Council of Nations and Regions? Labour is treating Scotland like it’s York or Peterborough

For a party that has struggled in its first 100 days to put much meat on the bones of its ‘change’ slogan, improved relations between the different layers of our government – local, national and UK – should have been straightforward. Alas, events this week have forced us all to re-examine even that.

Edinburgh this week plays host to the much-vaunted and rebooted ‘Council of the Nations and Regions’ that Sir Keir Starmer hopes will reset relations between those different levels, but the concept immediately ran into bother when it emerged that the ‘regions’ invited would only be those in England with elected mayors, including those with a fraction of the population of the largest cities in the devolved nations.

As far as messages go, this was a blunt but clunky one for Scotland: your cities don’t get to play unless they play by our rules, and Scotland sits on the same level as York or Peterborough in our thinking.

‘Devolve and forget’

Maybe it’s the residual Presbyterian in me, but I prefer my politics a bit less muddled. Durham University public law professor, Aileen McHarg, put it best on social media when she pointed out that “this is a problem that arises from using devolution to mean two different things – legislative devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland versus enhanced local government in England… and English devolution is really patchy, so there is unequal representation across England too”.

There was a sudden awakening to devolved realities in SW1 during the pandemic, as Whitehall departments realised they were unable to exercise the powers they assumed they had over the devolved nations. A common refrain was that Labour’s first wave of post-1997 constitutional tinkering in the UK was a case of ‘devolve and forget’. This first brush with our new sub-national reality must give some pause for thought as to whether they have learned any lessons in terms of taking a holistic, joined-up approach to this next stage of devolution.

York is a picturesque place, but it is not a devolved nation like Scotland (Picture: Danny Lawson) | PA

Whitehall’s muddled attitude was further illuminated as it emerged that there was considerable unease among English mayors about the Treasury’s attitude to devolution, with one quoted as saying: “They don’t see it as devolution or, ‘you have control, and you decide’. They just see us as a mechanism for delivering their national plans. And the mayors hate it.”

Not in control of own destiny

This is where the rubber meets the road and, as is often the case in politics, it comes down to money and budgets. If this type of regional devolution became attractive to certain types of Conservative policymakers because they realised that if central government controlled the purse strings that it could make Labour mayors the face of Tory cuts, then Starmer, Reeves and Rayner’s current strategy is separate but related. They want to make sure that Labour mayors are the face of the UK Labour government’s municipal munificence.

Both approaches are wrong because they demonstrate the shallow nature of English regional devolution. Mayors are not in control of their own destiny, and effectively have to live from City Deal to City Deal, to plan what projects they can undertake and only hope that their local priorities align with UK Government ones, and those of the Treasury in particular.

I was fortunate enough in my time as an MP to have City Deal funding come to Pollok Park in my old constituency for the renovation of the Victorian Stables, turning them into a living heritage centre and visitor attraction. But while the investment was welcome, the process was onerous and opaque, with the goal posts changing for the council as it made the plans, with resources being squandered trying to meet the UK Government’s changing needs and short timescales – a reality that the poor folk of Drumchapel are also finding out can lead to sudden changes of heart as promised UK Government investment evaporates.

Building more Govan-Partick bridges

The Govan-Partick Bridge may be something of a counterpoint to other Glasgow examples: a transformative infrastructure project that will be of immense benefit to a community I grew up in and is a great example of all three layers of governments pulling in the same direction. But this is very much the exception to the rule, and it would be good if we could hear more about how councils, Holyrood and London can replicate it.

For my part, I think it’s clear that local government needs less moralising, hand-holding and piecemeal cooperation from the Scottish and UK governments. It also doesn’t need the frankly unnecessary, personality driven, elected-mayor nonsense that some seem intent on trying to make happen in Scotland. A solution it is not.

What Scottish local government needs is the power over skills, housing and transport that they have been crying out for to be passed down from London and Edinburgh, along with vital revenue-raising powers that have been conspicuously absent from English City Deals, keeping them on a short leash from No 11 Downing Street.

Fostering Swinney-Starmer goodwill

I’ve written before about Glasgow’s status as one of the largest metro areas not only on these islands but in Europe. We have had our own version of a city region that has been quietly getting along with the work of laying the foundations for growth, innovation and investment in industries of the future and in climate transition. If this model isn’t broken, why should we fix it?

This should be the obvious basis for an enhanced devolution deal, appropriate to our legislatively devolved Scottish context, that would also allow Glasgow and other Scottish cities a seat at the table next time the Nations and Regions show rolls into town – as it should.

And while there is no doubt that our own First Minister has correctly sought to foster goodwill with Starmer by participating in this forum, the new Labour government now needs to focus on making devolution less of a technocratic delivery exercise and more of a genuine attempt to respect the diversity of our islands’ Nations and Regions.