Devolution

While it might be more interesting to write about #brexit and the incredible bonfire of the loyalties which is unfolding in Westminster, local council business doesn't wait and the devolution deal is still rumbling on, now without a driver.

The wave of recent devolution deals and the silly "region x powerhouse" branding have been the pet projects of George Osborne, who is currently hiding under a table hoping that he won't catch any of the airborne ordure from his awful efforts in the referendum campaign. While we will hopefully never see him again, we have the latest version of a deal for Cambridge, now covering Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, to discuss in the Guildhall tomorrow evening.

The first version of the deal was something that a graphic designer might describe as having "hairy arms". It was so lamentably wrong, geographically and economically, that it could only be sent back. Now we've got the new version, which is what the first version should have been, and the problems are more subtle.

1) Labour have put a lot of work into trying to get something out of the deal for Cambridge, recognising that the deal could be imposed on the region without consent if the government wanted to force it. The issue of affordable housing is desperate at the moment, and an obvious popular choice to try and negotiate on. What the deal now offers is a relatively small amount though, £70m, which will all be spent after 5 years. The 500 council homes that it provides will be wonderful, but the surrender of power and the mandate for over-development will be indefinite.

2) That's the frightening thing about the deal - it is about putting a rocket under the growth agenda. Shadowy development programmes like the City Deal and pollution generators like the A14 upgrade have been moving too slowly apparently, There aren't enough cranes on the skyline. The newly appointed mayor will be responsible for making sure nothing stands in the way, and all the funding for the Combined Authority pot will be dependent on contributing to national growth.

3) There's very little in the deal about contributing to national or regional happiness. Growth isn't interchangeable with happiness, or even fairness. The main beneficiaries are likely to be a few developers and employers, with most people suffering environmental degradation and pollution. The deal should have much stronger ambitions for managing sustainable growth. It shouldn't just claim that it has a low-carbon, knowledge-based economy, it should spell out measures or incentives to ensure that. The devolution deal plans about 30 years ahead, taking us up to roughly 2050. We may not need a Combined Authority for the area after that unless we make a radical and thorough transition to a low-carbon economy, as it will be reclaimed by the sea.

4) The deal papers contain an evaluation of the four different options for the future: The status quo, an Economic Prosperity Board, a Combined Authority, and a Mayoral Combined Authority. The advantages of each are explained quite cogently until the mayor comes in - the reason for his or her inclusion is that it would "afford additional flexibilities". In other words, the Tories have set the system up this way because they want to have mayors swanning around like quasi-dukes, calling the shots. The evaluation doesn't argue that it's the best choice for the region, but that it's just what they like.

I contest that real devolution would be about giving power back to the people, and having a Combined Authority using Proportional Representation to select a diverse and inclusive group from across the region to govern. It wouldn't be that confusing, that's how we used to elect MEPs. It would also involve giving more power to raise taxes in the area, in order to have some form of independence.

Instead, the government are starving local authorities of funding in a cruel and manipulative way to try and leave no option but to take the Faustian pact offered by devolution deals. Forced to cut services, barraged by endless schemes to rearrange the way things are done, it's no wonder the status quo is struggling. But the terms of these deals are the puppeteers strings, with which the Tories hope to make councils follow their wishes and act against their own self-interests. The voters will see councils making more and more decisions that exploit and degrade their regions, like fracking for example, with few of them following the trail of culpability back to Westminster.

So it looks like we might get forced to go through with this anyway, I would have liked us to fight harder though for environmental protections, workers rights, proportional representation and more guarantees of lasting funding.

One last note, which casts doubt over this whole messy exercise, is that the devolution deal places great stock in Local Enterprise Partnerships as a vehicle for funding and collaboration. These organisations exist to share out EU social funding, and will be of questionable purpose once we go through with #brexit. Perhaps the Tories plan to channel funding directly into LEPs now instead of letting it go via the continent, or perhaps we'll find out we were actually getting more out than we put in.