WITH its latest, tortuous twist, the saga of how to hold the heads of the region’s powerful quangos to account is starting to resemble the row over the Iraq War inquiry.
Okay, no one has died in the creation of a “select committee” and “grand committee”
for the North-East and for Yorkshire – but there is the same government secrecy and refusal to consult.
Last week, the controversy came to a head in furious rows in the Commons over dates and venues, with allegations of “dirty tricks”
thrown at ministers.
It was claimed that – when these committees do finally meet – the topics will be handpicked by the “Minister for the North-East”
and his counterpart in Yorkshire. Now, that’s a scenario worthy of Saddam.
To recap, Gordon Brown promised to set up “regional committees” in his first few days in No 10, but progress has been slow. The idea would compensate for the death of elected regional assemblies at the hands of North-East voters, by creating a forum to grill the agencies that together spend billions of pounds – with little scrutiny.
Finally, regional “select committees” were set up. In the North-East, it held its first meeting, in Gateshead, nearly a month ago, examining whether the Government does enough to support industry and innovation.
But a Conservative and a Liberal Democrat boycott triggered accusations that it was simply a “Labour talking shop”. It has just five members – including Stockton South MP Dari Taylor, its chairwoman.
However, there was cross-party agreement over the need for a “grand committee”, at which all MPs – in front of the public – could, for example, quiz the North-East minister, Nick Brown. So that could be set up easily, right? Er, wrong. Last week, the opposition parties suddenly discovered that the dates, times and topics had already been decided in secret.
Worse, in some regions – including the North-East – the meetings were timetabled for the weeks of the Tory and Liberal Democrat annual conferences, when MPs from those parties would be elsewhere.
So, MPs are expected to gather in Middlesbrough, on Friday, September 25, at 10.30am – even though that week was set aside for the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth.
As Lib Dem spokesman David Heath put it: “It is typical of this Government to take a good idea – and foul it up with their clotheared intransigence.”
Embarrassingly, ministers then lost a vote to stage the first East Midlands meeting on September 9 and were sent away to think again, with their tails between their legs.
The North-East “grand committee” will meet, in Middlesbrough – as will Yorkshire’s, in Barnsley, on October 29 – but, two years on, the Prime Minister’s big idea for the regions is an unholy mess.
IT truly was “Grumpy Gordon” that I interviewed on Tuesday. Perhaps he has given up smiling altogether, after the muchlampooned YouTube disaster over expenses?
The Prime Minister was also keen to criticise David Cameron, after the Tory leader’s latest vitriolic attack on him that only just stopped short of including the word “liar”.
Mr Brown said: “I have never got into the business of personal attacks. I have always thought it was sad that politics is reduced to personal attacks.”
This is, of course, true – because that is what “mad dog” Damian McBride was for.
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