A paper published in the Lancet medical journal in 2022 considered the effect of devolution on health in Greater Manchester. It noted that life expectancy had improved in comparison with the trend across England since legislation introduced a city region metro mayor. I sought out data to do a similar, albeit not as detailed, assessment as to the pattern of life expectancy in Wales in comparison to England over the now 26 years since devolution was introduced. Thus far though I’ve been unable to find sufficiently comparable data across that time period.
Devolution across the UK has a very different meaning in each location. Even the metro mayoralties have different remits and competences from one another due to the nature of the city deal struck between UK Government and local combined authority. Across the nations the difference is starker.
Nonetheless, at its core there are two broad versions of devolution, that to the nation which we see in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and that which we see to regions in England, often though not exclusively, around a major urban conurbation.
National devolution is based on shared identity. What unites people in Ynys Mon and Monmouthshire is a form of Welsh identity and solidarity which is accessible to those who move to the nation as well as those born here. What unites the people of the ‘West of England’ (or Bristol and Bath city region) is a shared grumble that the A4 is congested; that once upon a time South Gloucestershire and Bristol Councils couldn’t agree a tram route; and that house prices are too high, to give a few examples. The identity distinction between Bristol and Bath is strong, the idea of a unity of identity with the south west is present but not prominent. Bluntly the city region is a pragmatic tool to tackle practical, even mundane, issues.
In the nations, we have recreated mini UK Parliaments. Yes, they are sometimes better behaved, although often not as radically so as some would like to pretend. Structurally though, they hold a similar dynamic to the UK Parliament. Wales is set to adopt a fully proportional electoral system in time for the 2026 Senedd election. This is a welcome step, but it will still have a political geography made up of representatives of constituencies. The significance of the constituency model is that it inevitably incentivises political parties to target specific seats, or more specifically potential voter coalitions within them. For the largest party in a constituency there is often scope to deliver a core vote strategy that turns out enough electors without a need to seek to engage more widely.
A directly elected mayor has quite a different challenge ahead of them. There are a few city regions in which one party is very dominant Greater Liverpool and Greater Manchester for example, but in many there is at least a need for a mayoral candidate to reach out to voters beyond the traditional support for their party. In doing so, they are also listening to a wider range of views and challenges. It instinctively tempers their party tribal instincts.
A mayor is an individual standing on his or her own platform rather whereas an MS is standing on their party’s manifesto platform and will be subject to the party whip if elected. It is what enabled Andy Street in the West Midlands (Greater Birmingham, Coventry & the Black Country) to wear his Conservative rosette lightly. Those who view politics through a Westminster prism might have regarded him as distancing himself from an unpopular government, but we should welcome that devolution brings about leaders capable of charting a distinct path within the broad tradition of their political philosophy. Street did lose, but in a very tight contest in contrast to the way his Conservative Party was thrashed in the subsequent general election.
City devolution in England is under-powered, despite this, polling suggests that mayors enjoy a greater prominence than local MPs in many of the established city regions. With both Conservative and Labour Parties at a UK level now broadly in agreement on the need to decentralise it is reasonable to hope that more power will be handed to these big enough to matter, but small enough to be meaningful regions. Of course, First Ministers of the devolved nations have significant profile, but I’d question to what extent that public recognition extends to even some senior Cabinet members. Confusion exists in both forms of devolution as to with which tier of government certain policy remits lie. Even in this light it is difficult to comprehend why the (very nearly) wholly devolved NHS was cited by 57% of Welsh voters as the top issue for the UK General Election.
Perhaps though, this is a further factor of the nature of the devolution settlement. In Greater Manchester, indeed even beyond it, there is a strong association with Andy Burnham and the re-regulation of local bus services. What would be the equivalent association with a national First Minister? In Wales, in recent times, it might be the 20 mph default urban speed limit but often not from a particularly supportive perspective.
There is something else of significance about that bus policy, which is also being introduced in Liverpool City Region, it is very tangible for the voters to see. Perhaps the most high profile example of a tangible policy from a mayoralty was the introduction of the (then) so-called ‘Boris Bikes’. Parliaments can do tangible, but often their focus is ‘increasing investment in…’ or ‘reducing waiting times for…’. These can be very important, but they are intangible to an ordinary voter unless it directly affects their circumstances.
Combining the less direct nature of the parliamentary model used in the nations and the tendency away from the tangible, I wonder whether there is a further dynamic at play. That the relative influence of ordinary voter compared to public affairs / lobbying organisation is stronger in mayoral areas than devolved nations. It is difficult to prove and certainly open to debate, but consider those two policy examples above. Lobbying organisations led the support for the 20 mph speed limit rather than an obvious groundswell of support from the wider electorate. There is lobbying about bus re-regulation but that topic is very much driven by the experiences of bus users frustrated at how disconnected and expensive services can be. In one instance, the lobbying organisations created the space for people to support them. In the other the public created a need for a lobbying body to emerge to give organisation to their aim.
There should be more examination of what works well in each model of devolution, but we should resist the temptation to class very different decentralisation structures as being equivalent to one another.
