My faith in regional devolution has developed cautiously. My emotions are stirred by unemployment, poverty, family breakdown and the loss of self-respect that blights communities like those I have come to know and care about in the North East.
But I believe people are also looking for a different political style. A spirit of inclusiveness – of working for all of the people and breaking down the sense of alienation many feel from their government – is worth striving for in every part of the United Kingdom.
This new politics should be a defining characteristic of New Labour and, as Scottish and Welsh autonomy grows and our other constitutional reforms kick in, parts of England are feeling ignored.
In the North East, for example, I believe that an elected regional authority could help to rejuvenate the economic and industrial base of the region, renew our infrastructure and transport system, invest in skills and promote enterprise, and reduce the social exclusion that still disfigures so many of our communities and neighbourhoods.
My argument in favour of regional devolution is that it does more than bring government closer to people so as to increase the legitimacy of the state. It would also increase the effectiveness of government action, strengthening our ability to achieve our second term economic and social goals.
A centre-left administration in the 21st century cannot depend on a centralised structure created in the century before last. Re-thinking the machinery of government means asking ourselves why, in the past, we have failed to develop effective regional industrial strategies and a set of regional instruments capable of spreading prosperity across the country. That is a key challenge in our second term.
Central government should see regionalism as an aid, not a threat, in order to formulate a bigger, clearer picture of what needs to be done and by whom. We need to bridge the gap between what Whitehall has to offer and what the English regions require.
Of course, a degree of regional government already exists in England. But this tier of government is fragmented and poorly co-ordinated, leading to a lack of ‘joined-up’ thinking in the regions. At present, too many aspects of regional policy are designed centrally and implemented on a ‘one size fits all’ basis. Little attention is paid to creating greater capacity in the regions themselves. Local communities want more meaningful choices which they are able to shape for themselves. This means less done in their name and more done directly by them.
The most important area on which decentralisation needs to have an impact is in the development of the modern knowledge economy. Take Hartlepool as an example. The town owed its prosperity in the last century to the success of the North East regional economy as a whole. A clustering of mutually dependent industrial and manufacturing processes formed the region’s economic base. Durham coal was exported through Hartlepool. This created the conditions for a thriving steel industry, in turn creating new centres of shipbuilding. And with this shipbuilding came the heavy engineering that supplied the cranes, boilers, marine engines and associated trades and skills.
The challenge for a region like the North East today is to develop a new combination of regional strengths matching those that gave the old regional economy its backbone. The regional development agency offers the essential core, but not the necessary clout, for the huge effort required. Moreover, a regional authority would not diminish the excellent work already being undertaken by local councils to deliver stronger, better local governance.
If the government fails to act on regional devolution it will leave the constitutional settlement enacted by New Labour unbalanced. In the long term, it might lead some to question the legitimacy of those constitutional changes. More importantly, it will fail to address how we improve the capacity of the state to act.
What are the next steps? The first is to provide for the referendums necessary to test public opinion. If positive, democratically elected authorities that are tight in numbers and focus should, in my view, appoint half their members from representatives of the key economic and social players in the region. This would ensure that the necessary partnerships are properly forged.
Legislation should be introduced in the next session of parliament with a view to referendums taking place in the autumn of 2003. This would make possible regional elections being held to coincide with the European Parliamentary poll in 2004, or in 2005 if a further bill is needed to introduce actual devolution.
It may seem a prolonged timetable – and one that stretches further than was the case for Scotland and Wales – but it is realisable nonetheless. The government should not turn back now.