Committee Chair urges Government to devolve financial powers in England

• Inquiry: Fiscal devolution to cities and city regions
• Report: Devolution in England: the case for local government
• Communities and Local Government Committee 

With the No vote in the Scottish referendum, devolution is set to preoccupy policymakers between now and the general election. Greater devolution is on the way to Scotland. The Committee in its report, Devolution in England: the case for local government, published in July, called for the transfer to groups of English local authorities of a range of tax raising powers, including business rates, stamp duty, council tax and other smaller taxes and charges, along with greater flexibility to borrow for investment.

Chair's comments 

Clive Betts MP, Chair of the Committee, said:

"English devolution should not be just about English votes for English laws. England, a country of 53 million people, cannot be governed from Westminster any more than a country of 5 million—Scotland—can. For devolution to mean anything it has to be in England, not to England.

I am the first to congratulate the Government on the steps it has taken in the right direction with City Deals and its emphasis on localism. But they are baby steps compared to the strides we now need to take to achieve a credible and comparable level of devolution in England. My Committee is clear that the route ahead is working with local authorities.

The Prime Minister acknowledged as much this morning, when he talked about the need to discuss 'how to empower our great cities.' He also said, 'We will say more about this in the coming days.'

Eric Pickles now needs to respond to the Committee's report within the next few days. The Prime Minister's statement promised some fresh thinking and I look forward to seeing if his words have galvanised Mr Pickles."

Clive Betts MP, added:

"The Chancellor recently put the case for decentralising power to boost economic growth. And the Deputy Prime Minister last week endorsed similar recommendations to ours in the IPPR North report, Decentralisation Decade. Others, from the City Growth Commission, to ResPublica and the Local Government Association, have called for similar devolution. When Scotland and Wales are being promised ever greater fiscal devolution, why not England? Transferring these powers to English local government would represent genuine English devolution."

Report

In its report the Committee called on the Government to work with local authorities and establish a devolutionary framework in which tax and spending decisions are made closer to the people they affect. The Committee pointed out: 

"The UK Government is in the process of granting substantial fiscal devolution to Scotland and Wales. Ministers have therefore accepted the principle of fiscal devolution from Whitehall. This prompts the question, if such powers are considered justified and workable in Scotland and Wales, why not in England? Greater Manchester and Greater Birmingham each have a larger GVA [Gross Value Added] than Wales. London has a larger GVA than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined. When the changes for Scotland and Wales take place, England's local authorities will be left in an increasingly anomalous position, with a little more responsibility for spending than they have now but much less control over taxation than the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly."

Further information 

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