Plumbing new depths

The Labour Government is not famous for its belief in democractic accountability. But in its plans for regional select committees it has plumbed new depths of cynicism.

The back story is that at the moment each region has a 'regional assembly' - a body comprising mainly councillors from the region (and others with a 'stake') - which has had an important role in things like coming up with a 'spatial strategy' for the region - including small issues like how many houses should be built in each area. The Government has decided that regional assemblies will be abolished. Their role in supporting regional business etc. will transfer to a quango - the regional development agencies - and other regional decisions will be taken in Whitehall. Democratic scrutiny would then pass to MPs from the region, by means of regional select committees.

Leaving aside the fact that the Government thinks having one minister for each region (bet you can't name the 'Minister for the South West'??) is more democratic than a regional body made up of elected councillors, the extraordinary thing is the proposed make-up of the regional select committees. You would assume that the membership of the committees would be MPs from the region, pro rata to the political make-up of the region. But no.

The South West committee will have 10 MPs, of which 6 will be Labour, 3 Tory and 1 Lib Dem. Given that Labour are the third party in the South West in terms of number of MPs, that is pretty extraordinary. Worse still, because quite a number of the SW Labour MPs are already ministers (eg Dawn Primarolo, Ben Bradshaw) or PPSs, they may even have to get Labour MPs in from outside the region to make up the numbers!

Given that every MP from Cornwall is a Lib Dem, and that there are plenty of Lib Dems through the rest of the West, having one Lib Dem to represent the whole area against 6 Labour MPs - who will inevitably have an urban bias - is a scandal.

The only compensation is that by the time these bodies have been set up, it won't be long until an election, after which we can hopefully put in place a more rational and decentalised approach to regional decision-making.