If the North-East wants devolution, it will have to accept elected mayors. Kevan Jones argues there are too many unanswered questions.

WHAT are the powers of a regional mayor? What extra resources will the North-East gain from having a regional mayor? What will the mayor's relationship be with existing tiers of local government? What say will people in the North-East have over whether they want a regional mayor?

These are just some of the questions that North-East council leaders have been asking ministers. The only reply they receive is that George Osborne wants a mayor and it’s the only way that the North-East is going to get any new funding from the Government.

At the same time we’ve seen an orchestrated campaign by North-East Tories Jeremy Middleton and Graham Robb claiming to speak for business in the region, portraying council leaders as anti-business and resistant to change. Not only do they ignore the good track record of regional local authorities working with business but they have also been notably silent on the Government’s deliberate policy of redistribution of resources from local authorities, health, fire and police budgets to the south by taking away the needs-based element of central government grants.

It is still unclear what the mayor’s powers would be. Let’s take policing. It has been suggested by government ministers that a mayor would take responsibilities for policing with the merger of Durham and Northumbria Police forces. Even if this is desirable it isn’t as straightforward as it seems. The two forces have very different precept levels for raising local revenue, currently being £162 for band D in Durham and £88 in Northumbria. To equalise funding across the new force would either mean Northumbria taxpayers paying an additional £74 or the Durham figure being cut by £74 per year. Clearly paying more would be unpopular and cutting the Durham precept would either have to be made up by central government or would lead to a reduced level of policing in County Durham. Added to this is the concern that resources would be shifted from the rural parts of County Durham to Tyneside and Wearside as already evidenced by the Regional Organised Crime Unit.

The extra resources that are promised by government if the region has an elected mayor also remain unclear. In the last five years local councils in the region have had their funding cut by 40 per cent, whilst at the same time local authorities in the south have had their grants increased as the need-based element has been taken out of grant formulation. The question arises, will the Government reinstate this funding with an elected mayor or will it be the case of devolving responsibility and blame to the region without the extra resources needed?

Nowhere in the Government’s proposals, or in those put forward by advocates of a regional mayor, can we find a voice for the people of the North-East. A Labour government would have been rightly condemned if in 2004 it had imposed a regional assembly without asking the people first. The same voices who argued strongly against that now appear silent in response to the Tory proposals for introducing a new tier of regional government. People in 2004 were clear that they didn’t want an assembly and I think it would be the same answer again if they were asked for an individual to be given executive power covering an area stretching from the Scottish border to Barnard Castle.

Yes we do need a debate about devolution but any proposals need to be thought out with the support of local people, but that’s not what is on offer from the present Conservative Government - it is a take it or leave it option. Pitting business against elected local authorities only damages decades of good work and the losers will be the North-East and its people.