Last week John Prescott announced that the people of the North-East will get a chance to vote on setting up a regional assembly. Today Neil Herron, campaign director of North-East Against a Regional Assembly, puts the case for voting no.
FINALLY the jumping through hoops exercise has been accomplished. John Prescott, in his usual eloquent style, has announced that the North-East, the North West and Yorkshire and Humberside are to be allowed referenda on regional government next autumn.
This was no surprise for the opponents of regionalisation, because the whole subject has been one of the most deceitful and contrived pieces of political manipulation by this Government. Luckily, the people of the North-East are waking up to the fact that they are being duped, and there may well be yet another backlash from Labour supporters for treating the people of this region in such an arrogant and dismissive manner.
Let us be quite clear here what is actually on offer. It is not home rule. It is not devolved government, as the assembly will have no substantive powers except the ability to raise council taxes to help pay for an expensive bureaucracy.
I am surprised that the extra cost burden was mentioned in its list of powers, because so far anyone supportive of regionalisation has kept the facts to a bare minimum, instead running with passionate emotional rhetoric about identity and a stronger voice, and how we have been betrayed by successive governments.
Now there is a point where there is some common ground with the Yes side. I too am passionate about the North-East and its people, and we have for too long had a raw deal from central government. When Labour was elected in 1997, many thought we would have a few sweeteners thrown our way. After all, the Prime Minister comes from here. We have had the greatest ministerial representation the North-East has ever had, but they turned their backs on their Labour heartland and continued to take us for granted.
It would only take a commitment or statement of intent that some of the 20,000 civil service jobs could be relocated here from the overcrowded capital. But no. Just hollow words and empty promises.
So let us take a close look at what scraps they have offered in the form of regional government and how statistics have been spun with a greater degree of skill than a six-fingered Indian cricketer in an attempt to create demand from the people.
In March last year the BBC commissioned a poll and the results were 72 per cent of people in the North-East want an elected regional assembly. I contacted the firm who had conducted the poll and ran through their raw data. What had not been mentioned by any of the press was that 85 per cent of those questioned had little or no knowledge of regionalisation. They were told by the pollster that an assembly would give the region a stronger voice in Westminster and Brussels - hence the reply: "Yes we will have one of those." It also came out before the White Paper on Regional Governance, which defined the powers, or lack of them, of an elected assembly.
Once the White Paper had been published the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister requested responses. These figures were not released. Of the 713 responses from the public, 72 per cent were opposed to regional government and only seven per cent in favour. Again, that would have upset the gameplan. This agenda was to be driven along regardless, and it proves that this is not grass roots driven, otherwise we would all be clamouring for it. It is the imposition of Prescott's dream on an unwilling public.
Following this, the Government decided to hold a series of consultation exercises across the country. Not on regional government, but on whether you wanted a referendum on regional government. You just couldn't make this up. People were told they could vote for a referendum to tell the Government that they didn't want an assembly.
Not surprisingly there was not much interest but the Government said there had been enough demand to initiate the process in three regions. Would it surprise you that only 3,329 people out of 14 million participated. Seems a bit bizarre that 1.7 million demanding a referendum on the proposed European Constitution does not spark the Government into giving the people a say on how the nation is to be governed, but 0.0002 per cent in the North-East carries such weight.
Let us start talking some blunt language here as to exactly what is on offer.
No more money from Westminster. Nick Raynsford, Local Government Minister, confirmed this on local radio. Same money, just a different set of politicians to share it out.
No more money from Brussels, and after 2006 the Structural Funds will dry up and as President of the European Parliament, Pat Cox said last year, with ten new accession countries in 2004, the North-East will be a wealthy region in comparison to regions of Poland and Slovenia, and so there will be no more Objective Two funding.
More politicians. It is expected that the Assembly will have 35 members, and for a population of two and a half million it means each will have a constituency of over 70,000. Bringing democracy closer to the people it is not. Of course they say that a tier of local government will have to go, so the counties and districts will be abolished to be replaced by unitary authorities. As well as the confusion and upheaval, just remember - you pay. You can't believe the reassurances of the politicians when they tell you it will only cost £50 a year more per person.
The same politicians said it would cost £40m to build the Scottish Parliament. They are up to £375m and it still isn't finished. In the North-East they couldn't wait. Still no one has been told exactly where the assembly is to be located, but Durham council leader Ken Manton announces that they have already earmarked a site to build a brand new structure - with your money. It must be remembered that Coun Manton is a member of the unelected North-East Assembly, that was found guilty by the District Auditor of unlawfully using ratepayers' money to produce propaganda to convince the public that an elected assembly will benefit the people.
The usual suspects will be involved, and do not believe for one minute that it will be socially inclusive. There will be an inner cabinet of ten to make decisions and it will be party driven.
Then you have to question exactly what these assembly members will do in Westminster when we already have 31 MPs there? What will they do in Brussels when we have four MEPs there? Where will the dynamic people come from? Or will we have upgraded councillors acting as B list politicians on inflated salaries and expenses?
The first two pieces of substantive legislation to be passed by the Welsh Assembly were pay rises for assembly members.
Question after question but no answers. A stronger voice for the region? What happens when every region has an assembly, because an asymmetric system of local government cannot effectively work, because of the way the Civil Service operates. How loud will the North-East have to scream then? We are back to square one, but with more politicians on the pay roll and more bureaucrats, and all squabbling for a piece of the pie.
At the moment we are being asked to sign a finance deal for a Ferrari, but in reality we are getting a Reliant Robin. This whole pointless exercise is a gross waste of public money. Would that not be better spent on more police on the beat or keeping teachers in our crisis-hit schools?
Remember that this is the Government that wasted millions of our money on the Millennium Dome, and the people of the North-East are fully aware that this is another White Elephant. The more the people know the less chance the Government has of hoodwinking us. We welcome the debate because, as the old African proverb says: "The further up the tree the monkey climbs the more you can see its arse." John Prescott will not only end up with egg on his face with this one, this time it is likely to be the full omelette.
As a former salesman, I would have struggled to sell this dog's breakfast to a pack of starving, bulimic mongrels. More politicians and more bureaucracy is not the answer. The simple answer is to attract more dynamic people to the structures that already exist and shift powers downward to the local level where people can make a difference, and to make sure that the people we elect to represent us in Westminster and Brussels actually fight for a better deal for the North-East and represent their constituency and not the party.
Only then will our beautiful and diverse region and its people get the recognition and reward that it deserves.
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