Labour Ministers To Resurrect Plans For Regional Assemblies

Threat of higher tax to pay for new tier of politicians warns Deborah Dunleavy

Labour Ministers to resurrect plans for regional assemblies

“The Labour Government’s plans for a new tier of regional politicians, including a regional levy on council tax, are back on the political agenda” warned Deborah Dunleavy the Conservative Prospective MP for BoltonNE this week. It has emerged that the new Minister for Regional Government intends to champion John Prescott’s lost cause of an elected North West Regional Assembly.

·         Elected regional assemblies back on Ministers’ agenda: Rosie Winterton is the new Minister for ‘Regional Economic Coordination’. She worked closely with John Prescott on his plans for regional assemblies. In a recent Ministerial keynote speech on regional government, Ms Winterton said she would not let elected regional government “slip off the agenda”, “I have always been in favour of regional government”, it is “the obvious answer” and “we will come back to it”.

·         Labour ignore ‘no’ vote to regional government: Elected regional assemblies had been killed off when the public overwhelmingly rejected regional government in the 2004 North East referendum. Yet the unelected regional assemblies still exist, but have merely changed their brass plaques, and are morphing into an even more convoluted structure of unelected Regional Development Agencies and unelected Regional Leaders Forums. New ‘Integrated Regional Strategies’ are to be imposed over the head of Bolton Council.

·         New regional politicians to be bankrolled by regional council tax: Under Labour’s blueprint, regional assemblies will need a new tier of regional politicians and regional elections. The elected assemblies will be funded by a regional levy on council tax, like the Greater London Authority. The assemblies would be able to “set a higher precept within the region to fund additional spending”. In London, the regional tier of government now costs £310 a year on Band D bills.

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Miss Dunleavy said:

"Regional assemblies are now back from the dead under Labour. Gordon Brown won’t listen to the verdict of the people who rejected a new tier of regional politicians and the regional council tax to pay for it. Only Conservatives will dismantle Labour’s distant tiers of regional government and give power back to local communities."

Deborah added "With all that has gone on recently I’m sure the last thing that the people of Bolton want is yet another tier of politicians paid for by tax payers money, and it’s yet another example of how out of touch Gordon Brown and this Labour government has become."