Andrew Rawnsley correctly supposes that voters in England would have no enthusiasm “for another tier of politicians drawing another bunch of expenses” to manage at provincial level functions now performed by central government or its agencies (“You think that the union is secure for a whole generation? I would not be so sure, Mr Cameron”, In Focus). But he is not correct if he is assuming that more elected politicians would be required.
The royal commission on local government, the last group to look at the matter systematically, proposed in its 1969 report that representatives of the elected local authorities within each province would be appointed by those authorities to carry out, on their behalf, functions that could most effectively be carried out at provincial level.
What would voters have to object to about that? With that in mind, two decisions are now needed. The first is to determine the geographical limits of the eight or nine provincial boundaries required. The second is to begin a gradual process of devolving to provincial level some of the functions central governments, past and present, have most obviously mismanaged.
Greater London would be a good place to start that devolutionary process because the essential elements of a provincial system already exist there. It is evident, to take just one example of many, that putting together a London-wide bid for additional school places and then ensuring that the individual London local authorities, from which this bid derived, have the necessary funds to provide those places would be far better done by people to whom local electors and parents have access.
Sir Peter Newsam
Thornton Dale
N Yorks
Andrew Rawnsley needs only to look back to Scottish local government, before the advent of the Scottish parliament, to find to answer to English devolution. Scotland had very effective regional councils and district councils that superseded the old county and burgh structures.
It was radical but it worked. No additional layers of governance were involved. However, the new regions were based on functional realities, not historic boundaries that had long since lost their meaning. Grasp the thistle, England!
Roger Read
Troon
Ayrshire
In all the rhetoric about representing peoples’ views, the feature absent from all debate about the constitution, including the Observer leader (“Scotland has spoken. Now all voices in the union must be heard”), is voting systems.
“All voices in the union must be heard”? No chance of that in Westminster and local government elections, or in “English MPs for English laws” with a first-past-the-post voting system. Here in north Herefordshire, for years, this system has excluded the views of anyone who does not vote Tory. No candidate has ever canvassed my vote or needs to. The current MP, Bill Wiggin, has been a shoo-in for years.
No one in Westminster, least of all David Cameron and his Tory ministers, is interested in creating a voting system in which the views of electors across Britain can be fairly represented.
The Scottish parliament and Northern Ireland and Welsh assemblies have systems of proportional representation where all votes count, but the systems were chosen for a different reason: to reduce the possibility of any one party having overall control.
Any English assembly would be similarly elected by some form of proportional representation, and the resulting power sharing would not allow the Tories free rein in England as would “English votes for English laws”.
Little surprise it has been kicked into touch.
Dr Robin C Richmond
Bromyard
Herefordshire
