is accelerating the disintegration of the UK. It fragments good governance. There are increasing demands for 'English votes on English issues'. There is growing pressure for an English Parliament. Well, we've got one. It is called Westminster - and it has been up-and-running for 800 years. The first MP for Salisbury voted there in 1265. We don't need a regional assembly. We need a Parliament at Westminster that works for England and the English regions.

Learning from experience

Back in 1990 I was a Minister for Local Government Finance and Inner Cities. Many of our cities were in a state of paralysis. One of the worst was Bristol. It was easier to sort out Newcastle than Bristol. Liverpool was in the hands of militants and on the brink of collapse. The heart of the problem was lack of trust between local government and the governed. People had to be empowered. We achieved a great deal by introducing a system of local taxation that is generally perceived to be fair. We also introduced a competitive regime into local government capital funding. I called it City Challenge. It forced successful Local Authorities to partner with the private sector in attracting funds and insisted on empowerment of people in the local communities that were to be regenerated. The Town Hall did not know best. Whole new swathes of citizens were brought into the decision-making process. I enlisted the help of a Bishop in launching this project - Tom Butler, then Bishop of Leicester. His wisdom and advice were invaluable. I also founded the Inner Cities Religious Council - which sought to empower people of all faiths and both sexes. It continues to do so.

We also recognized that too often Whitehall did not know best. It was remote from the consequences of its policies. Some Whitehall departments had regional offices - Transport, Agriculture, Environment, and Employment. Some had none - Health, Education, Home Office. But it made sense to co-locate and integrate those that did - so we proposed the network of regional Government Offices that now exists. Two things were quite clear from the start. First, some Departments, for sound reasons, would never be likely to have regional offices - for example Health. The NHS was administered locally through a complex and ever-changing system of local control. Secondly, there was not any intention of establishing regional governments with their own mini-Whitehalls. That would fragment the country. It would not be good governance. Other ways were needed to refresh and revive democracy.

What we recognized and successfully addressed in our urban areas a decade ago is now an urgent challenge in rural Britain. In my opinion the answer does not lie in piling on more of the same ailing system. People want less government not more. They want fewer politicians not another layer. They want more say in what actually happens. They insist their voice is heard - and makes a difference. A new talking shop for a synthetic region, interfering in just a small part of the public service is not the answer people are seeking.

Above all, don't swallow the line that devolution in Scotland and Wales has been a great success. Just go to Scotland and listen. Read their national press. Not even the Scottish Labour Party would expect to win a referendum now. A friend in Glasgow said to me this week, the only reason people in England believe it has been a success is that 'they pay absolutely no attention to the reality of politics in the devolved nations - this being another consequence of the mess created by devolution'.

The Government's proposals for regional Government do not say, 'Trust the people'; they say 'Trust more politicians'- and the people won't buy it. So let the Government take soundings - and move on to address the real issues. If they insist on a referendum they will face huge opposition to imposed unitary authorities, let alone an assembly. And when the electors have decided against, lets get on with the business of sensible management of strategic issues such as economic prosperity, transport, and waste and how to hold those responsible to account. Scores of our elected councillors and their economic and community partners are already doing this for us. No doubt there is room for improvement - but there is grave doubt that a new layer of government would do a better job.

If government is to reconnect with the people, we will have to put our faith in more than focus groups and party politics. Labour and Conservative politicians should surely have noticed by now that the message in much of the South West is 'a plague on all your houses' - vote for the awkward squad. This is a vicious circle - because electing politicians whose party is never likely to be in power in Westminster, delivers less government support to the region, not more.

The way forward

So, in the West of England we have a problem. We cannot wait for the government, in an undefined and mysterious way, to take soundings - and then decide against a referendum. The people of the South West are impatient - they are not impressed by the Government rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. We must look to the future and I have some personal suggestions.

First, we should strengthen local democracy. We need to restore faith in the worth of our Parish Councils, so foolishly hit by the very Government that wants us to believe it is serious about bringing democracy back to the people. District Councils and County Councils have been forced to undertake more and more statutory obligations without corresponding increases in Central Government finance. Plot the Retail Price Index, energy costs, petrol prices or food prices against the massive rise in your Council Tax and you'll be shocked at the transfer by stealth of the burden of tax from central taxation (income tax and VAT) to local tax. Some people want to go even further and introduce another local tax - local income tax. That is definitely not the answer.

Local government now spends so much time, money and manpower trying to reach targets, measuring itself, comparing itself with others and liaising with other councils, quangos and government offices that it is hard pressed to carry out the basic responsibilities our citizens expect of it. Local authorities are judged against over 200 annual targets and performance indicators. They must agree up to 46 plans from Whitehall. They are monitored by four different inspection regimes that cost £600 million a year. This is death by red tape - and it is madness. The answer is certainly not another tier of bureaucracy.

Next we might consider introducing referenda on a whole range of local policy issues, perhaps five, ten or even twenty propositions, appropriate to the parish, district, county, or parliamentary election in question, to be voted on at the same time as putting the traditional cross on the ballot paper. Electronic voting systems make that a practical possibility. In the United States this is a tried and tested development of democracy. I believe it would re-engage the electorate with the political process and they'd flock to the polling stations.

Then, I'd watch very carefully the impact of elected mayors. We looked at that in Government 10 years ago. Most of the opposition came from entrenched local party politicians in our big cities who feared the erosion of their power bases. Well, they've had another ten years of cosy control - and matters have got worse. Maybe the time has now come for more elected mayors and possibly other directly elected officials.

Finally, I'd go for elected Senators to the Upper House with regional responsibilities and new, real power. This would put the balance back into the Westminster system. Not just the party-political balance but the balance between Parliament and the Executive. We are currently awaiting publication of the report by the special committee of both Houses. We should take that report very seriously indeed.

Democratic institutions must have legitimacy. Our Counties have legitimacy because they are organic communities, established in the geography and geology, the dialects and the architecture and the customs, practices and traditions of our country. Local government is built upon the rock of our nationhood. Regions are lines drawn on a map. Regional governments, as proposed, would be castles in the sand, and they would be washed away as the first tide of history rises up the ancient shores of the West of England.