Labour has pledged to honour devolution pledges if it takes power next year, enacting the ‘biggest economic decentralisation’ in a century.
Speaking to the Labour Party Conference in Manchester, shadow local government secretary Hilary Benn said he would reshape the decision making process to ‘free local communities, the people of England, to shape their own destiny’.
Plans outlined in the recent Adonis Review would see Labour handing £30bn of funding devolved to councils over five years.
In a speech greeted with a standing ovation from several attendees, Benn said funding commitments would give cities and counties ‘the means to create jobs; help people into those jobs; train them in the skills they need for those jobs; invest in the trams, the buses, the railways and the roads to help them get to work and businesses to thrive, and build homes for those workers and their children’.
‘Labour will honour the promise we made to Scotland and we will offer a new deal to England too. The people of England have been very patient and in that very English way, they are now saying “Excuse me, but what about us?”’ Benn said.
‘Well, we are listening and that’s why Labour will offer England a new deal that will pass power down, money down, responsibility down.
‘I want cities and counties, towns and districts, parishes and neighbourhoods to make more decisions for themselves and to have more control over the money they raise and contribute. But I want that to be fair, because what we have now certainly isn’t.’
