How long before we start hearing calls for devolution to ‘the south’? Perhaps sooner than we think. Labour’s ‘southern discomfort’ is a long-running difficulty which has re-emerged in recent years. But the recent establishment of the Southern Policy Centre, whose advisory board is chaired by outgoing Labour member of parliament for Southampton Itchen John Denham, and which is based in that city, could help bring a new coherence to southern policy – and one which ought to chime with Labour’s mission. As the centre says, ‘The region has had little public policy focus despite facing challenges distinct from both the metropolis and other English regions. Our public spending per head is low though we face the triple costs of deprived urban areas, rurality and an ageing population. Average incomes are above the national average but this can mask sharp inequalities and high living costs.’ A cross-party outfit, which explicitly welcomes Green party and United Kingdom Independence party involvement, its workstreams include ‘mapping the councillors of the south’. Though no publications are available yet, it is worth keeping an eye out for details of the ‘major lecture’ the tank is planning for early 2015 in partnership with Ordnance Survey on the topic of ‘open data’.
IPPR North has a now long-established presence working on ideas for rejuvenation of the north of England, not the least of which was its recent report The State of the North, which marked its first decade. It looked back over the how the north fared over those 10 years, identifying deep-seated challenges for the region, and setting out its recommendations for ‘genuine fiscal autonomy to enable city-regions to invest in sustainable growth opportunities and retain the proceeds of growth through “earn back” and tax increment finance arrangements; business rates and a proportion of income tax should also be assigned locally, and there should be a root-and-branch review of land and property taxes.’ The tank also launched its ‘Great North Plan’ competition, whose winning and commended proposals included ‘a radical “rail” proposal, linking Manchester and New York with a vacuum train suspended by electromagnets’, and – more vacuumage – ‘the airports of the north from Liverpool to Newcastle connected by a new “hyperloop” of vacuum-suspended trains’ as well as the less unexpected-sounding, if similarly large-scale, ‘new trans-regional national park to embrace existing Northumberland, Yorkshire Dales and Peak District’.
To different extents, the Southern Policy Centre and IPPR North anticipated, but have not yet existed alongside, devolution to their respective regions. Parts of the country which have longer enjoyed stronger devolution have indeed seen thinktanks sprout up around new centres of power, such as Gorwel – ‘horizon’ in Welsh – which dubs itself ‘The Welsh Foundation for Innovation in Public Affairs’ and which is concerned at the recent and longer-term decline in economic and social indicators for Wales. Its positions include adopting a critical stance of recent social services legislation in the country which, it maintains, unduly centralises power to Welsh ministers at the expense of local authorities.
A counterpart north of the border is the venerable-sounding Scotland Institute, whose opening pitch when one lands on its website is Voltaire’s quote that ‘We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation’. Its mission is to ‘conduct high-quality research to find innovative ways of developing a sustainable, competitive economy where wealth is fairly distributed, and the issues of social exclusion and deprivation can be tackled’, and it was founded by Azeem Ibrahim, its executive chair. It still talks of ‘the coming referendum’ on independence (or perhaps the tank is simply leaving its front-page story there for the next plebiscite) but its most recent intervention did comprise a foray into the independence debate in the final week of the campaign with its analysis that – caps included – ‘Independent Scotland would need 20,000 more immigrants EACH YEAR than official estimates to meet SNP pension promises’. Just as the Scottish Labour party has called for a Scottish equivalent of the Office for Budget Responsibility, and Labour presses for ‘a Margaret Hodge for every town’ in the form of local public accounts committees, greater debate, analysis and challenge at the level at which power rests looks set to become an ever more common feature of an increasingly multi-layered, devolved United Kingdom.