Regional rights

Jul 2 2008 by Rob Merrick, Liverpool Daily Post

ANOTHER one-year anniversary is reached today , but with rather less fanfare than the “celebration” of Gordon Brown’s arrival in No.10.

Five days into his new job, the new prime minister unveiled big plans to give Merseyside, and the other neglected English regions, a more powerful voice at Westminster.

Mr Brown promised a monthly “Regional Question Time” in the Commons, at which the newly-appointed “Ministers for the Regions” would be held to account.

Beverley Hughes, MP for Stretford, in Greater Manchester, was to be our “regional champion”, also answering written questions and speaking for the Government in Commons debates.

And select committees would be set up for each of the eight English regions, with the power to hold evidence sessions with ministers and quangos and produce hard-hitting reports.

There was even talk of MPs vetting crucial appointments, such as the board members running strategic health authorities and regional development agencies.

The shake-up, designed to end the paralysis since the embarrassing collapse of plans for elected regional assemblies, was a key plank of Mr Brown’s constitutional change agenda – or so he said.

What do you mean you have never heard of this “Regional Question Time” – or even of Ms Hughes, the Minister for the North West?

Perhaps that is because – like Mr Brown’s pledges to remove most troops from Iraq and to stop cuddling up to George Bush – we are still waiting for action.

Looking back at my story one year ago, I wrote that the exact make-up of the changes “rests with the Commons modernisation committee”. Believe it or not, it still does.

The procrastination, I mean modernisation, committee launched its inquiry as far back as October and started taking evidence from councillors, SHAs and RDAs. But there is still no sniff of its report.

Behind the scenes, there were cries of betrayal amid suggestions that the Government now wanted a “grand committee” for each region, rather than a select committee.

The difference is crucial, because only a select committee can launch investigations, call witnesses and make recommendations to ministers. A grand committee is a talking shop.

Meanwhile, the Everton football stadium saga rolls on. First, the RDA mysteriously revives the idea of a ground shared with Liverpool. Then the Government Office for the North West delays a decision on a public inquiry.

What better issue for a regional select committee to get its teeth into – if it only existed?

IT’S stick-my-neck-out time – to predict the event that could, I think, topple the prime minister.

If the SNP overturns a 13,507 Labour majority in the Glasgow East by-election on July 24, Mr Brown will surely have to go?