Andy Burnham argues the case for getting rid of the House of Lords and replacing it with a senate of the regions and nations (‘The country is in a dangerous place – people are frightened’, 6 July). Can we move this idea along?
The logic would then be to have elected regional authorities with the responsibility to identify their social, economic and environmental needs and opportunities, and the resources needed to meet them. They should have the power to raise local taxes and to negotiate the extent to which they need financial support from central government to supplement these – along the lines of the Spanish autonomous regions. This would mean a radical change in the flow of resources from decentralised regions to a central government, rather than the other way round.
