5th January 2023
Today the leader of the main opposition party in the United Kingdom gave a speech.
You can read a version of Keir Starmer’s speech on the Labour party website.
One part of it which seems possibly interesting from a legal perspective is a proposal for a “Taking Back Control” Bill.
This is what the speech said:
“So we will embrace the Take Back Control message. But we’ll turn it from a slogan to a solution. From a catchphrase into change. We will spread control out of Westminster. Devolve new powers over employment support, transport, energy, climate change, housing, culture, childcare provision and how councils run their finances.
“And we’ll give communities a new right to request powers which go beyond this.
“All this will be in a new “Take Back Control” Bill – a centrepiece of our first King’s speech. A Bill that will deliver on the demand for a new Britain. A new approach to politics and democracy. A new approach to growth and our economy.”
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This call for de-centralisation and devolution will face the two fundamental problems every such call has faced since the nineteenth century.
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The first problem for de-centralisation and devolution is the doctrine of the supremacy of the Westminster parliament.
This doctrine, which in good part was a Victorian innovation not known to earlier jurists, tells that all legislative power in our polity rests with the Crown-in-Parliament.
This means that no other body in the United Kingdom can legislate other than to the extent permitted by the Westminster parliament.
Recently this doctrine was illustrated by the Supreme Court decision on a reference by Scotland’s Lord Advocate.
In effect, the Scottish parliament is merely another statutory corporation, subject to the rule of ultra vires.
The Westminster parliament will not easily forego this legislative supremacy and – if we adhere to the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy – it may be impossible for the Westminster parliament to do so.
This means that any de-centralisation and devolution is at the Westminster parliament’s command: Westminster can grant this seeing autonomy, and Westminster can easily take it away.
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What we do have are numerous devolution and local government statutes, all defining and limiting what various authorities can and cannot do.
There is no real autonomy – even for the Scottish parliament.
No ability to do things despite what the Westminster parliament would like an authority to do.
Ambitious projects by local authorities – such as when the Victorian town of Birmingham (not even yet a city) went and bought and operated its own gas and water industries – would be impossible now.
That is real de-centralisation and devolution – doing things the centre cannot stop.
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The second problem for de-centralisation and devolution is in respect of policy and administration, rather than law.
It is the sheer dominance of HM Treasury in Whitehall and the public sector more generally.
For example, HM Treasury has a monopoly in respect of almost all fiscal and financial – that is, tax-raising and borrowing – powers.
(Even the Scottish parliament has limited autonomy to vary income tax rates and the Scottish government power to borrow money.)
And no public body has complete fiscal autonomy – and, indeed, many public bodies rely on central government for grants and financing.
It is unlikely that Whitehall will happily allow regional authorities and devolved administrations absolute power to raise taxes and borrow money.
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And now back to the word “control”.
Unless regional authorities and devolved administrations have absolute power to raise taxes and borrow money, or to make rules and mount ambitions problems, then they do not have “control”.
Instead, “control” will stay – as it always does – with Westminster and Whitehall.
Westminster and Whitehall can extend the leash, but they can pull the leash back.
That is not “control”.
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Looking more closely at Starmer’s speech, it is not clear to whom this “control” is to be actually given.
Consider the following passages (emphases added):
“…the Britain that Labour can build. A fairer, greener, more dynamic country with an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top. And a politics which trusts communities with the power to control their destiny.”
“Giving communities the chance to control their economic destiny. The argument is devastatingly simple.”
“It’s not unreasonable for us to recognise the desire for communities to stand on their own feet. It’s what Take Back Control meant. The control people want is control over their lives and their community.”
“We need to turbo-charge this potential, but Westminster can’t do that on its own, it can only do it with communities. That’s why Labour will give them the trust. The power. And the control.”
And so on.
There is noting specific here as to who will get this supposed “control”.
Will it be existing local authorities or new regional bodies?
Will it be new legal entities smaller than existing councils?
And – most importantly if this really is about “control” – what will happen if those “communities” want to do something which Westminster and Whitehall do not want them to do?
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Starmer did list some of the topics where there could be devolution of powers: “employment support, transport, energy, climate change, housing, culture, childcare provision and how councils run their finances”.
But devolution is not granting “control”, as there will be limits to what even the most ambitious local authority will be able to do in the face of any opposition from Westminster and Whitehall.
And there is also a respectable argument – which you may or may not endorse – than on issues such as transport and housing, there needs to be far less local autonomy, not more, so for us as to escape the ongoing blight of NIMBYism.
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Starmer insisted in his speech that the “Take Back Control” will be turned from “a slogan to a solution”.
And it we missed the import of that rhetorical turn, Starmer then said it will be turned from “a catchphrase into change”.
(This is reminiscent of his predecessor Tony Blair’s wonderful statement once that “[a] day like today is not a day for soundbites, we can leave those at home, but I feel the hand of history upon our shoulder with respect to this, I really do.”)
But there is nothing in this speech which does go beyond slogans and catchphrases.
There is no substance to the supposed “controls” which are to be given “back”.
And there is nothing specific as to whom or what those “controls” are to be given.
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You may have Very Strong Opinions on de-centralisation and devolution.
You may welcome Starmer’s speech as a good and welcome signal of change.
You may oppose it as it may mean impediments to policies which may need to be directed at the national level.
But what one cannot say is that it tells us much, if anything, about how de-centralisation and devolution is to work in practice.
And it says nothing about how – at least in England – local authorities can break free from the real controls of Westminster and Whitehall.
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One could say that he is turning it from a slogan to a slogan
Owning a house in France for the past 20 years, we are aware of the advantages and disadvantages of increased power at a local level. In France this is principally by virtue of real control of decisions (over local planning applications, even though a court can impose the state’s will), or control of money. There has been much anxst amongst French mayors that local collected taxes are planned to be replaced by central funding, with mayors unconvinced that they will retain that control. But a study of the pros and cons of the system would, I believe, be worthwhile.
Alternatively, look at Switzerland to see how local sovereignty can work in practice.
Competition between cantons to keep taxes reasonably low while still providing decent services is one reason for the Country’s relative success.
A speech isn’t really meant to be a legislative programme. It is meant to be a speech. It can however contain a commitment to deliver a legislative programme, and that is what Starmer did.
Whether he will see it through of course remains to be seen. And yes of course there are issues about devolution of powers, and you have listed some – money, the rules around what powers local authorities have – and I could add the media frenzy whenever there is a “postcode lottery” (which is another word for differences based on location).
I am not sure “control” has to mean “total control”. Isn’t that the mistake that sovereignty fetishists made, and look where that has got us? You can share control.
And finally, Starmer is definitely a PM in waiting. He has primeministerially started speaking like Blair. Sentences without verbs. A new speaking. A new Britain. Etcetera.
The problem with storming and norming is that it gets in the way of delivery.
Jon Ashworth, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has pledged Jobcentre Plus under a Labour Government to deliver a national (probably mandatory) back to work programme for the long term sick on benefits, but only after the Jobcentre network has been fundamentally reformed.
And Labour plans to Balkanise the Jobcentre network whether before reform, during reform or after it has yet to be made clear.
I would hazard a guess that in that scenario it might be at least two years before Ashworth’s programme started working with clients.
New Labour’s more ambitious suite of welfare to work programmes was delivered with just a bit of rejigging of what was known then as the Employment Service.
Work started on the New Deal for Young People on 2nd May 1997 and the Pathfinder Districts were up and running at the start of January 1998 with full rollout across England, Scotland and Wales by the middle of April that year.
To govern is to choose.
Would a Labour Government really use up two years out of probably a four year Parliament, redrawing boundaries etc before delivering a flagship programme designed to help employers fill jobs (1.2 million vacancies in January 2022) with locals rather than migrant workers?
I have no doubt that the “communities” to whom Starmer spoke during the referendum campaign meant by “taking back control” anything like the decentralisation he is now promoting. What was meant was for UK laws and UK borders to be removed from the “control” of Brussels (not to mention Strasbourg): in fact if anything the reverse of decentralisation if one thinks of devolved powers reverting to Westminster post Brexit.
‘Ambitious projects by local authorities – such as when the Victorian town of Birmingham (not even yet a city) went and bought and operated its own gas and water industries – would be impossible now. … doing things the centre cannot stop.’
I don’t understand. Those purchases had to be authorised by statute (Birmingham (Corporation) Water Act 1875 and Birmingham (Corporation) Gas Act 1875). The Government in Parliament could have stopped it then — and it can permit it to happen now (whether the local authority could fund the purchases is, admittedly, somewhat less certain. Perhaps it would need to adopt a Thurrock-type approach).
Yes, private Acts of Parliament promoted by the town council.
Imagine a town council trying to get such legislative time now for such private legislation.
The only part of the UK to have successfully “taken back control” is Ireland, now well ahead on every metric of human wellbeing from child mortality to longevity and everything in between. And Brexit is widening the gap every year.
Currently the gap in life expectancy (rising in Ireland, falling in the UK) is two years.
There are many reasons why Ireland has a fairer, better educated and better off society. One of them, and probably the most important, is proportional representation.
Very well said. Very true in my view.
Do you mean the Republic of Ireland? Yes, they did take back control after a bloody uprising and a deal with the UK that broke off the 6 northern counties. That’s not really what we’re discussing. War is not part of the constitutional arrangements. Perhaps Scotland and Wales would like to join up and wage war on England. Go for it.
“Taking back control” sounds like a very tabloid slogan.
No wonder he forced Corbyn out, Jeremy had too much of a heart compared to him
The Westminster Parliament passes an Act which stipulates it can only be amended or repealed by a vote in favour by every Member of Parliament.
A later Government with a majority of one wants to repeal it. How?
If no Parliament can be bound by its predecessors and in the absence of a proper Supreme Court, there will be nothing to stop the Commons from doing whatever it wants.
That’s exactly the situation, isn’t it? – Parliament is sovereign. The Supreme Court decides if something is lawful and, if it isn’t, Parliament can change the law so that it becomes lawful. That’s why there’s a debate about a written constitution and a Bill of Rights. Have I misunderstood your point?
The answer to your question lies in the doctrine that no parliament can bind a subsequent parliament. Which means that any later parliament can amend any legislation of any prior parliament.
Eg. Westminster could abolish the Scottish parliament, there’s nothing to stop it. Nothing in law that is. Politics is a different question.
They simply repeal it.
In theory a Parliament cannot bind a future Parliament, so the future one can undo that sort of law. In practice, “Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”
I’ve often wondered whether, if as has been written in the article, the UK Parliament cannot permanently relinquish its supremacy and can at any time take back delegated or devolved powers, it is thereby more or less powerful than one that can. (Although in practice certain things are probably irreversible, such as giving independence to countries).
Perhaps it’s because Parliament wears 2 hats, in that as well as legislating it is also the notional author of the constitution – the “We the people” of the preamble to the US constitution (although “rich white male” should probably go in between “the” and “people” but that’s another subject).
The whole ambiguity is highlighted by the Brexit referendum in that whilst it was an advisory referendum (apparently yielding nothing of Parliamentary sovereignty), it suited the Conservative party to treat the result as absolutely binding and irreversible.
How Keir Starmer proposes to reinforce his plan so a future Conservative government (or even worse) can’t reverse it all, or by fiscal measures effectively strangle it eludes me. Arguably he shouldn’t be able to, so less desirable proposals from his or a future government can’t get intractibly entrenched.
One interesting thing in this is the Statute of Westminster: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/22-23/4/enacted
This where the Westminster parliament agreed not to legislate for the Dominions.
Another excellent piece.
Perhaps, and do call me a cynic, he is rightly mediagenically fleshing out a simple truth, nay, an imperative, that we must “take back control” of this beleaguered country’s governance from a clueless governing party
Thank you – interesting – I thought constitutional law was supposed to be a boring subject? (Maybe it has ceased to be because the whole system is creaking violently at the seams – not just here but throughout the world – and we should be worried?)
I suppose that statute could be repealed although the response from the dominions would undoubtedly be a collective “up yours” or words to that effect.
Turning to the main issue, it does seem completely wrong to me that a party with an absolute majority in Parliament, obtained on less than 50% of the vote, as FPTP yields, has unlimited power, and even if it can be repealed by a future Parliament, the current one can move the goalposts to reduce the likelihood of such a future Parliament.
I has got to change, however the issue has a plethora of strands to it.
“I thought constitutional law was supposed to be a boring subject?”
‘Boring’ as in unexiting? Perhaps.
‘Boring’ as in uninteresting? Certainly not!
The fundamental structure of the State + fundamental and political rights etc… should be of interest to every citizen. It should certainly be taught to everyone (call it ‘civic studies’ or whatever).
Comparative constitutional law is also rather interesting and should be discussed much more widely outside of academia – no country is perfect and everyone might find something worth learning from others.
I’m afraid for me – as a Scot well-minded to vote Indy after the mess of the last few years (I was No in 2014) – Starmer’s speech is just hot air, and for all the reasons DAG has highlighted and more. The UK, over-centralised as it is, is such a mess. In the 21st century, the UK’s political institutions are not fit for purpose. For real decentralisation, UK needs to embrace a federal model – like Germany’s. That means breaking England up (yup), keeping Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland as they are, setting up “regional” parliaments, and severely reducing both the numbers of MPs at Westminster and the centralised powers of government. And while I’m at it, shut down and replace the HoL, get rid of the royal circus (at least you can vote out a president), and draw up a proper constitution and write it down (a constitutional convention – to include Scots, Welsh & Northern Irish – to agree on its content).
Starmer tinkering with ‘control’ (a Brexity word if ever there was one) just doesn’t cut it and would do nothing to curb support of independence in especially Scotland and Northern Ireland. If there is serious change, sort of like the above, then it may persuade many in the middle to remain part of the UK. If not, the breakup of the UK is inevitable. As it stands though, I feel Starmer’s “ideas” (for want of a characterisation) are all too little, rather patronising and simply too late.
The single biggest impact Labour could have on the UK’s political makeup is embracing PR. The party membership has, the leadership hasn’t, and therein lies the latter’s true colours. Little if anything concrete will come of this speech is my confident prediction.
There’s not much evidence that the English want their country to be broken up into regions. If the English want their country to be kept in one piece, then the solution must lie in the dissolution of the UK and for all its constituent countries to seek independence (within the EU).
Would be great if Labour politicians en masse get to read David’s exposition of the awful truth about the Westminster system.
This is probably the best piece of yours that I have ever read. It is perhaps the first time I have seen an Englishman explain the Gordian knot at the very centre of the (cough, cough) ‘British Constitution’.
There are solutions: (a) of the kind celebrated in France every 14th July or (b) for Scotland of the kind celebrated across the pond on the 4th of the same month.
Otherwise – only a proper written constitution will do. There are no adequate substitutes.
I interpreted this simply as Labour taking back control of the phrase “Taking Back Control”, from Brexiters and Tories.
Depressingly probable.
People’s Momentum kicked off a Take Back Control campaign, subtitled a festival of ideas and action after the referendum, on Saturday 22nd April 2017 in Shoreditch.
They do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
One wonders if this is a rebranding of the old Regional Development Agencies and regional Government Offices we knew so well in the noughties. I seem to recall those being established with similarly lofty aims and -relatively – impressive budgets but they tended to remain as remote from the local communities they claimed to serve and reflect as central government was. Certainly in the South West, it seemed the only people who lamented or even noticed their eventual demise when the new Tory administration swept them away were the handsomely remunerated staff who ran them. Grassroots communities in Penzance felt little kinship with those in Exeter or Bristol and local authorities often resented having responsibility for major economic development and regeneration schemes taken away from them along with its associated funding provision. And, as you note, some things can only be delivered effectively by a central agency.
A useful article. Completely in line with Governmental warnings “If someone controls your finances, they control you”. (I can’t remember which agency: likely the Financial Conduct Authority).
If you have the power to do good, you also have the power to do ill. That’s not an objection to doing good, such as decentralising.
Britain is indubitably over-centralised. It has least amount of local control of expenditure of any of our peer nations, that are large enough for localism to matter. Some time in the past, we used to look down our noses at the over-centralised French. But we have centralised and they have decentralised. Both countries’ governments have the power to reverse that.
The dynamic that led to our over-centralisation lies in the same observation. The government of the day – notably Mrs T – saw local authorities, quangoes, etc, doing things she didn’t like. So it reduced their power to do those things. This also reduced their power to do good things, whether by the government’s metric or anyone else’s.
As I set out at some length in a blog post in February last year, the Labour Party, if Lisa Nandy is anything to go by does not yet fully appreciate that devolving power and responsibility requires accepting the need to work with political parties other than one’s own and an acceptance that one must go along with decisions and policies with which one might not agree, but are not illegal or in some way compromised.
In particular, socio-economic regeneration, what we adults call levelling up, requires a great deal of cross party, cross community working and consensus building to be effective and sustainable.
https://jodatu.wordpress.com/2022/02/20/lisa-nandy-and-the-strange-case-of-the-dukes-potholed-drive/
https://jodatu.wordpress.com/2022/02/20/some-useful-legal-insight-and-comment-on-lisa-nandy-and-the-strange-case-of-the-virile-viscounts-potholed-drive-and-a-dash-of-jolyon-maugham/
How is it then that almost all other countries decentralise decisions about services to a much greater extent than the UK? And only 100 years ago the City of Carlisle actually ran the pubs…This piece feels very defeatist. Having seen how Job Centres currently force claimants to spend 35 hours/week writing job applications, surely an approach guided by local knowledge about skill shortages could do better? And who can argue that London, which controls its local transport, has a better system than, say Birmingham?
The requirement to be available for and actively seeking work (unless one may show good cause not to be so, temporarily) is enshrined at the very heart of the Social Security legislation covering unemployment benefit and dates back to the initiation of unemployment benefit as paid by central government.
There will, I am confident, be no power given to a devolved authority to overturn those fundamental two requirements for receiving unemployment benefit.
If one is seeking full time employment then one needs must be available for, arguably, at least 35 hours a week at times appropriate for the job or jobs one is seeking.
The steps required to show that one is actively seeking work would include anything to do with finding and getting a job.
One might, for example, argue that keeping up with the local business news for the area in which one is looking for work would be one such step.
As an aside, a Jobcentre slogan of thirty years or so ago was, “Getting a job is a job in itself!”
The requirements of what constitutes actively seeking work may vary from jobseeker to jobseeker, even if they are looking for the same type of work thus arguably, if a jobseeker is looking for a job in their local geographical area then they should be seeking a job of which they are capable and which is regularly advertised by employers locally.
The requirements placed on jobseekers around looking for work may be set in the context of local circumstances and should surely be, if their jobsearch is to be successful.
There has, I know, been a lot of comment, ill informed in some cases, about people on unemployment being required to take any job after a permitted period:
https://jodatu.wordpress.com/2022/02/22/reducing-the-length-of-a-permitted-period-from-thirteen-weeks-to-four-just-another-element-of-operation-red-meat/
I go into the setting of permitted periods in detail here:
https://jodatu.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/determining-entitlement-to-a-permitted-period/
To put it bluntly, the only time to which anyone has ever been entitled in recent decades to refuse to take any job of which they are capable is one week at the start of their unemployment benefit claim and that week starts before the first time you sign on for unemployment benefit which is paid in arrears.
And if you are capable of undertaking a job in a skill shortage area (how ever defined and that is another story completely) that is being advertised locally then why would not be applying for it?
Incidentally, one may not turn down a job offer on the grounds it is not, in your opinion, a ‘good job’.
There is no definition of a good job in Social Security law, however, there are grounds, set out within the legislation and accompanying guidance on which one may turn down a job as I explain here:
https://jodatu.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/circumstances-that-may-show-good-reason-for-a-refusal-or-failure-to-apply-for-or-accept-if-offered-a-job-vacancy/
I am not sure all those who think folk should not take ‘bad jobs’ grasp the consequence of folk doing just that whilst on benefit.
The longer you are unemployed, the more unemployable, rightly or wrongly, you become in the eyes of most employers.
And if jobs go unfilled due to lack applicants, as we are seeing with the fallout of the end of Freedom of Movement then people get made redundant and companies even go out of business with knock on effects across these economy.
The vast majority of businesses in the United Kingdom, 2,476,210 or 89.5% of the total, employ nine or fewer staff and have only one site from which they operate.
They are your local business community and Take Back Control is partly about making Britain the best place (in the known universe?) to start and grow a business as Rachel Reeves puts it.
In short, the definition of what constitutes actively seeking work for benefit entitlement purposes may be varied from jobseeker to jobseeker in the same Jobcentre without the first tier of management of Jobcentres being devolved, in the case of Birmingham, from a District Office over a Jobcentre on Sutton New Road, Erdington, to an anonymous council building somewhere in or near Birmingham city centre.
However, individuals and sometimes whole organisations have an unfortunate tendency to be wary, if not frightened of discretionary powers so it is not unusual for guidelines to become rules and freedom of movement to become narrowed to the point where the exercising of discretion becomes frowned upon, if not actively discouraged by ‘guidance’.
Will the gathered Permanent Secretaries at their next Shadow Cabinet meeting allow themselves a little chuckle about Sir Keir giving away power from Westminster, but not Whitehall?
One of his Tweets, today:
“My Labour government will introduce a Take Back Control Bill.
We will harness the potential that grows, not out of Westminster, but out of our communities.
We will devolve power across the UK, giving people control over their own future.
A new approach to politics.”
Twitter, of course, allows for little subtlety, but I assume Sir Keir does not mean there is no potential at Westminster …
“Bernard, you must never forget that the elected politicians at Westminster, our lords and masters, are mere placeholders. We, the mature oaks of His Majesty’s Civil Service in Whitehall are the permanent government of His Realm.”
Labour is continuing to develop, I use the verb loosely, its plan to Balkanise the Jobcentre network.
There was a logic in the 2000s to putting some functions of the Jobcentre network under the joint management of Regional Development Agencies and Employment Service Regional Directors.
Closer working than already existed would have added value to the work of both organisations.
Labour’s current plans are nowhere near as rational.
Labour would open Jobcentres up to all and sundry as they were when I started working in one in 1987.
We even allowed employed people to use our services back then.
Scroll forward 20 odd years or so and Jobcentres had become invitation only. They had not become places into which to pop, if you were passing.
Labour’s aspiration is commendable.
However, back in 1987, the registered unemployed did not sign on at Jobcentres, but at Unemployment Benefit Offices.
UBOs ceased to exist a good while ago, their functions rolled into those of the once parallel and linked Jobcentre network.
For practical reasons, reopening the Jobcentres for casual trade would require reorganising the layouts of Jobcentres to make them more welcoming and probably shifting those on unemployment benefit to another location.
Either way, His Majesty’s Treasury is never going to allow local worthies, splendid chaps I am sure, their area’s slice of Universal Credit with the option to set the rules of entitlement and the levels of benefit.
Ergo, either Jobcentres would be managed jointly by the Department for Work and Pensions in Sheffield and local communities or Labour would have to spin the benefit functions out of Jobcentres into a parallel network of UBOs, managed wholly by DWP and even then there would still be joint management of Jobcentres, because of certain legal and other matters that would require expertise not easily available at a local level.
I am sure HMT would be happy to foot the bill for at least a doubling of the existing Jobcentre network.
An extract from the first King’s Speech of the next Labour Government:
“My Government will merge the procurement budgets of the 43 regional police forces in England and Wales, concentrating them at the new Police Procurement Agency in Whitehall.
The money saved by this streamlining of police procurement will save enough money to fund, year in, and year out, 13,000 new police officers and Police Community Support Officers.”
I am satirising only slightly this Tweet of 28th December 2022 from Sharon Jones MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Policing and the Fire Service:
“Labour has a plan to catch more criminals by putting 13000 more police on the streets funded by merging them procurement for the 43 forces in England and Wales.”
Of course, the PPA might be established in, say, Wigan as evidence of efforts to put Civil Services jobs Oop North (after taking them away from the rest of England and Wales).
I guess that would look like evidence of joined up policymaking, if you were not especially observant?
What you say here is true with any legislation, by the very dint of Parliamentary sovereignty. Any legislation promised in a manifesto always comes with the invisible proviso “until and unless repealed by a future session of Parliament”. I don’t see how legislation impacting devolved matters is any different.
Westminster can be thought of like the legal guardian for the dominions and local governments. Just like with my kids, these can be granted greater freedoms for as long as they do not abuse them (which is for me to decide). Unlike with my kids, they can’t move out and gain full autonomy upon majority.
In practice, it has not been easy for Parliaments to repeal previously enacted legislation, so passing legislation has a long lasting effect. One can at least expect it to remain in force during the tenure of the government that advanced it.
Above, I didn’t mean dominions. I meant territories. I got confused.
The answer to your question lies in the doctrine that no parliament can bind a subsequent parliament. Which means that any later parliament can amend any legislation of any prior parliament.
Eg. Westminster could abolish the Scottish parliament, there’s nothing to stop it. Nothing in law that is. Politics is a different question.
If you are going to be absolute about the meaning of control then devolution cannot work, but if you are going to be practical then it is certainly worth having. I don’t notice any nationalists in Scotland or Wales saying “we don’t have financial control so our Parliament isn’t worth having, please take it back”.
If Westminster were to grant devolved powers, including borrowing limits based on GDP (as US States’ borrowing is limited), then control is virtually complete. Westminster could of course decide to change or even remove such powers but it would be highly contentious given that such devolution would happen after a regional referendum.
Someone else said we need a Federal system like Germany has. While I agree with the idea of a Federal future for the UK it doesn’t necessarily mean regions would have full control. The German Federal Government has asked the States to ratify the debt control law (which limits national debt). Should they do so that will remove the State’s ability to borrow in future. Even in the “land of the free” the Federal Government sets State borrowing limits (as a percentage of State GDP) annually.
Starmer’s devolved government idea, depending on how it is formulated in detail, is a practical step forward towards more local control and the parliamentary supremacy argument is largely theoretical. Once granted such powers are hard to take back.
There’s always going to be a conflict between local arrangements and a national policy. On the one hand you can have what comes to be called a “postcode lottery“ where is something that is available in one street is not available in another because of an administrative boundary. On the other hand, there is the insensitivity of a national, or even regional policy, that takes no account of local needs. Or indeed of local pressure groups. What is lacking is a real nationwide debate on political theory and what sort of a society we want to have. There does seem to be a genuine, grassroots hunger for change and engagement. If this doesn’t happen then the readjustment may be painful and revolutionary, in the most generalised sense of the word. Combined with all the other global pressures, this could be a thoroughly unpleasant experience.
The problem with giving local government more power is that since power is so centralised anyone competent goes into central government. That leaves mostly useless people who would inevitably make a complete mess of any extra powers/funding they’re given. Eventually you might get more competent people persuaded to remain locally, but not before the current crop of numpties completely discredit de-centralisation.
The usual English justification for rule by Etonians returns: power must never be given to proles/provincials – Jocks & Taffs because they can’t possibly cope. Reminds of apartheid South Africa.
How do other countries cope without English Public Schools, Oxford or Cambridge?
Very well
I went to state school in a northern city! And I know very well that the “provinces” as they are patronisingly called produce very able people. Problem is they don’t go in to local government, they go to That London. Thus what you are left with are numpties.
We used to have governments with regional policies which at least attempted to prevent London and the South East being a talent magnet. Thatcherism stopped that and the process simply accelerated.
I live in the South East and see the downside of this. Property prices through the roof and increasing overcrowding and scarcity of water supplies as demand for housing goes through the roof.
” “I think the shadow cabinet is still not absolutely the powerhouse it could be,” one shadow cabinet minister said. “There are a lot of people who are not in the right jobs. What is Jim McMahon doing there? Anneliese Dodds is invisible. And Lisa Nandy is clearly unhappy so why doesn’t she get something else?”
One senior Labour MP predicted that any changes were likely to be very minor reorganisation. “If Keir won’t have people like Rosena Allin-Khan, Darren Jones or Stella Creasy in cabinet because he’s worried about people outshining him, then it’s hardly going to be fruitful for David Miliband is it?” ”
The Guardian, 22nd December 2022
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/21/could-big-beasts-from-labours-past-walk-into-keir-starmers-cabinet?CMP=share_btn_tw
I suspect that, a little while ago, Lisa Nandy may have grasped that Sir Keir’s Take Back Control Bill would make the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations) in any future Labour Government as potentially unpopular as any Home Secretary.
Imagine, if you will, just being lobbied during the passage of the Bill (and after its enactment) by 533 English MPs, alone, each seeking a sweet deal for their constituency.
And then add in all the other stakeholders, like council leaders, other local worthies and chambers of commerce.
No Secretary of State might reasonably be expected to please them all.
And many of the lobbyists would appreciate at least one face to face meeting with a Minister to put their case as to why Dunny on the Wold should receive especial treatment.
I am confident that they would not appreciate being fobbed off with a meeting with a mere civil servant.
A bed of nails, if not a crown of thorns for any Labour politician still with their eye on the leadership of the Labour Party and Number Ten.
Two of the key constituencies from which such a one would need to draw support in a Labour leadership election are Labour Councillors and Labour MPs, predominantly representing English seats.
The job of Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in a Labour Government would be less stressful party politically, at least, if its holder had no leadership ambitions.
And, if they did it would frustrate those ambitions, nicely.
A Labour leader wishing to neutralise a challenge from an ambitious colleague would keep Nandy right where she is for the time being.
If being in such a position focused a leadership hopeful’s mind and efforts on the matter in hand, at least between now and the next General Election, it would be all to the well and good, particularly in comparison with the alternative.
I imagine many Labour candidates will want some evidence of what the Take Back Control Act would do specifically for the constituency they hope to win at the next General Election for inclusion in their campaign literature.
What will you do for me is a question the voters will naturally ask and they will want a little detail in response.
And, as Sir Keir says this will be Labour’s flagship Bill of its first Kings Speech.
No pressure then for the Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations).
Whatever else the Take Back Control Bill achieves, it will bring a whole new meaning to cross cutting legislation.
Send for the Right Honourable Jim Hacker MP?
“Bernard was patiently waiting for me to read some piece of impenetrable prose that he had dug up, in answer to the question I had asked him yesterday: what are my actual powers in various far-flung parts of the UK, such as Scotland and Northern Ireland?
He proudly offered me a document. It said: ‘Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection 3 of Section A of Clause 214 of the Administrative Procedures (Scotland) Act 1978, it has been agreed that, insofar as the implementation of the statutory provisions is concerned, the resolution of anomalies and uncertainties between responsible departments shall fall within the purview of the Minister for Administrative Affairs.’ “
If it is our unwritten constitution that decrees that the Westminster Parliament has ultimate authority for everything, I come back to my unanswered question, which is, “How can I get our unwritten constitution changed?” Is it only by securing a written constitution?
“How can I get our unwritten constitution changed?”
Do a Guy Fawkes – but don’t get caught. An Oliver Cromwell would also work.
Why do you want it changed? What’s wrong with Parliamentary sovereignty? We have constitutional monarchy where the sovereign is literally the Crown in Parliament. Would you prefer a Supreme Court who can overrule Parliament? A President with powers that are separate to the legislature?
That’s the suggestion when folks ask for a written constitution. But that hasn’t worked out very well in the United States, for example. It has only served to make the judicial branch highly partisan.
Personally, I prefer the Parliamentary style of government we have here over the supposed checks and balances of the Federal government. Those checks and balances are not working well at all. And the idea of amending the US Constitution in even the least contentious manner seems outrageously far fetched.
The US Constitution was doing quite well overall until Trump managed to load the Supreme Court with conservative judges.
Not really. Stacking the Supreme Court and overturning Roe has been a long term goal of the Republican party since Reagan took office. The polity has been in gradual decline since then. It has only accelerated recently.
Checks and balances among branches only work when the institutions oppose each other. Those completely break down when party politics are paramount. Parties have been reduced to tribes. Their labels have become meaningless. What is the meaning of Republican? What is the meaning of Democrat? Jonathan Swift’s Beg-endians and Little-endians are ridiculous, but at least you know instantly what they stand for.
The founders imagined that even the House and Senate would be natural enemies. They wouldn’t recognise what Congress has become. The fact remains that it is now effectively impossible to amend the US Constitution. It might as well be carved in stone. You do not want a written constitution.
Matt, have you noticed the mess the unwritten constitution has left the UK in? The government is completely unaccountable. You definitely don’t want an unwritten constitution.
If the government were not accountable, then it’s hard to explain the succession of prime ministers we’ve seen over just the last couple years. That sort of churn simply is not possible in the United States.
Holding a president to account? A president has never been removed from office and probably never will be. Nixon might have been had he not resigned, but impeachment now seems to be strictly party political.
Yes, the government is accountable to Parliament. With a large majority, that can sometimes seem irrelevant. How should our democracy be constituted differently? That’s the question to answer before any talk of writing it down. But really, it’s a non-starter.
The supremacy of Parliament stopped Boris jamming through a Brexit default. That was real. The fact that he then lied about an oven-ready deal and was rewarded with a large majority to “get it done” in the GE doesn’t negate that Parliament did its job holding government to account. If we don’t like what Parliament is doing, we vote the bums out. It’s not perfect.
The recent succession of PMs isn’t the result of accountability. It’s because their on party threw them out. Ministers continue to act with utter contempt of Parliament. How can we vote them out under the skewed voting system we have where a large minority can win absolute power?
In the past constitutional conventions kept things running reasonably well. Boris Johnson ignored convention and his party continues to follow his example. Our unwritten constitution is no protection against this abuse of power.
“The recent succession of PMs isn’t the result of accountability. It’s because their on party threw them out.”
And why did their own party throw them out? Because A) Boris was an embarrassment and would lose any election; and B) Truss was worse and was probably going to get the country’s credit rating ruined. Truss, with a majority of about 80, was nevertheless effectively dealing with a hung Parliament.
The public doesn’t get to instantly decide to replace the government, and I don’t think that would really be a good thing, do you? But in a couple years we can. In the meantime, it remains to be seen whether we yet have a competent leader.
The government is not directly accountable to you or me, and since we don’t like this government it rankles that they somehow carry on. Again, I come back to this. How should it work differently?
“Our unwritten constitution is no protection against this abuse of power.”
A badly written constitution is worse. I’ve already given examples of how Parliament kept an unruly government in check. Time and time again, the courts have reaffirmed Parliamentary sovereignty when HMG tried to do an end run around it.
May tried to invoke Article 50 by prerogative. She was sued and lost. Partly because Parliament wouldn’t approve May’s Brexit deal, she had to go.
Johnson tried to do a Brexit default by proroguing Parliament. He was sued and lost. Parliament was not prorogued. The constitution of the United Kingdom changed on the spot, for the Supreme Court made new legal authority on prorogation.
Johnson called a general election and won a sizeable majority. Well, whose fault is that? First past the post, I suppose. I say good luck with that. The electorate has no appetite for coalitions. Even with that majority, he failed to execute his policies and was removed. He was untrustworthy and incompetent, and he had to go. Yeah, it was his own party that ultimately brought the axe down. For that, we should be grateful instead of lamenting the manner in which it came about.
This governing party is running out of road. Unless Sunak turns out to be some sort of miracle worker, the next election will see a new government ushered in and the pendulum will swing the other way for a while.
I’m well aware the government isn’t accountable to the people except at elections, I support that concept. I was only responding to your comment that ultimately we could throw them out.
I don’t need to hear from you how Johnson and Truss fell from power. My point is this government is only accountable to whims of the Tory Party and its members. It is not accountable to Parliament, as it should be. It is Parliament that is supreme, not the government, but the government behaves as if it is. Our unwritten constitution is unable to rein in Governments intent on this kind of behaviour.
Parliament has not been able to hold ministers to account since Johnson and his followers took power. That is simply because they ignore the conventions that our constitution and the business of Parliament rely on. Ministers provably lie to Parliament yet it is MPs who point this out who are threatened with expulsion.
You’re correct that a badly written constitution would be worse, but why assume that is what we would have?
Kevin, you say that this government is not accountable to Parliament because it behaves as though it is not. But that’s not the same thing. What you’re complaining about is a political problem, and you lay the blame on our “unwritten” constitution, which is actually written down but not all in the same place.
You seem to want a different constitution, and yet you support the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty. Your written constitution would be pointless. Parliament is already sovereign. If government sometimes gets away with behaving as though it is sovereign, whether by its sheer majority or some other machination, I still don’t understand how a written constitution is supposed to help with this. It depends on what is written in the constitution.
It sounds like what you want is for Parliament to draft a new raft of laws which would make it harder for the government to misbehave. As David has pointed out previously, the most fertile time for constitutional reform as at the beginning of a newly elected governing party’s tenure. It really doesn’t matter whether the constitution is all codified in one place when Parliamentary sovereignty underpins it.
Rather than just comparing the UK and USA, don’t we need some bigger samples of countries to compare? Most countries have written constitutions and seem to prefer it that way.
I have never heard of a country with a written one say they would prefer unwritten.
I am amazed by Brit obsession with all things American combined with utter ignorance of things European.
I recommend you spend a few days studying (say) the DACH countries (🇩🇪🇦🇹🇨🇭). I believe all three have interesting elements.
By the by, whatever the inadequacies of the 🇺🇸 checks and balances, this is still preferable to the English lack of controls if any kind. Didn’t Haylsham say that Parliament could make it illegal to have smoked a cigarette the previous day in Paris?
“I am amazed by Brit obsession with all things American combined with utter ignorance of things European.”
I take it this is aimed at me Mr Bruggmann? You’ve got the wrong end of it. Not that it matters, but I lived in the United States for my first 26 years, so these are my two frames of reference. And when there is talk of a written constitution, the United States, whose 235 year old Constitution is an enormous source of unthinking national pride, is the most obvious talking point.
An unwritten constitution is not the problem. That’s what I’ve been trying to stress. As a matter of fact, our constitution is written. It’s just not all written in the same place. It has the advantage of being relatively easy to amend, and we have an independent judiciary tasked with preserving it. The Supreme Court has adopted an approach of requiring explicit language in any statute that would alter the constitutional arrangements.
The complaints I’m seeing are mainly around the supremacy of Parliament, as though a written constitution would fix that. It could, or we could have a constitution all written down in one place that maintained Parliamentary sovereignty. I say, on the contrary, that Parliamentary sovereignty does not need to be fixed. For the most part, it works.
“…whatever the inadequacies of the 🇺🇸 checks and balances, this is still preferable to the English lack of controls if any kind.”
Is there any reasonable outside observer who is really capable of concluding that? Our democracy, like so many in this age of populism, is in decline. But it is still at least an order of magnitude more functional than the United States, which has become and ungovernable mess. And yet it is taken for granted that the US Constitution is the greatest instrument of democracy ever devised. But a constitution needs constant looking after.
Many countries do get along fine with a written constitution and even manage to modify it once in a while. But it takes effort and vigilance. It takes a switched on electorate. When the electorate is ignorant to how a democracy is actually constituted, a written constitution is no better than an anchor.
“Didn’t Haylsham say that Parliament could make it illegal to have smoked a cigarette the previous day in Paris?”
Sure, and it wasn’t Hailsham, but that was to illustrate that nothing could stop Parliament passing a law that would have no practical effect. With explicit language, Parliament could pass an awful draconian law, but it would have severe political consequences. Often enough, this is sufficient restraint.
You may not want a written constitution – and the US one seems very dog-eared at the moment to say the least even though it’s set in stone – for instance dumping the second amendment and the electoral college seem essential to me, along with amending the composition of the Senate although that is hard to change as the constitution bans that being amended – but it’s hard not to feel the UK has one in effect.
It seems that the notion that the current parliament is supreme is a kind of a constitution and (as has been discussed) in principle they couldn’t pass a law that couldn’t be undone by a future parliament.
But it does seem wrong to me that a party getting an absolute majority, which thanks to FPTP represents less than a third of the electorate can move the goalposts as they please. There is absolute power here and plenty of evidence that it has corrupted absolutely.
It set me wondering if they passed a law which provided for something and additionally explicitly changed the jurisdiction of the courts so they they couldn’t consider valid a future law which conflicted with it or changed back the jurisdiction of the courts. Would that work as a way of “entrenching” some sort of new setup?
Trouble is no government would want such a thing passed. Getting rid of FPTP is hard enough.
Don’t tempt me!
When I was a secondary school governor, the governing body routinely adopted draft policies circulated amongst schools by the Department for Education.
We simply agreed to accept the policy as drafted by civil servants at DfE and instructed the head to insert the details of our school in the appropriate places in the document sufficient to make it our own.
We lacked the time, although not necessarily always the competence to amend the draft policy or draw up our own.
Moreover, if for some reason a difficulty arose over the area covered by a policy that we had adopted lock, stock and barrel, we had the comfort and security of knowing we were following the exact policy as recommended by DfE.
What better defence might we offer should a controversy arise?
I wonder how much of a similar approach might be taken by the beneficiaries of Take Back Control.
One area where as a governing body we relied on our own resources was over the draft Private Finance Initiative agreement for a capital project at the school.
Birmingham City Council was not geared up to scrutinise the draft for us and so a fellow governor with a background in management took the draft home, went through it with a fine tooth comb and came up with a list of questions and concerns.
Will a Labour Government provide discreet funding for technical support during the process of devolution?
The sort of support that was provided as part of the European Regional Development Fund to support applicants for funding without the resources to provide it for themselves.
You may recall that Jeremy Corbyn launched his first Labour leadership campaign with a pledge to scrap universal university tuition fees on his first day as Prime Minister.
Surprisingly, this policy gained a lot of attention among our graduate dominated (middle class) media, mainstream and otherwise and drew a lot of people who would benefit from it, either directly or indirectly into the orbit, if not the membership of the Labour Party.
Take Back Control is certainly causing a great deal of excitement amongst the media.
A couple of weeks after Jeremy Corbyn made his pledge, we were introduced to the National Education Service for the many, not the few, the offspring of the other ranks, and cynics would suggest for likely Labour supporters employed in education other than higher education.
Right up until the moment, Jeremy Corbyn stepped down as Labour leader, the NES was never much more than a title.
Angela Rayner who might have given it a distinct shape as Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary was never, it seems allowed, to talk with, well, experts, even amongst Labour’s own ranks and supporters.
As a consequence, when I was out canvassing for the Labour Party during the 2017 General Election alongside a veteran Labour MP, our education policy had three elements to discuss with voters.
Scrapping universal university tuition fees; closing grammar schools and the NES.
In areas of the MP’s constituency wherein hardly anyone knew someone with a degree, let alone had been to university, doing away with tuition fees was of no interest, but some voters, rightly or wrongly, were in favour of grammar schools.
And the NES was a really hard sell, because all one might reasonably say is trust us, the NES will deliver for your children and you will find out all about it, if we win the General Election.
Frankly, it was embarrassing hearing the MP trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear on the doorstep.
Take Back Control would seem to be Sir Keir’s NES.
It is vague in outline, the detail will not be known until Labour is in Government, but it will, we are assured, be transformational.
I gather Sir Keir said that when he was out campaigning for Remain, he engaged with voters who wanted to take back control.
The informed amongst us might ask how they may take back control over something when they have never previously had control of it.
Is there a list extant of these losses?
Is this, perhaps, akin to post Brexit deregulation where folk are all for it as a benefit of Brexit, up until the point where they are asked which specific regulations with which they would dispense?
Ironically, the English regions (and Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) have lost control of the funds they once received directly to spend on meeting their own priorities.
Those funds were received from Brussels.
As many predicted, taking back control from Brussels meant a landgrab by Whitehall, taking back control of European Regional Development Fund funding from those best placed to say where it should be spent.
I may have missed it, but did Sir Keir pledge to do what Dominic Cummings failed to do in setting up the United Kingdom Shared Prosperity Fund?
Replace ERDF (and the European Social Fund) on a like for like basis in terms of amount of funding as well as devolved priority setting and administration.
There is no sense that the Take Back Control has been designed with the support of, well, experts in, for example, socio-economic regeneration, more popularly known as levelling up.
In fact, it is noticeable that as in other areas of debate since June 2016, the people best placed to help our two main political parties try to achieve their aims are often either kept at arm’s length; ridiculed or their very existence denied.
Politicians (and the media) have nearly 100 years of theory and practice in socio-economic regeneration in a UK context on which to draw.
There are numerous experts on socio-economic regeneration in the private sector; in the voluntary and community sector down to community activist level; and in the public sector, with whom to engage.
There are expert theorists, a fair few muddy booted to be found in the ivory towers of academia.
https://jodatu.wordpress.com/2021/11/30/itll-cost-you-guvnor-i-cant-get-the-labour-the-materials-especially-the-wood-some-prat-negotiated-and-signed-off-on-a-hard-brexit-and-its-steadily-gumming-up-the-works/
Of course, experts and populist politicians make awkward bedfellows …
“Henry Williams, a former Bishop of Carlisle, once said: “furious activity is no substitute for understanding”. The 20 years that I spent on regional development as a civil servant based in the North West of England were certainly ones of furious activity; unfortunately, they were also ones of limited effect.”
https://ukcivilservant.wordpress.com/2022/12/06/how-to-improve-regional-policy-in-england-ten-lessons-from-20-years/
“Prime Minister, we are apprised of your wishes and have a draft Bill for your consideration.”
“What do you want us to do about the other key elements of your Manifesto that might be affected by your plan of devolution? Put them on ice until the dust has settled?”
Some further thoughts on the Balkanisation of Jobcentres and related matters in the context of Take Back Control.
The Tories some time before the 1997 General Election, taking a leaf out of a United States playbook, if memory serves me correctly, devolved some of the responsibility for training and enterprise from the Manpower and Services Commission in Sheffield down to Training and Enterprise Councils at the local authority level, but independent of local government control.
The TECs had a great deal of freedom of manoeuvre whilst still being expected to deliver some national programmes.
One TEC, for example, was for a while putting spare cash on the overnight money markets.
In the case of Birmingham and Solihull, each local authority had its own TEC up until a financial scandal overtook Solihull TEC and it collapsed.
David Cragg, the Chief Executive of Birmingham TEC, and a mover and shaker amongst the Great and Good of the City put in a takeover bid for Solihull TEC that was accepted, although probably not with the approval of the leadership of Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council who, like their counterparts in the Black Country are sensitive about Birmingham getting too big for its boots and their comfort.
The TECs got a reputation for dubious behaviour and on at least one occasion, a number of them were exposed for dodgy dealings on national television in a documentary wherein reporters went undercover.
New Labour made clear it would deal with such matters, if it were elected at the General Election in 1997.
Addressing the shortcomings of the TECs was not a priority for New Labour, in comparison with the rollouts of the welfare to work New Deals, like the New Deal for Young People in which the TECs played a key role.
Tony Blair observed on at least one occasion in public that “The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism.”
Few appreciated that he was quoting verbatim none other than Aneurin Bevan.
Once the New Deals were in place Labour turned to the TECs.
As an aside and to confuse matters more, NDYP (18 to 24) and New Deal 25 Plus were public sector led in Birmingham, but private sector led in Solihull much to the annoyance of SMBC, who only learnt they were going to be in partnership with the private sector when they were literally at the door of the Regional Director of the West Midlands Employment Service and as part of the partnership team ready to present the Solihull NDYP plan for his consideration.
Their understandable annoyance was caused by a last minute intervention by Geoffrey Robinson, the Labour MP for Coventry North West who was a big fan and champion of private sector involvement in the delivery of publicly funded services and who then had a lot of influence amongst the Labour leadership.
Labour decided to set up a (national) Learning and Skills Council, a non-departmental public body jointly sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Children, Schools and Families in England to replace the TECs.
The LSC was represented at the local level by Local Learning and Skills Councils, shortened to LSC in common usage which acted primarily as its delivery arm.
Labour consulted on the areas the LSCs should cover and at the end of the consultation process, Solihull found itself lumped in with Birmingham as it is today for the first tier of management of the Jobcentre network.
SMBC was not amused by not having their own LSC and demanded sight of the responses to the consultation exercise.
At one point, they threatened the recently established Advantage West Midlands, the Regional Development Agency, with legal action if they did not hand over a copy of their consultation response.
As it happened, I was working at AWM at the time this was all going on and my remit included oversight of the AWM funded regeneration schemes in both Birmingham and Solihull.
If SMBC had had its way it would have joined the Coventry and Warwickshire LLSC which would then have fitted neatly with its membership of the Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire (regeneration) Partnership.
There is no rational case for SMBC to have the partial management of the two Jobcentres within its boundaries devolved to it.
Arguably, those two Jobcentres should stay with the Jobcentre network in Birmingham, possibly under some joint management board made up of at a minimum representatives of Jobcentre Plus, Birmingham City Council and SMBC.
This brings us to the Black Country where the Jobcentre Plus District covers the local authority areas of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.
The four authorities conveniently make up the Black Country Executive Joint Committee.
Of course, there is the position of the (Metropolitan County of the) West Midlands Combined Authority to consider in all this …
I believe this legislation still applies?
Local Authority Controlled and Influenced Companies
“There are special rules that affect companies in which councils have major interests. These are ‘regulated’ companies for the purposes of the Local Government and Housing
Act 1989. They are in effect controlled by (more than 50% interest) or subject to a council’s influence (20% interest plus business relationship) because of its level of interest, either individually, or with a group of other authorities. They will generally be subject to the local government capital finance regime and special propriety controls.”
I gather Margaret Thatcher was opposed to local councils getting around central government control by setting up companies that would effectively operate outside of the legislation covering local authorities.
Instead of market testing, say, refuse collection and having their in house team lose to an external bidder, they might outsource their refuse collection to their newly liberated in house team, operating outside of the law limiting, amongst other things the ability of councils to generate independent revenue streams.
Mrs Thatcher was opposed to councils engaging in what at times might be deemed unfair competition with private sector companies through, for example, the use of cross subsidy to charge below market prices.
And Whitehall and the Treasury, in particular, are not big fans of local authorities (or other public sector bodies) becoming less reliant on the money central government provides to them.
A Take Back Control Bill would seem to present one hell of a headache for those called upon to draw it up and steer it through both Houses of Parliament, twice.
Would Sir Keir’s plan to replace the House of Lords come before or after his flagship Bill?