A cross-party consensus is in favour of giving power back to the regions. At the next election Labour should make a radical offer
Later this year, a fleet of distinctive yellow and black buses will begin to make their way through Wigan, Bolton and parts of Salford and Bury. Publicly owned, with fares initially capped at £2, the franchised Bee network will be operating throughout Greater Manchester by 2025. Fought for by the city region mayor, Andy Burnham, this will be the first bus service outside London to come under local control since Thatcherite deregulation in 1986.
It is a sign of the times that Mr Burnham’s flagship policy has been given the green light by a Conservative government. As the next election looms, both of England’s major parties are embracing greater devolution as a means to address the regional inequalities that helped drive the leave vote in the Brexit referendum. The secretary of state for levelling up, Michael Gove, and his shadow, Lisa Nandy, made a point of speaking at last week’s Convention of the North in Manchester, in front of a phalanx of metro mayors. During the 1980s, successive Tory administrations used a legislative wrecking ball to demolish local government powers, privatise public services and centralise political control in Westminster. But Tory backing for another mayoral combined authority in the north-east means that three-quarters of the north of England will soon be included in some kind of devolution deal.
