A TOP lawyer who interviewed Andy Burnham before he became Prime Minister has called on the Labour leader to bring in German-style federalism to the UK.
Solicitor advocate Mike Dailly, based in Glasgow, spoke with the then-Manchester mayor for his podcast The Ordinary Elite back in 2024, where Burnham heaped praise on Germany’s Länder system.
In the clip, which resurfaced online last week, Burnham said: “If you get off a train anywhere in Germany, the cities just have a level of public realm and infrastructure, don’t they, that’s of a high standard, and it feels the same everywhere, doesn’t it? And this is because of the basic law that is in their constitution.
“That law states that there must be equivalent living standards in all the 16 Länder of Germany, and there is an equalisation process in terms of funds, so Bavaria has to put money in, and that gets recycled to other parts of the country to meet the law and that can be controversial, but the benefits of it are huge, aren’t they?
“And the greatest of ironies is Britain had a big hand in creating this system. We were players, weren’t we, in the post-war period, in the redrawing of the map of Germany and the regions and actually the reason why they created the Länder was so that it wasn’t a concentration of political power in Berlin.”
Dailly, who interviewed Burnham alongside his podcast co-host John McGovern, told the Sunday National the system would not be at odds with the greater aim of Scottish independence for the SNP.
He said: “I’m a pragmatist. If we go back to 2014, I was on the stay in the UK side, and then I shifted as the years passed to being for Scottish independence. My heart tells me Scottish independence, but I’m pragmatic, and I genuinely think I’m not one of those people who thinks the only thing I’ll ever agree with is the one thing that I want.
“There’s something to be said for making progress. I don’t see it as being mutually exclusive to Scottish independence.”
Dailly added: “Would something in terms of that genuine levelling up that the German Länder system has be a good thing? I would say yes.
“I do like Andy Burnham’s idea about decentralising power from out of Whitehall, from London, from the big state departments, to be fair, that’s something that he’s pushing. But I like the idea of taking that further and having more devolved power through, for example, regions.”
Germany’s constitutional set up vests large amounts of power in its 16 constituent states, though the federal law takes precedence over the more local subdivisions.
However, on some matters, the Länder can exert pressure over the federal government, in contrast with the UK system where Westminster can veto the devolved parliaments.
In the early 1990s, the Länder asserted their rights to determine Germany’s negotiating position on issues such as cultural matters, broadcasting and disaster protection.
The states can also, with the permission of the federal government, enter into treaties with foreign countries on matters such as cultural affairs and economic partnerships.
Dailly said that, within the context of the Scottish Government’s major public sector reform programme, this could provide a model for the SNP in Holyrood.
“The difficulty with Holyrood, and to be fair to Holyrood and the Scottish Government, I think it’s quite commonplace that whenever you create any parliamentary structure or any entity, the first thing it wants to do is have more powers,” he said.
“Holyrood hangs onto all its powers, and I think local government is the Cinderella story of Scotland; it’s had its powers squeezed from it.”
Dailly added: “There are so many things that we could do to improve communities across the whole of Scotland by devolving power out to having those strategic, regional abilities for people to do things in an area that’s connected.”
The lawyer, who helped draft Scottish Parliament legislation outlawing poindings and warrant sales among other bills, backed John Swinney’s plans for local government reorganisation but said Holyrood must devolve some of its power to local communities.
He added: “You could say, for example, as John Swinney’s rightly said, let’s look at changing local government in Scotland, so he’s not waiting until independence to do that, and I think that’s right. I think he’s absolutely right to say surely we can do things better.
“Surely it would be a good thing for Scotland to devolve power from Holyrood to the regions of Scotland so that they would have the ability to do big infrastructure things and kind of do the things that Andy Burnham did in Greater Manchester.”
Plans under consideration by the Scottish Government would see the country’s 32 councils abolished and their functions shared between as few as six regional authorities, focused on “strategic decision-making”, and up to 160 community authorities, focused on local matters.
It is envisaged that councillors would serve dual mandates on both tiers of the new local government regime.
Deputy First Minister Jenny Gilruth, who is overseeing the proposals, said: "Community empowerment, wealth building and our democracy matters programme will be at the heart of our approach to public service reform and particularly changes to local governance.
“Some decision-making is best delivered at national level and regional level, while others sit better closer to communities, and we must get that balance right. We are proposing a model built around a smaller number of strategic regional authorities alongside a much larger number of community authorities, with bespoke arrangements for island communities.
“The principle is that strategic decisions, such as economic development, housing, transport and long-term planning, should be taken at regional level, while decisions that affect everyday community life should be taken much closer to local people.
“These proposals are intended to provide a starting point to facilitate debate and discussion as we work to deliver reforms that strengthen public services and improve outcomes for the people and communities we serve.”
