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A Lancashire council leader has warned against trying to renegotiate the county’s devolution deal now that Labour is in government.
Stephen Atkinson, who leads Conservative-controlled Ribble Valley Borough Council, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that attempting to change the agreement – struck with the previous Tory administration late last year – would likely result in having to go back to square one in the tortuous process.
The general election result has threatened to reopen old divisions in Lancashire over devolution, after it placed a question mark over whether Labour will implement the deal as it stands or amend it.
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Cllr Atkinson said of the latter prospect, which has so far been called for by five Labour district council leaders: “The current deal took a lot of time and effort to be negotiated – we would lose too much time and have to start again.”
He was speaking before Sir Keir Starmer reaffirmed his government’s commitment to devolution across England during the King’s speech. In his government-written address at the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday, King Charles said an English Devolution Bill would be introduced “to give new powers to metro mayors and combined authorities”.
Unsurprisingly, the high-level statement offered no detail on any implications of the forthcoming legislation for the Lancashire deal, which had been poised to be put before Parliament for final approval before the snap election was called. As the LDRS revealed last week, no decision has yet been taken by the new government on the matter – including the thorny subject of whether any changes would involve the creation of an elected mayor for the county.
That issue has generally – but not exclusively – divided Lancashire districts down party lines during the now eight years of attempts to secure a devolution deal, with Labour-run councils broadly being more in favour than Conservative-led authorities.
Only last week, the Labour leaders of Preston and Chorley councils told the LDRS that they supported the idea of a Lancashire mayor in order to improve what they regard as the underwhelming devolution agreement reached last year. The Labour former leader of South Ribble Borough Council, Paul Foster – now the South Ribble MP – has also said he will continue to push for the creation of a mayor from his new parliamentary position.
However, the leaders of the three top-tier Lancashire authorities which signed the deal with the government – Conservative-run Lancashire County Council and the Labour councils in Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen – indicated that they want to see the agreement implemented in its current form, before it is built upon in any way.
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