Jul 17 2007
Regional government is dead, long live regional government
What Gord takes away with one hand he gives back with another.
<em>It is good news that the government will abolish the much unloved Regional Assemblies in England. After the vote in the North East rejecting one there, they have been dead in the water.</em>
<em>It is bad news that instead the government proposes to strengthen the regional development agencies, and effectively give them planning powers to override elected Councils and decide on development.</em>
<em>It is interesting to remember that the regions of the UK that have had regional development agencies for longest,with the largest budgets relative to the size of their economies, have fallen further and further behind the other regions. It’s not much of an advert for stronger RDAs elsewhere. </em>
<em>Cromwell would be proud of this governemnt - it’s the rule of the Major Generals all over again through these regional quangos.</em>
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
Um
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Is this through one of Gordon Brown’s bill’s then? Which one? So far I’ve only come across his ‘Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill.’ This seems to give powers to the new ‘Local Better Regulation Office’ to override elected councils and decide on when to prosecute businesses. Not only this, it contains a ‘trojan horse’ that will allow thirty or more quangos to hand out arbitary fines of up to the level 5 maximum (currently
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Mr Redwood I agree with you, but it would seem your leader takes a different point of view. Perhaps because we need to keep some form of Regional level government in order to receive our money back from the EU, that point has not been addressed.
From my perspective Brown has played a blinder on this, by abolishing the Assemblies he had undercut one of the planks of the conservatives, he is in effect offering the same as Mr Cameron. The Conservative party now cannot go to the election promising to abolish regional assemblies, they could however promise to abolish all regional government, but to make any sense they would have to settle the EU funding issue.
Reply: we should not let the EU dictate our constitutional arrangements to get our money back. We should tell them who to make the cheques out to. Of course we should now pledge the abolition of the rest of the regional government apparatus.
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I hope you win the argument within the conservative leadership, many of will be waiting with interest.
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