Home > House of Commons debates > Regional Assemblies

Regional Assemblies - 16 June 2003

<< back to debates index

Mr. David Curry (Skipton and Ripon): Will the Deputy Prime Minister give an assurance that declaration of the results of a referendum will take place at constituency or local government level, so that we may differentiate between the turnout and the vote in each part of the region, and if North Yorkshire's vote is significantly less, or different from, that in the rest of the region, we shall know and draw our own conclusions? Will the Deputy Prime Minister explain why he so badly misled the House when describing the powers of the assemblies? In his statement, he said that they would have powers over economic development, jobs, investment, transport, planning, housing, culture, arts and sport. He knows that his document talks about the vaguest of strategic powers. If the powers are real, why can a wholly unaccountable body of between 25 and 35 people, partly elected through proportional representation, be held to be doing the job?

The Deputy Prime Minister: No more than the regional governments who make those decisions now. We just want to make the assemblies democratically accountable, and I am doing that against a great deal of opposition. It is the Government who are asking for greater democratic accountability; we hope that that will come to every English region, but we have accepted that the regions must make that decision. We have to recognise that some regional assemblies may be non-elected while others are elected. We do not want to disadvantage non-elected regional assemblies, so we need to find a careful balance; they will not all be the same because the powers of a directly elected accountable body have to be greater. We shall deal with that when we come to the legislation.
As for elections, we shall be talking to the Electoral Commission about some of the proposals, and will bear the right hon. Gentleman's comments in mind. If he wants to write to me with his recommendations, I am prepared to consider them. We have not yet started our discussions with either the Electoral Commission or the boundary committee; I had to make my statement to the House before I could begin that process.

<< back to debates index

David Curry MP | House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA | tel: 020 7219 6202