George Osborne’s devolution plans are seen by many as ‘a vehicle to simply secure [his] selection as the next Tory leader’, Oldham Council and LGA Labour Group leader, Jim McMahon, claims.
Cllr McMahon credits the chancellor for raising the issue of devolution in England, and suggests that, after Scottish and Welsh devolution, this is the next logical step.
But the councillor remains sceptical of the chancellor’s intentions.
‘It doesn’t take much scrutiny to see,’ he claims, ‘that devolution as it stands goes little further than the chancellor giving away other people’s power; namely his fellow cabinet colleagues.’
In comments that reflect what he has written in The Times yesterday, cllr McMahon also claims that ‘power is already shifting from No. 10 to No. 11 with the chancellor effectively becoming the domestic PM.’
The real test of devolution, according to Oldham Council’s leader, will be if the Treasury lets go of some of its own powers.
‘I fully expect more money will follow any devolution deals announced this week, but that isn’t devolved power,’ warns cllr McMahon, ‘it simply makes the Treasury into a National Commissioning Unit that creates programmes of funding, bound by tight rules and obligations'.
Cllr McMahon calls for the freedom to generate and vary taxation across the board, i.e. complete fiscal devolution, and says this ‘is the very least we should be demanding as a test to the Northern Powerhouse'.
