Thread - Creating a federal UK

1/ The Blair constitutional reforms of late 90’s successfully devolved power but caused inconsistency in how different parts of the country were treated.

2/ Wales, Scotland, N.Ireland and London were given devolved powers, which was a welcome and overdue development.
However, devolved powers were inconsistent (I.e. Wales had just an assembly, whilst Scotland had a parliament and had tax raising powers),

3/ Devolution also developed on the wrong terms.

Firstly, insufficient fiscal powers were devolved, leading to such devolved administrations being primary dependent on Westminster for finance.

4/ Secondly, excessive powers were granted to discriminate (the most notable example is how Scottish universities can now discriminate between Scottish students and other british students).

5/ By far the biggest problem however was inconsistency in treatment between S,W,NI, Lon and the rest of the country in terms of regional devolution. Outside London, England had no regional devolution (despite attempts in the North-East), leaving an odd and inconsistent structure

6/ The Blair government should have devolved powers across the country in a consistent way, through one act covering powers across the entire UK.

7/ Ideally, this should have been combined with reform of the HoL whereby membership was composed of representatives from the newly created regions (with equal number of representatives per region, akin to the US senate)

8/The next question thus becomes how to divide England. The current 8 English regions provides one starting point.

Applying these would create 12 UK regions as followed (with their population):

9/ Scotland: 5.4
Wales: 3.1
NI: 1.9
Greater London: 8.2
South West England: 5.3
East Midlands: 4.8
West Midlands 5.7
East of England 5.8
Yorkshire and the Humber: 5.3
North West: 7
North East: 2.7
South East: 8.6

10/ However, these are not regions with strong established identities and were themselves created partly as EU regions. There are also population imbalances, which can be rectified.

11/ Firstly, it makes sense to add another southern region. This will take Gloucestershire (0.9) and Wiltshire (0.7) from SW England, Oxfordshire (0.7), Berkshire (0.9) and Buckinghamshire (0.5) from SE England, and Hertfordshire (1.1) from E England.

12/ We could all this new region ‘The Shires’, and it would have a population of 4.8 million. This would leave the SW, SE and E England regions with 3.7, 6.5 and 4.7 respectively.

13/ Changes can be made to the north as well. One simple option would be to move Cumbria from the NW to join the NE in a new ‘Northern England Region’ of 3.2 million. The NW would then have 6.5 million.

14/ There is separately a good argument for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and West Midlands City Region (both 2.8 million) separating from NW England and West Midlands respectively, so our second and third biggest cities are separated from their wider region.

15/ This would leave a federal UK with the following 15 regions:

16/ Scotland: 5.4
Wales: 3.1
NI: 1.9
Greater London: 8.2
SE England: 6.5
SW England: 3.7
The Shires: 4.8
E England: 4.7
E Midlands: 4.8
West Midlands City Region: 2.8
Rest of West Midlands 2.9
Yorkshire + Humber: 5.3
NW England: 4.2
Greater Manchester: 2.8
Northern England: 3.2

17/ As part of broader constitutional reform, they would have all have equal representation in the HoL (possibly 10 representatives each).

18/ Initiating such federalism in regions which don’t currently have such powers would involve working closely with existing local authorities. For example, SW England will comprise Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset, with existing unitary authorities and county councils.

19/ They will be responsible for collectively deciding how much power is held at regional level and how much at existing structures. It would also be possible for such regional assemblies to initially be comprised of council appointees (rather like how EU Parliament was pre-79).

20/ This concludes how the UK could undertake consistent devolution in order to develop a proper and much-needed federal structure

/End