Why Devolution Is On the Rise in England 

3.27: The coats of arms for Leeds and Liverpool have been inadvertently switched. Heraldic nerds up north are going ballistic right now....

As someone who lives in Cornwall, there are 3 things I hate: -London money -Airbnb -Seagulls on bin days

Ed Miliband has a chapter about this in his book, where he explains devolution and how flawed the current system is, it's unbelievable how relatively little power regional mayors have, they have to ask Westminster for permission for damn near everything, and most of the time they just say no. Devolution wouldn't just be great for representation it would make these regions more governable and easier to live and work in.

It’s a good thing; shouldn’t just be centralised to London and the UK government saying what these local areas can and cannot spend their money on.

England needs its own parliament like Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Leave Westminster for uk/ international issues.

I love the use of aerial footage of the American Manchester in this video x)

You used stock footage of Manchester New Hampshire, USA, not Manchester UK

im from manchester, we need more devolution and better local representation.

The more intrusive, meddlesome, and bureaucratic your national government is, the more popular devolution becomes, as the national government simply becomes too intransigent to accomplish anything, and of course, accomplishing things without government interference is unthinkable.

You've mixed up the Leeds and Liverpool coats of arms. Liverpool has the more nautically-themed one...

It shouldn't be so complicated. We should have an english devolved parliament, we should have a welsh devolved parliament, a scottish devolved parliament, a northern irish devolved parliament, and then the overall UK parliament in westminster. All with the Single Transferrable Voting system (Proportional Representation)

all i’m hearing is that Brits want federalism but without calling it federalism so they’re creating a messy system to cope…

If Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have their own parliament then it only makes sense the English have their own. It’s called federalism.

I believe that the uptake of devolution is mostly a way for those in the Westminster to shift the blame for local authorities not having enough funding to keep services going.

NI has had some sort of devolution since 1921, with a gap during the troubles, Blair just helped to restore & vastly improve it.

Devolution, in theory, is good - but the way it has been rolled out is a mess. Leeds City Region was one of the first city regions to ask for devolved powers, but the Government said no. The Government then asked Yorkshire what kind of devolution arrangement it would want, and they came back with one Yorkshire Assembly - again, the Government said no. In the end, we ended up with four devolved bodies based on the existing ineffective administrative boundaries, meaning that Leeds; city region sits within three different devolved authorities now (West Yorks, North Yorks, South Yorks). It's really dumb. In addition, the combined authorities still have to strike funding deals with Westminster - they have no ability to raise their own tax as in other countries.

I think devolution is a good thing especially in the UK. As more regional elections such as in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scottland use fairer electoral systems, leading to more parties having a share in power and there being more electoral coalitions. Interesting a good argument against devolution can be seen in the German capital of Berlin. It has devolved parts of its administration to even smaller parts of the cities. This has sadly lead to an ineffective and bigger buerocracy.

Do another video about Cornish devolution

would be interesting to see a video on the potential downsides of devolution, as a counter balance to this video. not saying there are strong ones, but would be interesting to see the TLDR take on it

1:22 "To understand how this all came about, we've got to go back to the late 90's". I would say we have to go back to the 1980's, when the Thatcher government took control of traditionally local government matters such as health and education, and essentially eliminated others such as local transport. The limited amount of devolution we have seen from New Labour and afterwards has only restored a small degree of control over the infrastructure built up by local councils over the previous decades and centuries.

Devolution was already a mistake when we did it in Scotland and Wales what makes anyone think this is not just going to tear this entire country asunder.

This is the first video I've seen of this woman presenting the content. She's exceptional. Great job.

Because all the fiscal responsibilities can be put on them while the national government takes all the tax, effectively letting the national government purposefully deprive areas of services while pinning the blame on the local councils who are restricted in their sources of revenue by the national government.

I used to be a big supporter of devolution (or localism as it was once called). But seeing how it has been used since the late 90s has thoroughly changed my mind. I don't see evidence of better policy making at all (see worse health, economic and educational outcomes in Wales and Scotland since devolution - the omission of which shows a significant bias in your video). Likewise, to show that Manchester employment success was due to devolution, you have to compare it to another non-devolved City in England, not the UK in general, which includes all the most deprived areas of the UK (although I actually think Manchester is one of the moderately successful ones in general). Most (but not all) devolved governments have simply become opposition executives to the government (whoever is in the government), seemingly more concerned with opposing whatever the government is doing rather than doing what is best for their voters (covid was especially revealing with the Scottish Government trying to blatantly score cheap political points during a serious event). Likewise, central government (whoever is in power) often uses devolution to step back from problems they should be solving, and to blame the opposition party running the devolved admin. Finally, and another incredible omission on your part, if they are so good, why is voter turnout so low? I don't think these devolved admins have broad support, but there is no way to test it since no major party is proposing to reverse devolution. Gotta say guys, another poor video only showing one side of a complicated argument.

Not seen this presenter before. In keeping with the high standards of the channel. Well done!

Because "United we stand, divided we fall". The Pax Romana was "Divide and Conquer"! We must remember these sayings and remain one UNITED KINGDOM!

firstly. she is pretty secondly she is well spoken thirdly. great video ladies and gents, done a good job with this one

Great summary. Thanks

As a medievalist, I am all in favour of devolution in England. Let's see the seven ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdoms revived: the heptarchy of Kent, Sussex, Wessex, East Anglia, Essex, Mercia and Northumbria.

Very well explained!

I'm sorry to say but I don't consider England a full-fledged democracy. As long as privilege is codified in the English system to Royalty, it never will be. This move to devolution does bring it more in line with other more democratic countries, but it still has a ways to go.

Thx for this ❤❤❤

I’d like to see Scottish regions get similar. Or council leaders being in Holyrood. Often the Highlands and rural areas are an afterthought, and each area has very different needs. We already have powerful councils but they could operate better.

We in Wales have been fighting tooth and nail for our devolved government for a reason

for suffolk at 0:20 you missed out Newmarket as part of the area. Newmarket is an effective Annex of West Suffolk Council and suffolk as a whole, its joined onto the rest of suffolk by a very thin piece of land.

Thank you for this. It helped me realise what on earth the Mayoral election in my local area (East Midlands/Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) were about. I still voted in it, but I assumed it was just a ceremonial role. Your video explained that it was not, and was actually quite important. I'll go and show this video to my family members who didn't vote because they too didn't understand the position, so they can vote as well next time.

It's not devolution, it's a sham! It's basically just transfering existing transport, and police oversight powers from groups of local councils, to one elected mayor, and then bunging that mayor a few million quid a year to put a few more buses on! Put it this way; devolution in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland needs dozens of politicians to govern and legislate; the "mayoral combined authorities" need one mayor; with no actual powers; who will occasionally be quizzed by a committee on their spending. This powerless committee is usually just the council leaders from the area, or in London's case, and elected but pointless assembly!

An unfortunate by product of such action, is that some regions can come under the control of ethnic enclaves, creating regional areas outside the law of the land.

I'm from the US, a federation, so I am biased in favor of devolution (I know the two concepts have their differences). If done correctly, it'll allow local authorities to better manage the issues affecting their localities. If not, it just makes things into a bigger mess.

How would banning the whip system work? Sure you could ban it as a formal system. But surely parties will always have some way to "punish" members who vote against the rest of the party? For example say a Labour MP always votes with the Conservatives. It would be wrong to force Labour to continue to endorse that person who clearly doesn't stand for the same values as the rest of the party. Without a formal whip system you will still get MPs kicked out of parties, deselected, passed over for ministerial positions, etc.

love this channel

I'm Welsh and I wish our affairs were handled by a cabinet office in Westminster

I'm surprised this channel hadn't covered this topic already

4:30 this aged well... i miss andy :(

There’s a move for a devolved Dorset as well!

The issue with Andy's anti-whip plan is that even if that worked, most MP's believe that once they've been elected they have the right to decide what their constituents need or want, even if the constituents clearly disagree. The only way to fix that is to vote in candidates with a more reasonable position. (Some people want to treat MP's more like delegates at a union conference, where the constituents decide what they want and the MP does it, but others think that's too far in the other direction)

2:13 Couldn't find any aerial footage of a English town so had to go for one in the US? Not great when you're talking about devolution of power in England...

Please balance the sound levels between the hosts talking and the intro sequence. 0:34 just deafened me

I feel you glossed over the fact that Andy Street lost his bid for re-election which was a bit of a surprise given how well likes he was trying to make the best of a bad (HS2) job.

Just a pro tip from the U.S. - Having redundant layers of government may appeal to people who think that "government should be close to the people". But it does come a significant cost. For example, in the U.S., municipal/county, state, and federal governments can all levy taxes independently of each other, and even tax "income" that went to pay taxes to a different layer of government. People will tend to blame all tax increases on the federal government, even if they were actually enacted by a different layer of government. This tends to result in local and state governments overspending and/or cutting their revenues because they believe that the federal government should make up the difference. They then complain about taxes.

I think a very good thing could be this leading to a very similar thing to the Bundesrat in Germany where each of the German regions elect representatives to go to this 2nd house. It would be a great way to support devolution and a great replacement to the House of Lords if something similar happens here

Awesome. Federalism in England London yes.

Manchester City transport system works with the Bee network however it is far from effective in my local area. Many of my colleagues are consistently late due to buses just not turning up at all since the roll out.

Frankly, there should already have been a devolved English national parliament on the same level as the Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish parliaments. And then England could further devolve power from there. It's just nonsensical that every constituent country of the UK has their own devolved government, but not England.

Absolutely NUTS!

I've always thought allowing the District councils/government to have legislative and administrative devolution is a very good idea. Having said that, on the other hand, Scottish and Welsh devolved assemblies should both be completely removed, because as I've already mentioned it should be the local District councils/City councils that get devolution, as only devolving legislative/administrative powers to the national level in Scotland and Wales inherently and indirectly clearly leads to more calls for internal ethnic seperatism within the UK, however, if local District councils get devolved powers then local people can obtain more local sovereignty over their local area whilst mostly avoiding the ethnic separatist problem in granting devolution to Scotland and Wales. A good example of 'local devolution' of sorts can be found in the UK Dependencies/British Overseas Territories, as those local governments have so much autonomy that they even get their own local bank that produces a localised currency that is tied to to the UK pound (GBP) that can only be legally used within the Dependency/British Overseas Territory, which should assist in giving the locals not only a sense of local identity and sovereignty but also somewhat can additionally incentivise local people to keep buying local by keeping the money flowing within the local area, as that local currency can only be used within the local Dependency/British Overseas Territory and cannot be used as legal tender in any other part of the UK. Also the Dependencies/British Overseas Territorial Parliaments technically don't have to accept the laws passed by the UK parliament, which is why the UK dependentency of Jersey mostly has seperate firearms laws to that of mainland Grear Britain. I think it would be cool if each UK district had similar legislative/administrative powers that the UK dependencies/British Overseas Territories already currently have. Another thing I do thoroughly like about the politics of the UK Dependencies/British Overseas Territories, in particular within the Channel Islands, of Jersey is that there isn't really the concept of a 'national political party' (e.g. Labour, Lib-Dem, Conservative parties etc) as their Parliament is made up mostly grass roots independent candidates which is what the UK parliament *SHOULD* also made up of independent candidates or independent political parties that only serve the district/local area and not these fake, establishment controlled mainstream national parties.

do u guys have an app?

Devolution has been one of the best decisions for Manchester. The transport used to be absolutely terrible with private companies like Stagecoach throwing battered old bus on the streets, the trams being independent, no cycle lanes and trains independent too. If the trams stopped working , your ticket wouldn’t be accepted on the buses at all. It was only after Andy put pressure on the tram and stagecoach companies that they allowed tickets to be used in case of malfunction on the service lines. The bee network has been a great implementation and with good success. Live times, on the go tickets and not worrying if you are suddenly having to use different franchisees. I hope it continues to improve and meets its promises.

I didn't even know this, this is good for the future

Regional UK devolution it’s a good start but it’s not there yet

So my understanding of this is devolution is kind of like creating states? Where states have their own government under a greater authority. Correct me if I’m wrong

We're really taking on a presidential system, I'd much prefer a parliamentary system.

I feel like this video didn’t go deep enough. Was wondering what policy areas will be under the remit of these new devolution deals, whether it will be more policy decision making away from Westminster or whether it could to some extent takeover policy areas that are currently managed by councils.

i could listen to her talk about english devolution deals all day

Problem: There are not enough seats for politicians Solution: Let's make more Problem: councils and local authorities cannot make decisions because they disagree with each other Solution: Let's introduce an additional role to help them disagree more

So the road to PR is probably PR for local english elections and more devolution that uses PR? That way most of the public will be familiar with PR if there is ever a national referendum on PR since the govt would be unlikely to pass it themselves.

i had imagined england receiving a devolved parliament seated in the north of england, but birmingham looks like a great place for the seat of english parliament central to england as a whole.

You got the crests of Leeds and Liverpool the wrong way round

Interesting video, but you might have mentioned Bristol. They had a Mayoral system for a while but then voted to get rid of it. So presumably it doesn't always work?

Devolution does NOT mean taking power away from Districts and giving it to Counties.

As somebody from the north, This is very good

So basically they've gone from tribes to The Heptarchy to the Empire to now rejecting modernity and returning to tradition with a return to The Tribes via The New Heptarchy. That's a bold strategy, Cotton. 🤔

Devolution is such a negative word to use. It's so simple, call it federalism

No mention of Bristol, who had a mayor but was abolished in May 2024 in favour of a new committee system.

The UK likes to think this is giving people a great say/control over local government but in reality it adds to the council tax giving mayors, like Sadiq Khan, the ability to increase their ‘precept’ by more than the fixed percentage cap. This country is over represented, with four governments; three of them devolved administrations and the fourth, the UK government. Plus local councils, county councils and their ilk. The Mayor of London has, in the past two years, increased the council tax to help fund a tube driver wage settlement of 8.4%, so called ‘free’ school meals and to freeze bus fares. Council tax payers are being fleeced to fund his pet projects. To really gain some control we need proportional representation not more and increasing bureaucracy.

I like the chnnel and I like the name. It probably stands for Transport Leadership Dirigble Regulation

I thought devolution referred to any drunk British male tourist visting the rest of Europe, thanks for clarifying this up.

I wonder what are peoples opinions on unitary authorities vs county councils. Do people prefer one stronger federal authority or even more federalism with a wider county council with even smaller local councils to deal with smaller even more local issues.

Quick note that although Bristol has a mayor at the moment, there was a referendum in 2022 which voted to remove the mayor at the end of his current term (2024)

Map Men needs to update their old video...

I think this is a great development

- 3 new mayor areas were up for grabs in 2024 local elections - there will be 5 more next year - leads to better policy (catered to regional and people needs, eg greater manchester invested more into public transport B network) and better participation (mayors rated higher by regions > nation) - some mayors wanna ban whip system, so they’re better connected to MPs, especially to those in North

A Labour government intend to accelerate this.

I’m going to devolve myself.

Conclusion: Hire Andy's for Mayor

You just skipped over Sadiq Khan, who was more despised than liked according to your own data sheet. He represented 1/3 of the mayors shown so concluding that Mayors are liked doesn't seem very honest here.

Would like to see devolution done in a more consistent way so regional inequality can be reduced. I think it’s a good thing overall but it shouldn’t just follow the existing counties. The counties are outdated and need reform too. Good to see the north getting a lot more attention but where I live (Hertfordshire) has just as low investment as many northern places and I don’t think it’ll change until the bigger reforms come about. I live in a town that is in reality in the fringes of London and it’s a bit forgotten about out here, would like to see a combined regional authority between London and the urban areas of the nearest counties, to at least cooperate on the biggest issues of transport and housing. It’s a bit different to the other regions but the biggest problems really need regional cooperation and the current local government system doesn’t seem to allow that. Will be interesting to see how the devolved authorities get on, Manchester has been great to watch.

Also, devolved parlament for the Channel Islands too.

it shouldn't be so complicated, everywhere should have the same level of local government

Why? Because people in a large area and dense populations tend to get annoyed constantly being told what to do by a centralized government.

What about the Highlands and Islands?

Future future developments are so futuristic.

For the American audience this is something like what happened when we were ratifying the constitution. This is basically federalism and it’s the Jefferson side where more power goes to the states and in this case metro areas.

We need a Swiss Model for Devolution of each Council!!!

From the way it's going, this will lead to a county based federalism, which I am in favour of.

This is a positive step, and good for them. It does not adequately address the West Lothian problem however. Either Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland should be devolved in a similar manner and their own parliaments and government dissolved, or there needs to be a uniquely english parliament alongside the UK Parliament in Westminster.

Sounds like a good idea to me, the French have been doing this for a long time and its worked out well for them. Their towns and villages are immaculate. The locals know what they need more than anything and they get to have more guidance over that, it'll also help people feel more connected to their living areas as they have more control over spending within it.

Some random thought: Tories funding considerably better councils, where they have majority; vast majority of good and well paid jobs are in Lindon and 75% of investment goes to London while London complains they have to earn for the whole country ...

hooo, decentralization

Federalism, subsidiary powers, and checks and balances are all in great need in the UK system.