Heseltine Institute contributes to All Party Parliamentary Group inquiry into devolution of powers to local areas
The Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place has contributed to a new parliamentary report on devolution in England. As part of its regular engagement with policymakers and politicians, the Heseltine Institute was asked to submit evidence to an inquiry of the Devolution All-Party Parliamentary Group. Its final report, Levelling-Up Devo, incorporates several recommendations from the Heseltine’s response, including:
• Moving beyond short-term, competitive funding streams for local and combined authorities and towards more long-term funding arrangements giving power to towns and cities to determine their own policy priorities.
• Government should set out a roadmap for fiscal decentralisation, giving more tax raising and spending powers to local and combined authorities, in line with most other developed nations.
• Improving intergovernmental relations by increasing collaboration between central and local government on the design of devolution.
The report will be used to shape the government’s English devolution policy, including a Devolution White Paper expected later this year.
Co-Director of the Heseltine Institute, Sue Jarvis, welcomed the report’s recommendation on how a new devolution settlement should form a central part of the national recovery strategy and government’s ambition of ‘levelling up’ regions of the UK.
“The Heseltine Institute has long been a champion of devolution and putting the power to make significant local decisions into the hands of local authorities. Devolution is already working in the Liverpool City Region and should be scaled up to ensure local recovery is effective, builds future resilience and delivers necessary transformations to the local economy. Only by empowering local areas with the policy tools and fiscal levers required to build back better will the ambition of levelling up regions be achieved.”
The report can be accessed here.