Brown’s reforms do not go far enough. We must embrace a more radical vision

As Labour consults the public about the distribution of power, the real debate must be whether the Brown commission goes anywhere near far enough. As Adam Lent has warned, Labour will fail if it clings to the current centralisation of power in London. The London-centric media and chattering classes may obsess about the (London-based) House of Lords, but much more important, for England at least, is the future for local government.

Despite the rhetoric of “the biggest transfer of power from Westminster to the British people”, what we are promised is far from a fundamental shift in the distribution of power. There are sensible ideas – thankfully not involving the imposition of elected mayors. It’s a good idea to let councils require energy efficiency in new building, run job centres and the careers service and influence FE colleges. Local control over bus services is essential and powers to regulate housing and open nurseries useful. Longer-term financial planning, including infrastructure, and block grants instead of competitive bidding will make life much easier for councils. All useful, but not transformative.

The commission still sees power as something for Whitehall to give away if it chooses. Nothing here establishes the constitutional right of local authorities to exercise wide powers. Indeed, councils will have to jump through arcane parliamentary hoops to gain new legal responsibilities. Local and combined authorities will remain at a huge disadvantage in dealing with government. Instead of, for example, negotiating how to pool their transport powers to make regional policy, localities will need central approval. Current devolution ‘deals’ tell us that weak councils end up being pathetically grateful for getting a little bit of what should be theirs by right.

In the last Labour government, ‘Total Place’ piloted how councils could pool different public service budgets to create more flexible and effective provision. On this and the general role of local authorities in public services, the commission is silent. Nothing about bringing some local leadership back into schools, nor the future leadership of health and social care, nor powers over housing investment. Nothing new and radical such as a council role in enforcing the minimum wage or modern slavery laws.

The ambition to encourage innovation zones is fine, but why no acknowledgement of the local authority role in delivering Labour’s green prosperity plan, or the ‘everyday economy’ championed by Rachel Reeves? Community wealth building, which enables billions of pounds of public spending to grow local economies, gets only a passing mention.

There is no promise of a fair funding formula to help England’s poorest regions recover from the disproportionate cuts suffered under austerity. Local authorities need a commitment to new powers over local property and land-based taxes. Put these omissions alongside the new borrowing powers for Scotland and Wales, and the gap in power and resources between those nations and England’s localities will be wider at the end of Labour’s first term than at the beginning.

Real power – strategic transport, industrial strategy, skills policy, spatial planning, trade, investment, energy and environmental policy – will be exercised at regional level. The imposition of top-down regions is ruled out, but anyone who understands government and Whitehall knows that a ‘design your own region as long as we approve of it’ approach will force localities to meet the centre’s priorities. Regional ministers will be based on the current Whitehall standard regions that mean little to most people. New Labour spent 13 years imposing a system of regional government so unpopular that the coalition could abolish it in months.

As someone who has harangued LabourList readers for years about England, it would be churlish not to welcome the significant statement that the “confusion of the government of the UK with that of England… does a disservice both to the devolved nations and to England itself”. But asking Whitehall to pay more attention to England and some limited fora for England within parliament falls well short of a coherent and democratic national government for England. The proposed elected (rather than representative) senate subjects England to a new layer of UK wide oversight. The tone is still of a ‘union of nations and regions’ in which Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are nations and England is a bundle of regions.

Labour in government is usually less radical than in opposition. Now is the time to demand more localism, more democracy and more devolution. Local authorities and combined authorities need constitutional rights to draw down powers and resources. They should be empowered to create regional and sub-regional structures that work for their part of England. Their powers and resources should enable them to negotiate with central government, not be dictated to. Our vision for the local should take a wider view of economic development and embrace radical public service democratisation. Our vision for the centre should be coherent and democratic governance for England.