‘To succeed, Labour’s devolution agenda must be seen as a constitutional project’

Keir Starmer has committed a future Labour government to undertaking a “huge shift of power and control out of Westminster and back into the hands of communities” to “transform our economy, our politics and our democracy”. As Angela Rayner argued in her speech to the Local Government Association in July: “The decisions that create wealth in our communities, economic wealth and civic wealth, should be taken by local people.” This devolution of power is set to take place through the enactment of the ‘Take Back Control Act’, to be announced in Labour’s first King’s Speech. 

The reasons for doing this are clear. Empowering local communities to make the decisions that are right for them, and to put resources where they are needed, not where central government thinks they ought to go, leads to better results, for growth and wealth creation, but also better public services and outcomes for the communities they serve. As Starmer wrote in Country Life magazine earlier this month: “The principle is straightforward; the decisions that make a difference in your lives should be taken by people in your community with skin in the game. This applies for all communities – cities, counties and the countryside. Our message to all is equally simple: Labour will give you back that control.”

English devolution must be a constitutional, as well as economic, project

It is hard to disagree with this “devastatingly simple” argument. However, it is not enough to think about English devolution in simply economic terms. It is, fundamentally, a constitutional project. Indeed, the scope and ambition of the Labour Party’s commitment to devolution in England would be the most profound constitutional reform since New Labour’s devolution project in 1998. It is, therefore, imperative that the Take Back Control Act, and other reforms to governance in England, are seen in that light. 

In short, the Take Back Control Act must provide a solid constitutional foundation and framework for these reforms, if we are to truly empower communities. It is this realisation that underpinned the work undertaken by the Commission on the Future of the UK, chaired by Gordon Brown, to which I and my colleagues at the Society of Labour Lawyers were extremely proud to contribute. The commission not only examined how economic power might be devolved but also how that power would be guaranteed and enhanced through constitutional reform and political devolution. 

It is for this reason, that the Society of Labour Lawyers, working with John Denham (former Labour Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government), has produced an outline of that constitutional framework. In so doing, we have been guided by three basic principles: 

1. That the communities, towns, cities and counties of England must have the powers they need and the right to have them, together with the security of knowing that they cannot be taken away at the whim of Westminster; 
2. That policy in England should not simply be devised in Westminster and imposed on local communities but co-produced in partnership with those communities; and 
3. That when things go wrong, the UK government should have the powers to intervene as a last resort. 

Notwithstanding this, the framework we have produced is underpinned by a simple proposition; that governance reform in England can no longer be seen as a simple exercise of reforming local government, but as a transition to devolved government. Without this fundamental shift in mindset, any programme of reform will not achieve its full potential.

Our paper sets out how the Take Back Control Act can realise its potential

Our full paper can be found here. However, it is with these principles in mind that we have outlined that the Take Back Control Act should: 

• Guarantee the “constitutional autonomy” of local and devolved authorities so that they have the security of knowing that Westminster cannot interfere with the decisions of their local communities. 
• Give local and devolved governments the right to the powers they need to improve the lives of the people in their communities and not have to go cap in hand to the UK government for those powers. 
• Give local and devolved authorities the right to create combined local authorities so that communities can come together for their mutual benefit and achieve their maximum potential. 
• Impose a “duty of subsidiarity” on local and devolved governments to ensure that local people, and not just politicians, have a fair say in how their communities are governed. 
• Create a representative body of local and devolved authorities and a statutory duty on the UK government to consult that body on decisions affecting England, including local and devolved government funding – to give English local and devolved governments a powerful voice at the heart of Westminster.  
• Place a responsibility on the UK government to create a fair funding formula that is protected from arbitrary change to give local and devolved government the fiscal autonomy and certainty it needs to make long-term investments, and which seeks to address historic underinvestment. 
• Create better accountability mechanisms, such as through the creation of a new statutory public audit office for local government. 

Nevertheless, beyond these changes, the UK needs (as Starmer points out) “dynamic government […] driven by a strategic purpose”, which is as true for Westminster as it is for local government. It is for this reason that we have also recommended that a future Labour government creates an English Office, to lead and coordinate policy for England across Westminster. 

If the Take Back Control Act, and Labour’s devolution agenda more generally, is not seen as a constitutional project and a vitally important one at that, the economic promise of the Take Back Control Act will not be realised.