In October, the people of the North-East and Yorkshire will be asked to vote on whether they want to establish regional assemblies.

For decades, the northern regions have called for a stronger voice, complaining that their needs are not understood by politicians based in the south.

Will the assemblies proposed by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott provide that stronger voice and more relevant government, or will they prove to be an expensive step backwrds?

As far as The Northern Echo is concerned, it is vital that the people of the North-East and Yorkshire know exactly what they are voting for.

What powers will the assemblies have? Where will they be based? How much will they cost compared to what we have now? The devil is in the detail and too much of the detail remains unknown.

But between now and the refrendum, The Northern Echo is committed to providing a regional platform for the debate. Today, William Hague, the MP for Richmond and former leader of the Conservative Party, writes exclusively for The Northern Echo, giving his view, which is unequivocally opposed to regional assemblies.

Do you agree with him? Or do you believe the North-East and Yorkshire will benefit from regional government?

It is a hugely important debate with consequences which go to the heart of how we are governed. It is therefore vital that you have your say in The Great Debate.

* Write to Hear All Sides, The Northern Echo, PO Box 14, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, or email us at echo@nne.co.uk

LATER this year all of us in Yorkshire and the North-East will be asked to vote on John Prescott's plan for establishing elected regional assemblies. This vote will be conducted by post, and it would be all too easy to treat it as yet another piece of unwanted junk mail.

You may well be tempted to throw your ballot paper in the bin. But be careful: if you don't cast your vote, and in particular if you don't vote 'no' to this whole idea, it will soon be higher bills rather than ballot papers coming through your letter box.

The idea of having some grand assembly for Yorkshire and another one for the North-East is not new, but what is new is recent experience of the cost of newly- elected bodies elsewhere in Britain.

London now has an elected assembly and it has cost a good £100m to set it up and provide a building for it. The latest estimate for the cost of building the Scottish Parliament is £430m, 11 times the original estimate.

And we know for a fact that every time local government is reorganised - councils abolished and other ones established - it costs hundreds of millions of pounds, adding huge sums to your council tax bill. The Scottish Parliament, has, of course, been subsidised by the English taxpayer. But there is no one else to subsidise new assemblies for us in the North - we would end up paying for them ourselves.

Some people argue that now there is a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly the English regions should have the equivalent. But while the Scots and Welsh bodies have at least been given some power from national government, all that is on offer for Yorkshire and the North-East is no new powers in relation to the national government but the supplanting of existing local councils. As a result, they would suck the life, and the money, out of local democracy.

Major decisions about planning and housing developments would be made by an assembly, most of whose members had never been to the places on which they were passing judgement. In North Yorkshire, the proposals would mean some of the local councils being abolished. The result would be even more expense and less local democracy rather than more.

I yield to no one in sheer pride in being a Yorkshireman. I was born and brought up in Rotherham, at the industrial end of Yorkshire, and have lived for the last 15 years near Richmond at the very rural end. Both Rotherham and Richmond are in Yorkshire, but in other ways they are very different. Their inhabitants have different views and need different policies to help them.

I cannot see what can possibly be gained by, for instance, abolishing Richmondshire Council and having more decisions about Richmond made by a regional assembly which includes people from Rotherham.

With the best will in the world, the understanding of local circumstances possessed by people from the other end of the county will be less good than that of people who live locally. The needs of rural areas in particular could suffer because there would always be a majority of representatives from the towns and cities.

Well, some people say, we need an assembly to give us a voice and carry more influence for our region. Do not fall for this one. No one ever won influence by wasting money, and no one has ever gained a stronger voice by talking to themselves. Reorganising everything is usually a substitute for trying to do a good job with what exists already.

IF we had kept the Ridings of Yorkshire 30 years ago rather than see the endless trail of reorganisations which has included setting up Humberside and abolishing it again, council tax payers would have been saved a fortune and everyone would have a far better understanding of who is responsible for what.

The best way to ensure a strong voice for Yorkshire or for the North-East is to elect good MPs and to hold local councils to account for the work they do. That is also the best way to stop the tax bills going ever higher.

If we need to change anything at all then it should only be something that can be done very cheaply, which is to say that now there is a Scottish Parliament the Scottish MPs should not be voting on matters which relate only to England. Such a change would scarcely cost a penny. So save yourself a lot of money and make sure you vote 'no' when that ballot paper comes through the post.