Let’s do devolution right: CLES’s amendments to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
As the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill weaves its way through the UK Parliament, we are presented with the rare opportunity to fundamentally rewire local economies to work for people.
While the Bill as it currently stands tiptoes in the right direction – setting out a devolution framework and extending Community Right to Buy – it needs some serious beefing up. Cautious steps must become meaningful leaps.
So we’re stepping up to make them happen.
We work with politicians of all colours and none to improve local economies, and on this occasion, we’ve worked Siân Berry MP, a member of the Bill committee, to table three crucial amendments: on community wealth building, embedding health and wellbeing in all policies, and making economies more inclusive.
New clause 31: Community wealth building
Our first small but powerful change requires strategic authorities to prepare and publish community wealth building action plans.
Community wealth building is the practice of creating an inclusive and democratically owned economy. It puts people before private equity profits, and champions the kind of economic development activity that gets overlooked by industrial strategies, focussing instead on the everyday economy, where most people work.
It has a very real payoff. In Preston, community wealth building is changing lives, having been linked to an incredible 9 per cent increase in life satisfaction, and an 11 per cent rise in median wages. What’s more, it has led to a reduction of 1.3-units in daily antidepressant prescriptions per person and a 2.4 per thousand drop in depression prevalence, compared to similar areas. Surely every MP will want to back an amendment that empowers places to replicate these results across England.
Additionally, this amendment makes provision for partnerships with anchor organisations (big employers like hospitals and universities) to collaborate on things like procurement, employment and better use of owned assets – strengthening local community wealth building. It also grants mayors the right to request powers to raise levies on private equity in local public services, disincentivising the extraction of profits from the very entities that should serve the public, not shareholders. The secretary of state must respond to such requests, though retains discretion to approve or deny them.
Community wealth building is the missing piece of the puzzle to unlock growth for the benefit of everybody, everywhere. Scotland already has a community wealth building Bill passing through its Parliament – this amendment ensures England doesn’t fall behind.
Amendment 255: Health and wellbeing in all policies
Our next change addresses our country’s health inequality crisis. Life expectancy in England has stalled since 2010, something that has not happened for well over a century, and according to Professor Sir Michael Marmot is a sign that society has stopped improving. Good population health is the foundation of a thriving economy and the government has committed to halving the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions of England, but this cannot be achieved without concerted action from strategic authorities.
Our change goes further than simply requiring strategic authorities and mayors to have regard for health. It mandates them to develop a strategy that puts health, wellbeing and reducing inequalities at the heart of everything they do. Because everyone should get the chance to live a good, long, healthy life.
Amendment 255 also requires consultation with relevant people and organisations, like local directors of public health, during the development of these strategies. To ensure accountability, it mandates locally appropriate 10-year and interim targets and metrics, with progress made public through reports presented by the mayor of the strategic authority.
New schedule 1 and new clause 29: Inclusive economy plans
Last but certainly not least, we confront the pursuit of growth for the sake of growth. Growth may be the government’s number one mission, but what is the point if it doesn’t serve people? We know that growth alone is not enough to reduce inequality and lift everyone up. For example, GDP has roughly doubled since 1980, yet pay rises have gotten weaker in every decade since the ‘80s. This GDP growth has served very few – the richest five households in the UK now own more wealth than 13.2 million people. Meanwhile, the majority have been left out in the cold, where low pay, and stagnant real wages remain the reality.
A test of this Bill – and indeed this government – will be whether it succeeds in moving beyond the pursuit of growth alone, to creating an economy where everyone can thrive.
This must begin with clear intentions for the type of economy we want to build (not growth at any cost) and in strategic authorities’ case: strategies.
So we propose renaming local growth plans to inclusive economy plans. New schedule 1 and new clause 29 formally require strategic authorities to develop and publish these plans, alongside local indicators and inclusive economic outcomes that reflect what people need to live a good life. Importantly, these indicators will be developed in collaboration with local people, because if you’re going to shape a local economy, you need to involve those who live and work in it.
Together, our amendments provide a legal basis for strategic authorities to act on delivering wealth, health and democracy to their places. They will help devolved leaders to become more purposeful about developing their own unique economies that truly serve local people. And they put ordinary people, in the everyday economies in which we exist, at the heart of the Bill. They must, of course, be backed by the necessary resourcing.
If you agree that these changes will improve the Bill, then please act. Write to your MP and ask them to support:
Rosie Lockwood is associate director of external affairs at CLES.
