Devo-Manc? Northern Cities Eye Greater Powers

By Faisal Islam, Political Editor

In the North, the UK is stirring. The locals are fed up with Westminster control. The cry is for more powers, more freedom, more independence.

The place? Manchester, rather or perhaps as well as Scotland ... and this week's historic decisions will reverberate here too.

Even if there's a no vote, the "Reunited Kingdom" will never be the same. Powers will flow from Westminster to Scotland and other nations and regions want the same too.

It's not just Wales and Northern Ireland, but city regions like Manchester. So Forget Devo-Max. What about Devo-Manc?

In what was derelict east Manchester: an example of what can be done already - new housing, schools, and sports facilities, building on some government spending, but now investment from the wealthiest Middle Eastern oil funds.

They get to add their name, their brand, to council-owned stadiums and tram stops. But the Devo-Manc report by Respublica, published on Monday, says the prize is much bigger.

Sir Richard Leese

The offer to Westminster and the rest of the country from the city's leaders is stark: Let us, eventually, pay our own way instead of spending nearly £5bn in taxes raised elsewhere.

Just free us to make our own spending decisions and boost our economy.

The report details a myriad of funding agencies and streams, thousands of permutations for public money to be spent in this conurbation of 2.7 million people.

The theory is that at a local level, the money could be much better deployed in innovative, integrated public services. Better spending, not more spending. For example, helping long-term disabled jobless, with a combination of work support programmes and the local health service.

Sir Richard Leese, the Labour council leader, told me: "Cities like Manchester and Glasgow and Edinburgh are suffering from excessive centralisation.

"In our case from Westminster, in their's from Holyrood. It's not a good use of money and it is not achieving the growth we are capable, and it is not rebalancing the economy.

"The Scottish referendum is about your choice of jailer. Our cities, and even more remote areas need to be set free from the shackles.

"The size of our economy is bigger than some nations. It's completely unacceptable that we should have less powers than Wales."

I put it to him that there is no way that the rest of the UK could contemplate handing over the purse strings for £22bn of public spending in Manchester, when the area only raises £17bn in taxes. A deficit partly filled by fiscal transfers from the south of England.

"We don't want people in London and the South East to continue paying taxes that come to Greater Manchester," Sir Richard said.

"We want to eliminate that position. We cant do it overnight, it will take time. But I'm convinced that the only way we are going to do that is by us having far greater control of public sector spend in Greater Manchester.

"To the people of London and the South East: If you want to stop paying taxes to help us, give us the freedom to do something about it."

A look at the fascinating Treasury tables that compare public spending in different regions and nations of the UK is rather revealing.

Scotland and Wales already have freedoms over their spending priorities.

In the northwest of England £140 per head is spent on housing, less than half of that in Scotland (at £307), and much less than Wales (£224).

Likewise the same pattern with transport: the North West at £265 per head, Wales at £365 per head and Scotland at £539 per head, some of which is of course to be expected given Scotland's geography. 

But what about spend on enterprise and economic development: it is an even starker difference. £59 spent per North Westerner, a third of the level in Scotland at £185, and half of that in Wales at £120.

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