A Local Government Association vice-president has expressed ‘serious concerns about the Government’s increasing desire to centralise local service delivery across England out of Whitehall’.
Speaking in the House of Lords, Lib Dem Lord Shipley, a current councillor, said progress on devolution was ‘too slow’.
He called for a ‘guaranteed constitutional status for local government’ and for the 630 job centres to be put ‘under local authority control’.
Also speaking in the debate, Lord Adonis, Tony Blair’s former policy chief, called for the devolution of other property taxes beyond council tax.
He added: ‘It seems to me that the case for devolving those taxes, particularly the large revenue from stamp duty, is unanswerable and would give a very big development incentive to local authorities if they were the recipients of all the benefits of what is essentially a development tax.’
This article was originally published by The MJ (£)
