Newington's Stephen Mann looks at what the parties are offering on devolution and local government

Two years after the last General Election, and with two new political Leaders vying for the top job, the topic of devolution has played a lesser role in the 2017 campaign. The key advocate of City Mayor’s is now a newspaper editor, whilst the Labour Leader who proposed a ‘Senate of the Nations and Regions’ to replace the House of Lords is more often seen mowing constituent’s lawns than on the national stage.

For Labour, the key aspect of devolution focuses on Brexit, with a transfer of powers from Brussels to the regions and nations promised. Whilst in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland this shows a clear bypassing of Westminster and a positive move, it does pose the question of where in England power should lie, as regions are not clearly defined and Mayoral regions neither span traditional regions nor cover the whole of the nation. The Conservatives meanwhile suggest this will only occur for the nations rather than regions.

Whilst Labour has not been drawn on the issue of extending the number of elected mayoral posts, the Conservatives have ruled out rural mayoral positions, keeping the focus on the core cities. Further to this, they also propose abolishing proportional representation in Mayoral and Assembly elections, returning to First Past the Post.

Beyond these matters it is very much the status quo proposed for the Conservatives with regard to devolution, with measures like corporation tax devolution still on the table.

Economic Development funding has been the subject of very different visions over recent years with Regional Development Agencies and now Local Enterprise Partnerships. For Labour this is an area for proposed devolution, however, again it is not clear how this will end up sitting inside areas without clearly defined strategic government.

The Conservatives' emerging Industrial Strategy holds lofty ambitions to distribute economic development and wealth more evenly across the nations and regions. It makes the case for a more strategic approach to inward investment but it appears clear that responsibility for new measures, such as the planned National Productivity Investment Fund, will lie with central rather than devolved government.

In terms of local government more generally the Conservatives remain committed to ensuring a more “equitable” distribution of finance and focusing on local authorities’ locally raised funding. This is likely to see a continuation of the local government cuts to poorer areas in order to balance the financial settlements more broadly.

For Labour the party falls into their traditional message of ending the culture cuts impacting on things such as libraries funding.

By and large it is a rather uninteresting picture for devolution and local government, with limited original thinking shown so far. Had both Labour and the Conservatives been able to go through their more comprehensive five year policy-making cycles, maybe we would see some more innovative proposals for the lower tiers of government. As it is, the snap election has ensured that it is business as usual for local government.  

For the devolution agenda, instead of the parties at a national level pushing it further, it seems that it will be left to the newly elected mayors in Combined Authorities such as Manchester, Liverpool, the West Midlands and Tees Valley to seize the impetus and forge a role for themselves. Indeed, the successes or failures of these new mayors in various policy areas may do more to influence the development of local government over the coming years than either of the two main parties' manifestos.