The Government`s devolution revolution ‘risks being rushed and appearing driven by a purely political timetable’, but should go further in the long run, a committee of MPs has argued.
The Communities and Local Government (CLG) Committee’s report Devolution: the next five years and beyond found ‘a significant lack of public consultation and engagement at all stages in the devolution process’.
It recommended regular parliamentary scrutiny of statutory instruments implementing devolution arrangements, ‘for example, the Transport Committee might wish to scrutinise proposals for devolution of transport powers’.
Overall, the committee was strongly in favour of devolution, arguing that it should go further, with current deals the starting point, ‘not the destination’.
MPs recommended that local areas should be able to acquire further devolved powers over time. They said that, ‘by the end of this Parliament, the Government and local authorities should move to a position of “devolution by right” with the Government announcing a package of powers on offer to local government’.
But the committee criticized the Government’s approach to devolution in practice as lacking rigour, with no clear, measurable objectives for devolution. It argued that ‘efforts are not being made to inject openness or transparency into the deal negotiations’.
The report called on local leaders ‘to engage, consult, and communicate with the public about devolution deals affecting their areas’.
The committee initially set out to examine the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill, which became an Act last week, and whether the Greater Manchester deal is a model for other areas. But it widened its inquiry to look at how devolution is moving ahead in other areas of England.
Clive Betts MP, chair of the CLG committee, said: ‘As a Committee, we strongly support the principle of devolution and welcome its prominent place on the Government’s agenda. We believe that the current arrangements should only be a first step towards a much bigger devolution settlement and that devolution should be the default across all Government departments.
‘If we are to achieve this local leaders and the Government must make far greater efforts to communicate with and engage the public so they embrace devolution as a positive development too. People rightly want to be involved in discussions and negotiations affecting their communities and local leaders and Government need to up their game to make the devolution process as transparent and engaging as possible.’
