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London: the limelight hogger

April 19, 2012 10:48 am

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Andrew Adonis claims to be ‘deadly serious’ about his proposal to relocate the House of Lords to a midlands or northern city. London, he writes in a letter to the Spectator, is ‘New York, Washington and LA rolled into one, which is unhealthy for our national politics.’

Adonis is a clever chap. He knows full-well that his suggestion will be met by much harrumphing from his colleagues in the House of Lords. It’s not just Tory peers who like living in Sussex, Hampstead or Islington, and popping along to Westminster. He’ll probably get the same amount of ridicule as the BBC executive who first suggested moving the bulk of the BBC to disused docklands in Salford. One billion pounds later, there are still BBC types unhappy with the move north. Just imagine if the Lords ended up in Coventry, Warrington or Middlesbrough. There’d be apoplexy.

There is, of course, a serious point about the imbalance between the north and south. London and the south east remain the power-house of the economy. It rivals New York as a centre for finance, it has the third most visitors in the world, it has the world’s busiest airport, and over 40 universities. Over eight million people live in greater London, compared to one million in Birmingham and half a million in Manchester. In terms of size, population and GDP, no city in Britain is even in the same league as London, whether we like it or not.

Tony Benn, when a minister, famously had a map the United Kingdom hung upside down in his office to make the point that the UK is bigger than the south east of England, and there’s always another way of looking at things. If you look at the map, you can see that Edinburgh is only about half way up (or down) the United Kingdom.

It is desperately unhealthy for London to suck in all the wealth, jobs and business. In the industrial age, urban centres grew up around trades and industries, based on natural resources, climate and topography. Mother Nature determined where cities would thrive, be it the damp in Manchester, or the coals in Newcastle. The decline of the shipyards, ironworks and textile mills left the great cities denuded of their wealth, and only in recent years have they found post-industrial purpose. The renaissance of the great cities was yet another of Labour’s unsung achievements.

There is some doubt whether the state can successfully re-balance the economy through relocation of its functions and agencies. Central government has tried over the years – placing the DVLA in Swansea, the tax office in Southend, and the headquarters of the NHS in Leeds, for example. If you’re a senior official at Quarry House in Leeds, you spend a lot of time on the train to Kings Cross for meetings at the department of health. By January this year, of the 680 jobs created at the BBC Media City in Salford, only 28 went to people with a Salford postcode.

Even attempts to hold Cabinet meetings outside of London, promoted by Hazel Blears when she was a Cabinet minister, have met with resistance. The Tories have copied the idea, but not without grumbles from ministers. And try getting the permanent secretaries to hold their weekly session outside the M25. When Labour encouraged them to meet in east London (Stratford, I think it was) you would think we’d suggested Sarajevo.

Governments can show willing, by forcing civil servants to live in Peterborough, but in the end it will come down to the private sector. With a knowledge and skills-based economy, there is no reason for all the corporate HQs and new jobs have to be within two miles of the London Eye, any more than they have to be within spitting distance of a coalfield or cotton mill.

Britain needs a strong regional policy, with the right mix of incentives, tax breaks and public investment to make business relocation or start-up outside London a runner. One of the Tories earliest, and biggest, mistakes was to scrap the regional development agencies which helped business thrive across the UK. The local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) that replaced the RDAs have created a patchwork quilt, not a national strategic structure. An incoming Labour government will need to create strong regional bodies to attract investment from private firms.

Relocation of the House of Lords is a good step in the re-balancing of Britain. But until we have an economic secretary to the treasury who knows where Sunderland is in relation to Bolton, and a prime minister who can tell the difference between Liverpool and Leeds, London will continue to hog the limelight.

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  • http://twitter.com/sprogglie Sprogglechops

    Try this … Devolution for England with an English Assembly outside of London ….

    • Bill Lockhart

      Barring Scottish Westminster MPs from voting on English and Welsh matters is all the devolution England and Wales need or want.

      • Chilbaldi

         An ensure that Labour can never pass a law in Parliament again, even if a Labour PM inhabits Downing Street. Great constitutional headache you’ce created there.

        The sensible answer is not to limit any MP’s voting power in Westminster, but to grant more local powers throughout England. Whether via devolution or through mayors.

  • trotters1957

    I would move the whole shooting match out of London, ministries, HofC and Lords.
    There is absolutely no reason why government has to be in the largest City.
    The US, Canada, Australia, South Africa in fact most of the english speaking world has their government outside the largest city.

    It’s not just for economic reasons, moving government closer to the centre might improve our democracy and make the 85% of the population that don’t live in London feel a little more attached to power.

    • Bill Lockhart

       They have their government in their *capital* city.
      That’s what “capital” means.

      • http://www.facebook.com/elliot.bidgood Elliot Bidgood

        The Netherlands demonstrates a way around that: Amsterdam is the “constitutional capital”, the Hague is defined as the “seat of government”. South Africa is another, with government branches in three different cities and thus three nominal capitals.

        However, in terms of international precedent, to be honest, this reminds me more of the “Naypyidaw” project in Burma, not company we really want to keep! Put simply, I’m pretty sceptical of this idea and whether people would go for it- it’s not just the lords, mps & government employees who would object, the public would most likely see it as an unneccesary and costly extravagance  and there’s a historic tie in it being in London that even those outside the city would defend. And although I agree the shift would strengthen the economy of the new location, the notion that the location of government being physically nearer to people enhances their involvement with democracy makes next to no sense.

  • http://twitter.com/johnringer John Ringer

    I think this is a good idea in principle, but it might end up irking more people than it pleases. At the very least, everyone can agree that keeping the Lords in Westminster makes sense from an historical perspective; Parliament has been meeting on the same site since the 13th century. The second you announce you’re moving the Lords to City X, there will be hackles from everyone who wasn’t selected. Brum? “They’re already the second city, and they’re not even in the North!” Manchester? “They already got the BBC!” Liverpool? “But we’ve already spent all that money on reviving their city centre!” Somewhere in the North? “What about the South West? We’re always being overlooked!” …etc, etc, ad nauseum.

    I’d say it would be far better to move each Whitehall department to a different city, and just keep one building in London to house all the ministers’ private offices. Then you could dish out the jobs and investment across the whole country.

    • Brumanuensis

      Actually, Bristol might not be a bad idea. Growing city, diverse workforce, not that far from London. Could do worse.

      The Whitehall suggestion is an idea I quite like. Should be possible with modern communication technology.

      • GuyM

        It would be tokenism of the worst kind.

        It would initially cost a lot, increase long term costs and make not any difference to private sector viewa about relocation.

        A friend of mine entered the civil service in the Treasury, moved to culture and recently onto DoH. How would he manage that if each ministery was dotted all over the UK? Into departmental move and career development would stall. People will not up sticks and move from city to city every few years especially if they have families.

        But I really don’t care as it would not have any real impact, as in London and the SE the private sector is the driver of affluence, not the civil service.

        • Alexwilliamz

          Yet that is what London expects of those from the regions who want a career in gvt, media etc etc.

          • GuyM

            No they expect them to move to one place, not move all over the country.

            But anyway it’s largely irrelevant, civil service jobs are a small part of London employment and as there is a cat in hells chance of private sector companies moving north nothing is going to change.

    • Alexwilliamz

      Wasn’t York an administrative counterbalance to London for periods before the later medieval period? Council of the North and all that. There is no reason with modern communication and transport why one city is any better than another for a centre of government.

  • Hamish

    Cogent article Paul.
    My first job was in London.  It was an exciting place to be at the time.  Everything seemed to happen in London: first nights , big product launches, major exhibitions. world sporting events.
    But I had neither the time or the money to engage in most of these.
    My boss knew that I wanted to return to Scotland.  As a gesture in the right direction, I was offered a job near Liverpool. At the time the company were setting up a new research project.
    I suggested locating it ‘North of Watford’.  My boss replied “You can’t expect graduates to work anywhere but London”.
    The ruthless solution is to outlaw the London weighting.  The rationale of this subsidy seems to be.  Lots of people want to live in London.   That means London becomes a very expensive place to live.  Solution: pay more money to those who live in London.

    • GuyM

      London weighting is paid only to public sector workers in London, the biggest city in the UK and a global centre.

      How therefore do you square that with cutting the income of public sector workers who can’t more north as their job has to be done in London i.e. nurses, doctors, teachers, council workers etc?

      The private sector will go as normal with higher salaries paid to London and SE workers.

      • jonathanmorse

         how about keep London weighting, even have a London tax allowance, but have a higher VAT rate for London and perhaps the South East. That way the poorest Londoners won’t be worse off (p
        also have a higher benefit rate for Londoners) but the richer Londoners pay more VAT with any surplus going to encourage people to move north.

        • GuyM

          That then hurts tourism with hotel rooms, restaurants, theatre, west end shopping and the like hit hard.

          Plus where do you draw the line VAT wise, at the edge of London boroughs?

          We’d get the equivalent of booze cruises to France. I’d be driving a few miles to do my shopping rather than pay incresaed VAT. Also my weekly grocery shop is all on line so how do you deal with that VAT wise?

          Plus the notion that you’d get many Londoners leaving the place where the good jobs are, where the major corporates are, giving up their houses and moving simply on the basis of a few points on VAT (which you could avoid online) is a bit bizarre.

          I also think you don’t understand about “rich” Londoners. The very rich and house price rich but income middling live in central London areas, but if you look at commuter trains in every weekday morning, many of the “rich”  or “well off” (you decide how you define it) live a good distance outside the centre of London. You’d have to spread that VAT rate far and wide to catch people.

          And a government that was so openly hostile to London  and the SE would cause an even bigger reaction in return. I already hear sentiments such as “stuff the bloody north” and “fed up from subsidising scousers and mancs” etc. from people I work with. You’d just make it more hardline.

          Anyway I’d not move north, not under any circumstances and certainly not for something piddly like a few % on VAT that could be avoided anyway.

          I suspect all you’d do is harden anti northern attitudes in the capital and remove a few more Labour marginals from any hope of returning a Labour MP.

    • Chilbaldi

      I absolutely agree with the London weighting thing.

      It’s why I have problems agreeing with people who suggest that there should be a London living wage, extra allowances for housing etc. All that does is imbalance the economy south eastwards even more.

      Our job as a party is to do the best for society as a whole. That doesn’t always = doing the absolute best thing for Londoners.

      (I write this as someone who lives in London and has no desire to leave)

  • GuyM

    When I was working for Connecting for Health, some wheeze from the DoH thought it worthwhile to move my job to Leeds as well. The HR department wasn’t happy when I refused under any circumstances to consider moving out of London (despite being offered over £600 per day freelance) and instead went back to the private sector.

    I was told subsequently that most NHS jobs that were moved to Leeds resulted in new hires as staff didn’t want to leave London. This fitted with the girl in HR who was a local and was both annoyed and resigned to the fact I wouldn’t consider moving under any circumstances.

    Shifting the HoL or government departments will result in the same thing, a high cost, lots of recruitment and those with transferable skills staying in London and the SE, most likely going to the private sector.

    There is no reason for private business to leave London and the SE. The transport network is better, location to the EU closer, a more international (and hence skilled) workforce and a work culture better in tune with private business needs.

    Plus remember that a large chunk of business is financial and service sector. There is no good economic or competitive reason to move north, hence very few do so.

    There is a move for the more wealthy to move out to the countryside but within a hour and half by train of the london terminals. The increased stamp duty on homes over £2 million will increase that.

    My wife and I are both clear, we’d move abroad to work if the offers were right and if we stay in the UK we might move to live further south (stay working in London) but neither of us would ever contemplate moving north. I think most people in the SE have the same opinion.

    If you want to move public sector jobs north do so, you’ll just imbalance England a bit more in terms of North  = public, south  = private ….. but I don’t think anyone down here in the SE will really care that much.

    • Brumanuensis

      Well that’s just great, Guy. What are the rest of us who don’t live in London or the SE supposed to do? Emigrate? The points you make about infrastructure and location are valid ones, but if we keep bringing that up as an obstacle, nothing will change. It’s about time people learned that civilisation doesn’t stop north of Watford Gap.

      I await an explanation for the ‘work culture’ comment. This better be good.

      • GuyM

        I’ve no idea what you do really.

        I’m making the simple point that business knows that a major relocation north would mean they lose a lot of staff. Experience of major redundancy programmes and relocations shows that one of the unfortunate side effects is the really valuable staff go first as they are more able to find better jobs than others.

        Also for an industry that has been heavily reliant on EU and overseas employees for years you find London is the draw. The people I managed from Australia, New Zealand, US, EU, Africa etc. were drawn to work in London. It is THE global multinational city. They like being there.

        You also need to add in the fact that from a career development point of view, moving jobs and moving upwards is far easier in London given its size and employer base than somewhere in the north or elsewhere.

        Lastly most London employees realise that if you leave the capital to live and work in the north, within a few years you are priced out of ever returning.

        An old school friend moved his family up to Cumbria a few years back. He had a lovely house and fantastic quality of life, but when he wanted to move on career wise he had to come back to London. He found, as many know, his cumbrian property hadn’t maintained value with London property and he had to live with his inlaws for ages as he couldn’t afford a similar property.

        Regarding “work culture”, my experience of working in the NHS and also consultancy work on a couple of projects in Newcastle was that the working culture is heavily influenced by the high percentage of public sector jobs in the north compared to London.

        London and SE private sector workforces really are not unionised,don’t expect diversity officers and PC rules and regulations and invariably do work “professional days”. Commercial pressures are completely at odds with public sector delivery ethos. I’m not saying one is better than the other (though I have my views), but it is the case that as a senior consultant who has worked in both there are marked differences.

        All things considered if we are talking about financial, services and other similar white collar based verticals then there really are no business reasons for relocating to the North.

        • Brumanuensis

          Ok, I understand your points about the reasons why people may be shy of moving out of London, but that just indicates why we need to re-balance the national economy away from its present overreliance on the SE. It’s just not healthy.       

          On work culture, well we’re never going to agree on that. Maybe if SE workers stood up for themselves more, they’d be less afraid of change. 

          • trotters1957

            It shows the ignorance of the southern based dickheads on here that they equate moving the capital to “up north”.
            It would best be in the Midlands, the centre of England.  
            Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland already have their own devolved government.

            To them Birmingham, Nottingham and Derby are miles away up north. Even moving it to Oxford or Cambridge would be preferable to leaving it in Laandun.

            Boneheads.

          • GuyM

            The midlands is “north” of London, it’s up north to us.

            As the majority of the England live in the south and London and we are quite hapy with the way things are I see no need to change.

            And anyway, you move a few civil servants….. everyone else in the private sector stays put. What exactly does it change?

            I’ve no desire to work in Birmingham, Nottingham, Derby or anywhere further north…. most people down here feel the same, hence the understanding with BBC staff refusing to move to Salford.

            It was th esame argument with Wembley. The home of English football is in London.

            Wembley, Twickenham, Lords, Wimbledon… they are in London.

            Olympics… in London

            Top museums, theatres, Buck Palace…. West end shopping… in London.

            Embassies… in London.

            London is the historic capital and centre of sport, commerce, arts and politics. It is a global city with a global draw for workers and tourists.

            It is close to the English county with the highest tree cover – surrey and rolling home counties coutryside and the south coast beaches

            It has easy access to the South West and the continent.

            It has the airports, tourist ferry ports and channel tunnel

            It has hundreds of thousands of foriegn nationals working here (one of the biggest “French” cities for instance).

            We are all happy down here with all that, no need, desire or intention of changing.

            oh and plus we have most of the money as well……

          • derek

            Wake up to the new world Guy, London doesn’t have the capacity to feed it population nor the energy requirements to keeps it’s lights on and London does struggle with it’s waterworks, In 30 years the exodust from the capital will be well on it’s way.

          • GuyM

            Hahahaha in your dreams.

            The companies and staff don’t want to move. London and UK are developed countries, there is not going to be a wave of people running to the scottish highlands due to brown outs and water shortages.

            I presume you’ll be out telling us all the end is nigh this weekend?

            These sorts of idiotic “you’ll see” statements are really nothing more than left wing lunacy.

            I’d not live in the north for any reason Derek and most Londoners feel the same.

          • GuyM

            But the people in the south don’t want to re-balance thanks.

            So if they want to stay here and the companies want to stay here then nothing changes.

            London is far bigger than any other UK city and is an international draw, the opportunities are therefore greater career wise here.

            SE workers are not working in engineering and manufacturing etc. they are not unionised and have no interest in doing so. When I worked in the NHS I refused any contact with unions trying to recruit, I didn’t need or want to be a member.

            London and the SE are doing ok, why would we want to change? If the rest of the UK isnt doing as well, that’s your problem not ours.

            You can’t force private sector relocation, staff don’t want to move and other intrinsic barriers to relocation won’t change. So you are stuck with it.

          • derek

            London has seen a boom in knife crime and crime levels are up, the past two year has seen london become a really unsafe city to do business in, London is also becoming a rapidly unhealthy city due to the high levels of  motor fumes and density problems, business will move because new health laws will be a greater burden in London.  

          • GuyM

            Derek, you write these things that make no sense at all, it’s clear you don’t know London nor live here.

            Crime in London has dropped over the last few years and where there are crimes spots they tend not to be in the city centre or the outer doughnut.

            Traffic density in the centre is better with the congestion charge than it was. My family reguarly drive into town at the weekends and park at the Marble Arch undergrounf carpark, it is fast,, easy to get to and very convenient.

            I’ll lay you serious money, London will continue as is. Businesses are not going to move north, employees don’t want to move north.

            If none of us want to move, what do expect we’ll do…. stay where we are thanks.

            I turned down £150,000 pa consultancy rather than move north… simply no thanks, not then, not now, not ever.

  • ovaljason

    More Labour politicians coming out against Ken.  Labour peer Lord Sugar has tweeted:

    “I don’t care if Ed Miliband is backing Livingstone . I seriously suggest NO ONE votes for Livingstone in the Mayoral elections.”

    • AlanGiles

      And that has to do what about the Adoni story exactly?

      • ovaljason

        Because:

        1. Mark won’t publish the news about Lord Sugar, so wherever this important update is posted it will always be technically off topic.
        2. This is a story about London. It’s better off here than elsewhere.

        3.  Who put you in charge?

        • AlanGiles

          You said “London politicians” Lord Sugar – whatever else he is is not a politcian.

          He was a man who founded Amstrad in 1968, had some good ideas, the last being his range of word-processors and cheap IBM clones in the mid 80s, who then proved he had the reverse Midas touch by bringing out the emailer in 1990 – about four years too late.

          Now he ekes out his living with property development and a tatty TV show, which has more prima donnas and fantasists than the average pop concert..

          • ovaljason

            Er no, I said Labour politicians.  Put your glasses on.

            However, you may have heard in the news that Ken Livingstone is running for Mayor of London.

          • ovaljason

            I have the disqus email notification in my inbox if you need confirmation of what either of us wrote.

          • ovaljason

            An additional thought:

            According to your glowing description of Lord Sugar the person who made him a life peer must have desperately poor political judgement.

            Do you remember who it was by chance?

          • AlanGiles

            Yes I do. Sadly New Labour had a terrible addiction to TV “personalities” – but then I have nothing to do with new labour.
            And yes you did say “labour politicians” not “London” my mistake – but since when has Alan Sugar been a politician?

          • ovaljason

            Minutiae aside, the substantive issue is will the Labour front-bench disown Sugar for these comments.

            My guess is no.

          • ovaljason

            Minutiae aside, the substantive issue is will the Labour front-bench disown Sugar for these comments.

            My guess is no.

      • Hugh

         Because if Ken loses he might need to relocate too.

  • Redshift

    Paul is right in the sense that the north needs a greater say, if it is to develop. 

    The only solution however is clearly devolution to either a northern parliament (i.e. North-West, North-East and Yorkshire & Humber) or regional assemblies. Nothing else is going to give us the voice that will address the imbalance in our economy. 

    • GuyM

      I suspect most of us in London and the South would be fine with that, so long as you don’t get any subsidy from London and the SE.

      Leaving you to make decisions based upon your own funding arrangements seems perfectly fair.

    • Alexwilliamz

      I have mentioned this before, but the key for me is less about devolution and more about infrastructure. The links between the major regional centres is terrible and far worse than links between those centres and London. As a result the regional centres often look to London for the resources/facilities that do not lie in their area. With better links between the centres they could pool their facilities to offer better business/cultural opportunities between them.

  • Ed W

    While I agree with the spirit of the piece, comparing the population of Greater London with the city limit populations of Manchester and Birmingham does not give a realistic picture of their relative sizes. The appropriate comparison would be with Greater Manchester and the West Midlands conurbation which come in at about 2 million each. The city of London, of course, has a population of 11 thousand…

  • jonathanmorse

    I’d like the lords abolished, or meeting only for State Openings and  Prorogations. Apparently both the Palace  of Westminster and Downing Street are in a bad state of repair, so why not move the Commons further north, I’d would have suggested Sheffield when I first thought of this but now I don’t like Clegg I’d say somewhere else, that way the top echelons of the civil service would have to follow as would the Ambassadors, the palace of Westminster could become a tourist attraction, most business would stay in London as I suggest most of those ordinary civil servants still in London – I don’t see why they should have to move.

    • AlanGiles

      It should be remembered Jonathan, that the HoL does sometimes act as a brake on the more intemperate legislation that the HoC tries to drag through. Both parties.  There were times in the New Labour years when the HoL was more “Labour” than the Labour cabinet.

  • mikestallard

    I really like Lord Adonis. Alone among politicians of every colour shape and hue, he thinks big.

    Pity his ideas on free schools have been scuppered by the DfE.

    PS “but in the end it will come down to the private sector. ” -Ever heard of fracking?

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