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Andy Haldane was previously the Bank of England’s chief economist and held a number of senior civil servant roles in the Treasury, Cabinet Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Alamy)<\/p>\n
Former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane says he is concerned that the government is getting \u201ccold feet\u201d about strengthening regional devolution.<\/p>\n Haldane, who is stepping down as chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), was involved in the previous Conservative\u00a0government’s\u00a0\u2018levelling up\u2019 programme\u00a0to expand regional devolution across England. Since Labour got into power, Haldane has continued to work on devolution policy through the RSA.<\/p>\n The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill is currently passing through Parliament. It will set up a strategic authority to enable quicker and easier devolution of powers from Westminster to local government across England.<\/p>\n But Haldane said he believes it does not go far enough.<\/p>\n \u201cTruth be told, I think this government already is getting somewhat cold feet about devolution,\u201d he told PoliticsHome in an interview.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo Reform mayors play into that. A Labour mayor on manoeuvres plays into that too. That will be a great shame, because I don’t see a way of them meeting their growth mission short of a full-throated and wholehearted embrace of devolution in a much more expansive way than is contained in the Devolution Bill.”<\/p>\n He described the Devolution Bill as \u201cnot a revolution\u201d, but taking \u201cfundamental steps forward\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope this is the opportunity not to hunker down, but to open arms to the powers of local leaders, whatever their colour,” Haldane continued.<\/p>\n “Without that, we’re pushing water uphill on the growth front. We’re still the most centralised state in the west by some margin, even after that bill is implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n Haldane helped to draft the new East Midlands Inclusive Growth Commission, which sets out a framework to drive ‘inclusive growth’ across the region and create an ‘opportunity escalator’ that maps\u00a0local skills against the roles available to identify realistic career paths for residents.<\/p>\n The report makes the case that\u00a0the East Midlands Combined County\u00a0Authority (EMCCA) should\u00a0be given an integrated funding settlement, which would allow it to use its budget more flexibly.<\/p>\n While in opposition, Labour accused the Conservative\u00a0government’s \u2018levelling up\u2019 approach of failing, and after the 2024 general election, promptly renamed the former Department for Levelling Up to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to reflect a change in approach.<\/p>\n Having worked on the initial levelling up white paper himself in 2022, RSA chief of staff Tom Stratton argued that when it was drafted, central government was \u201cnever going to be in a position to do that bottom-up approach\u201d.<\/p>\n The East Midlands report is a \u201cnatural follow-on” from levelling up that can be applied further across the country, he told PoliticsHome.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was pretty clear that the ability of central government to do something about this would end pretty quickly, or certainly would need to be supplemented through devolution and the creation of local leaders who could do things to take them to their place,” Stratton explained.<\/p>\n East Midlands mayor Claire Ward told PoliticsHome she would hold Prime Minister Keir Starmer to his promise after entering office last year that he would grow devolution \u201cfurther and faster\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI’ll hold on to that\u2026 and I expect even more of them [the government] as we show the delivery across the mayors,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe government needs to recognise the different political and democratic mandate that exists in the regions compared to government. We need to be partners, not considered to be something that is a regional operation going on somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked whether she is in direct regular contact with the prime minister, Ward said she does \u201cnot have that closeness in that way\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I recognise that he has set that tone of devolution, and it’s up to his departments and his ministers to deliver that as a policy,” she said.<\/p>\n “We have seen some really good investment into the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n 5 min read19 September
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\nMayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, and Mayor of East Midlands Claire Ward were invited to 10 Downing Street last year for their first roundtable (Alamy)
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