All the bigger British political parties are in favour of devolution, yet it proves oddly difficult to deliver. England is a remarkably centralised country, with the UK government responsible for setting every tax, including the annual cap on council tax. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are also, despite their devolved status, heavily centralised within their own national systems of government.
It is exactly 50 years since the major reform of local government structure in England and Wales. Prior to the 1974 changes, there were 1,245 councils in England; after the reforms were implemented, the number of councils was slashed to just 412. Today there are 317 councils, and the number continues to fall as the result of a near-continual reorganisation, which has turned two-tier counties – where there were county councils plus districts within them – into one or more unitary councils, where a single council provides all municipal services. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, after more recent reforms, now have a single tier of large municipalities.
The pursuit of efficient and effective councils leaves the UK with fewer, more populous councils than virtually anywhere else in the democratic world. Civic identity has been the loser. France, with the same population as the UK, has 36,000 basic units of local government. Kent, one English county among many, has a larger population than several American states. Vermont has fewer residents than Birmingham or Leeds, yet US states have power over everything from taxation to the death penalty. English councils have their tax powers restricted while their most important remaining power is the delivery of social care.
If the pattern of reform since the 1970s continues, England will end up with region-sized councils that have the powers of rural districts. Epic self-belief within Westminster and Whitehall has convinced all the bigger parties that they cannot entrust councils with very much power. The exception to this was the idea of directly elected mayors, which both David Cameron and Tony Blair favoured. Having established the London mayor and assembly in 2000, Blair originally wanted to create regional government across England, but that idea was scuppered by the devolution referendum in 2004. Councils in Greater Manchester worked together on policy with such success that the then chancellor, George Osborne, became a cheerleader for combined authorities and devolved resources.
The governments of Cameron and Theresa May encouraged the creation of elected city-regional mayors alongside combined authorities in metropolitan areas such as Greater Manchester, Sheffield city region, the West Midlands and the Liverpool city region. Over time, it became clear this model could form the basis of a form of English devolution. The mayoral combined authority model has subsequently spread to more cities and increasingly to counties too.
There is now a remarkable patchwork of areas with different devolution deals. Some have mayors though some do not. In London, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire, the mayor is also the police and crime commissioner. The degree to which services are devolved also varies. Transport, housing, business support, adult education and planning are key spheres of devolved power, but the degree of devolution is different from locality to locality. Aside from London, which has a separately elected assembly, mayors in other areas work alongside local councils and their leaders.
Polling suggests that directly elected mayors in Greater Manchester and Greater London have high levels of name recognition. Andy Burnham has been able to deliver a radical reform of bus services in Greater Manchester, while Ben Houchen has concentrated on controversial economic development in Teesside. Andy Street in the West Midlands has forged a managerial and depoliticised administration. Steve Rotheram (Liverpool) and Tracy Brabin (West Yorkshire) have worked alongside Burnham to create a powerful northern voice as a counterbalance to the south. The struggle over HS2 is one example of this joint working.
Sadiq Khan in London, like his Manchester, Liverpool and West Midlands counterparts, is standing for a third term as mayor. The citywide government of the capital is now 24 years old, and is fully embedded. The scale of London, coupled with the Greater London Authority’s control of transport, makes the mayor of London one of the UK’s most visible political roles. Khan exercises greater power than most MPs or even ministers.
The other city-regional mayors are increasingly influential and powerful too. “Trailblazer” deals have been given to Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, providing them with a single funding settlement from the Treasury. Although the powers of even the most developed mayoral combined authorities and London fall a long way short of those of the Scottish parliament or the Welsh Senedd, there has been a distinct shift of power away from Whitehall.
Labour is committed to taking devolution further, yet Keir Starmer would be stuck with the gradually evolving system he is likely to inherit from the Conservatives. Regional government is now effectively impossible, because the evolving mayoral city regional authorities are embedded subsets of, say, the north-west. Labour will inevitably have to build on the slightly ramshackle set of devolution settlements across England, while in opposition, the Conservatives will see big opportunities to pick up high-profile mayoralties in England.
A Labour government would have to decide whether to create a uniform system of combined authorities, possibly with mayors everywhere, across England. This would not be straightforward, given the geography of existing devolution deals. There would be pressure to move to a single tier of unitary councils across England to avoid multiple layers of local government.
There would be pressure to devolve tax-raising powers, which the Treasury would inevitably oppose. There is also the question of whether Labour, having just got its hands on power after years in opposition, would want to hand over some of this power to mayors of different parties. Moreover, there would be no money to pay for the kind of shiny new buses, trams and homes which would be seen as a potential benefit of more devolution.
The degree of centralisation in England is a national embarrassment that undermines trust in democracy. Polling is clear: most people would like more power to be devolved locally. The cautious devolution that has randomly evolved under different governments since the early 2000s should be a key element in any attempts to make the UK a more equal place to live. Radicalism is surely needed. Carrying on as we are should not be an option.
Tony Travers is a visiting professor in the LSE department of government and a director of LSE London
