Heated debate over East Anglia devolution proposals

Eleanor Radford Senior News Writer

The issue of devolution - the transfer of power from central government to a local or regional administration - has been a heavily debated topic in recent years.

Over the past decade, the Westminster government has wanted to give local areas, such as Norfolk, more of a say over spending and decision-making via a locally elected mayor. However, this has caused tension for some local councillors.

When a mayor was first due to be elected for East Anglia, six years ago, local councils in Norfolk and Suffolk didn’t want to give over some of their powers, so only Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ended up taking on the new mayor. Even when a compromise of having devolution for a single county, along with a council leader instead of a mayor being put forward, some councils in Norfolk still rejected it. The four councils against the proposed devolution are South Norfolk, Broadland, Breckland and North Norfolk. They argue that having a directly elected council leader means Norfolk would have less power and money than it would if it had a newly elected mayor of a new separate authority.

John Fuller, leader of the South Norfolk council, argued that “The directly elected leader is very much second best without any real powers for planning, housing, the environment, or the integration of health and social care benefits or growth. A directly elected leader places all the executive powers of the county council and its budgets in the hand of one individual. We want the best deal for Norfolk." This disagreement between the county and local level councils has led to the four local councils threatening legal action. However, despite this threat of legal action, the county council have continued with the Westminster deal, with council leader Andrew Proctor stating, “We ought to be excited about it for our residents, not trying to stop it from happening.” He, and others on the county council, believe pursuing this deal is just the first step- “You don’t get a utopia on a plate.” The Council agreed, 37 to 22, that the cabinet would proceed with the deal and that arrangements would be considered around December 2023.

Speaking exclusively to Concrete, the Labour parliamentary Candidate for Norwich North, Alice Macdonald, told us, “We have heard a lot of talk from the Government about levelling up.

But, as a recent report highlighted, in the East, there is a very long way to go. The East of England has received the third lowest amount of levelling up money in the country...We must stop this ‘Hunger Games’ style system of pitching community against community. What we need is real devolution of power and sustainable investment in local Government. The current devolution deal promises £20 million a year for Norfolk, yet this year alone, Norfolk County Council is facing a £60 million budget gap. Even Conservative councillors have said this is a poor deal. In contrast, Labour has set out radical proposals for the biggest-ever transfer of power from Westminster to the British People. We will give people the resources and backing to make their full contribution, make sure communities don’t have to go cap-in-hand to Whitehall for small crumbs of their own money back and build tailored economic strategies for each area of the country”.

If the deal is agreed upon, the first election for a directly elected council leader will be held in May 2024.