The Case for a new Local Democratic Order

by Roger Warren Evans  1996

part of "Building a New Britain"
an alternative approach to devolution and local governance. 
Published by the City Region Campaign                                                 Page 7

Pages One - Two - Three - Four - Five - Six - Seven

... and finally...

The West Lothian Question and the Rifkind Dilemma

This solution, and the particular form of the Provincial Delegation, would both solve the Rifkind Dilemma and answer the West Lothian Question.  Malcom Rifkind (when Scottish Secretary) declared himself willing to consider devolution, provided that a common system could be evolved for the UK as a whole.  Tam Dalyell posed the West Lothian question, arguing that the creation of a Scottish Parliament would create an unacceptable imbalance of power between Scottish and English MPs.

With our proposals, both obstacles would be overcome. All voters would have the opportunity to take to themselves the right to legislate for and administer their Province, within the terms of the Provincial Delegation.  One factor that the voters would take into account would be the Westminster process of deciding national legislation - and if they decided not to form a Province, they would be effectively accepting the Westminster legislative process in its entirety, "direct rule".  All Westminster MPs would be entitled to vote, as at present, on every measure of national legislation passing through Parliament, with exception.  Every Province, however, would have defined rights to modify Westminster legislation to suit its particular needs if its electorate had expressed the wish to do so.  All MPs would retain their equal entitlement to participate in the formulation of national legislation.  This is the happy consequence of avoiding piecemeal reform, and of tackling simultaneously the issues both of local government reform and of "devolution".

A standing constitutional offer

The possibility of drawing down the Provincial Delegation would remain open at all times, subject only to the approval by Westminster of the relevant voting-unit, and subject to an automatic time-bar on repeated referenda; equally a referendum could be held for the dissolution of a Province (upon compliance with a pre-determined statutory requirement) with the consequential abandonment of of legislative powers, and the reversion of jurisdiction to the Regional Assemblies.  These provisions would all form part of the paving legislation.

Popular political renewal

Much would remain to be determined, in the course of political debate - the regional voting system, the timing of elections, and the precise content of the Provincial Delegation.  But if our political leaders could move our Constitution in this direction, they would encounter an enthusiastic popular response, and would be rewarded by an upsurge of popular interest in public affairs.  The institution of government as a whole would gain in legitimacy, in its authority to carry its citizens in the many difficult future decisions faced by civic society, in terms of environmental control, resource allocation and conservation, rationing, and the movement of populations.  Governments have progressively lost legitimacy, with the progress of economic globalisation and global systems of communication, coupled with excessive political centralisation.  That legitimacy can only be regained by addressing the local springs of civic authority, in the neighbourhoods, districts and conurbations.

The city region is the missing political particle, not only for the UK, but globally.  It is the identification of the city region as the primary module of the future nation state that enables this integrated view of the UK Constitution to emerge.  It is through our cities, and the organisation of their component communities, that the legitimacy of government will be rebuilt.  The monolithic structure of the UK nation state can in this way be enriched by a range of institutions, namely our cities and large towns, which both drive our economy and afford for most of us the physical framework of our daily lives and our source of identity.  The wider system of governance associated with them, from Neighbourhood to Province, could accommodate the new political aspirations of our people - for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as for London and wider loyalties within England.  And they would do so in a way which did not threaten the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom.

End  October 1996