One of the defining themes of the new government will be devolution. Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner’s plan, according to the Labour manifesto, is to ‘transfer power out of Westminster, and into our communities.’ It’s a signal of the priority they place on these reforms that the Prime Minister and his deputy hosted English regional mayors at Number 10 this morning to discuss how this power transfer will take place.
The new government should be holding out central government as the mechanism for delivering the changes it has promised
The manifesto pledged to ‘deepen’ devolution settlements for combined authorities while ‘encouraging’ councils to merge and assume additional powers. Among the areas identified for further devolution are transport, adult education and skills, housing, planning and employment support. The trade-off will be a legal requirement to produce ‘local growth plans’, while consulting employers, educational institutions and industry bodies on municipal policy and infrastructure.
Growth plans will have to ‘align’ with the government’s UK-wide industrial strategy, hinting that their purpose is more cosmetic than substantive.
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