Politics
The House | Government Promises Devolution Reform But Mayors Say ‘Begging Bowl’ Culture Persists
(Tracy Worrall)
9 min read
MHCLG and the Treasury are promising more powers to the devolved regions through a series of reforms. But for all the progress, regional mayors remain frustrated at a ‘begging bowl’ culture forced on them by an untrusting Whitehall. Benedict Cooper reports
At times, delivering this year’s Mais Lecture, Rachel Reeves sounded more like a fierce critic of government devolution policy than someone involved in delivering it.
The Chancellor spoke of the “stifling Whitehall orthodoxies” that have held back the regions; the “local ambition frustrated by central government control”. She attacked the “fiction that a strong economy could be built on the success of just a few places”, and called for a “genuine break with the past” as the only true solution to all of the above.
The language of the lecture must have given some relief to the mayors and officials running England’s devolved authorities. It reflected precisely their frustrations at the slow and limited nature of change.
The lack of power to raise revenues locally and to truly decide, not merely preside over, the prescribed allocation of central Treasury funds, has been at the core of discontent about the way devolution has been delivered since the start.
For now, the details of how it might be solved are with the Chancellor’s Treasury officials. To understand what’s at stake, why frustrations persist and what should be done, we’ve gone straight to the regional mayors and devolution experts.
If a single statistic can tell the story, it must surely be the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) finding, released last year, as to how much autonomy the UK gives its regions compared to other nations.
Among the OECD countries in 2024, the average proportion of overall revenues generated by a central, national exchequer was 53.2 per cent, with the rest being raised, and spent, by regional or federal authorities. In the UK, that figure was 91.8 per cent; the highest by some distance.
The UK’s economy is as centralised as it gets. It makes the Chancellor’s plan to “liberate” the regions, by granting “control over long-term, self-sustaining capital”, extremely ambitious.
Alex Walker, senior researcher at think tank Re:State and former research assistant at the Bennett School of Public Policy, says that while the scale of the job is huge, the intention is right, and necessary to redressing a paradox of the system.
“It’s a very big development,” he says. “England is a big outlier in how fiscally centralised it is. At the moment, you’ve got this decentralisation of spending responsibilities, but not really much decentralisation of revenue raising power.”
Responsibility without power is surely a political leader’s nightmare. And, Walker says, it’s the cause of a democratic deficit at the core of English devolution.
Under the current model, he says, the money comes largely out of general taxation so the accountability is upwards to the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) and various Whitehall departments: “Once strategic authorities are more financially and fiscally independent from central government it should lead to the accountability being more towards their local electorate in terms of how they are spending that money that’s being raised and generated in the local area.”
There is the way money is raised, and there is the way it is distributed, or not, to the regional authorities.
England is a big outlier in how fiscally centralised it is
Akash Paun, devolution programme director at the Institute for Government, says: “Mayors often speak of the unhelpful ‘begging bowl culture’ created by the funding system they operate within, in which combined authority budgets are a hodgepodge of grants from across Whitehall.
“This is a system that has limited the ability of mayors and local partners to develop joined-up and long-term strategies for their regions, as they have to account separately to numerous different government departments for their use of public money.”
A proposed solution to this surely unsustainable situation is the integrated settlement, an instrument introduced into the English Devolution White Paper of December 2024 as a means to grant authorities access to a “consolidated budget across housing, regeneration, local growth, local transport, skills, retrofit, and employment support”.
The idea is sound. And few would argue with communities minister Miatta Fahnbulleh’s view, who tells The House it is based on the idea that “mayors know their areas better than Whitehall ever could”.
She adds: “That’s why we’re scrapping dozens of ring-fenced grants and giving seven city regions more control through integrated settlements – so they can spend on what their residents actually need.”
Far more contentious, and many mayors say deeply unhelpful, are the many qualifications and stipulations required to reach an integrated settlement in the first place. Namely, that only those authorities proven to have met eligibility criteria and thus elevated to the status of ‘established’ mayoral strategic authority (EMSA) may qualify for an integrated settlement.
At the moment, only seven combined authorities do: in Greater London, Greater Manchester, the North East, West and South Yorkshire, the West Midlands, and the Liverpool City Region.
Seven authorities out of 16. That leaves nine working to meet the criteria to reach the status to receive the funding they need.
Those criteria are extensive. And include a contentious detail that an authority must “have been in existence, with a directly elected mayor in place, for at least 18 months” before it can even submit a request to become an established authority, let alone actually receive the integrated funding.
It has left many mayors in a state of frustration, eager to get on with the work of investing in their regions.
Not least Labour’s Claire Ward, East Midlands Combined County Authority mayor, which has hit its 18 months, applied for established status and subsequent integrated settlement, but still finds itself in ongoing talks with MHCLG about getting to the next step.Ward says: “I want it to move much faster. I want to be in a position where I’m not being held back from the things that we can do in this region because I don’t have the flexibility over the integrated settlements or I don’t have the powers that are going to come with the established status.
“As mayor I feel it’s my duty to be challenging government to explain why I can’t have those powers, why I can’t have additional funding, why I don’t have that flexibility that would allow me to do far more in terms of being able to create that growth of an opportunity in the region.
“I do not want this region to be held back any longer than it needs to be.”
This is precisely the sentiment of Paul Bristow, the Conservative mayor for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, a new mayor elected to a new role.
“We’re ready,” he says. “The authority had already done a lot of work, before I was elected last year.
“We’re following MHCLG’s guidance on when we can get established mayoral strategic authority status. The government has said it will only consider an integrated settlement for the next spending review, which is 2027.
“I want to progress that as quickly as possible, and perhaps get elements earlier, because the right time to get Cambridgeshire and Peterborough moving is now.”
The approach that’s been increasingly taken by government departments is them telling us how we should be spending the money
The sense of being held back, it seems, isn’t confined to those authorities awaiting the crucial established status.
The South Yorkshire mayoral combined authority was granted EMSA status and promised an integrated settlement as early as the white paper in 2024. Yet still its Labour Co-op mayor, Oliver Coppard, feels deprived of the powers he was promised. Coppard isn’t holding back in his criticism of a devolution system he says is “founded on a lack of trust”.
“We’ve found the process to be not in the spirit of devolution,” he says. “The principle is not being adhered to by the government. The government wants to hold onto the reins.
“And we’ve had concerns about various departments and what we are being asked to achieve with the money we’re being given. It’s the wrong way around. The approach that’s been increasingly taken by government departments is them telling us how we should be spending the money.”
Precisely what devolution was meant to undo.
There have undoubtedly been big steps forward, and real legislative action. There is grand talk of liberating the regions. But clearly, too, there is residual resistance, bureaucratic or otherwise, to releasing the reins.
“That attitude is still there in central government,” says Walker, “where the local state can’t be trusted to deliver people’s priorities. And when something goes wrong the instinct is to take it back to central government control.
“We’ve been hamstrung by a model where central government micromanages things across all of government.”
The Chancellor has identified the problems and recognised the frustrations of the regions: the begging bowl culture needs to end, and the gross imbalance in mayors’ powers and responsibility needs to be redressed.
And she has drawn broad rhetorical strokes for a solution which could truly transform the devolution process for the better.
There are risks. Vividly voicing the frustrations of regional leaders is fine, if you then fix the problems. Fail to find the right formula – or, worse, do a U-turn – and the tensions between Westminster and Whitehall on the one side, and the hamstrung devolved authorities on the other, could escalate.
Labour could find itself overseeing yet another “exercise in local ambition frustrated by central government control”, and the great opportunity devolution offers the nation as much as the regions could be lost.
An MHCLG spokesperson said: “We have a proud record on devolution. We’ve already rolled out more integrated settlements and cut bureaucracy for mayors so they have more freedom to spend in ways that they think work best for their communities. We’re not stopping there, with our English Devolution Bill, fiscal devolution roadmap, and Right to Request process we’re going even further in moving power and money out of Whitehall and into the hands of those who know their areas best.”
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Politics
Politics Home | Train Teachers To Identify Antisemitism In Classrooms, Says Independent Advisor
The government’s antisemitism Lord John Mann told PoliticsHome all school teachers should have “basic” antisemitism training. (Alamy)
5 min read
The government’s independent advisor on antisemitism has called for teachers to be given basic training in how to identify antisemitism in classrooms, telling PoliticsHome that there must be a stronger state effort to tackle rising hate against Britain’s Jews.
Lord John Mann, a former Labour MP who has advised ministers on antisemitism since 2019, said he was not “satisfied” with how successive governments have responded to rising levels of antisemitism in the UK, saying “everyone needs to up their game”.
Mann spoke to PoliticsHome after two Jewish people were stabbed in a terrorist attack in Golders Green, north London, on Wednesday. The Met Police announced on Friday morning that Essa Suleima, 45, had been charged in connection with the attack.
There have also been arson attacks in the wider borough of Barnet, home to the UK’s largest Jewish community, in recent months, including the firebombing of ambulances run by a Jewish charity and several synagogues, and a lethal attack on a synagogue in Manchester last year.
Following the terrorist attack on Wednesday, the government has announced an additional £25m for community policing to protect Jewish communities and pledged to fast-track legislation banning state-linked terror groups.
In a press conference on Thursday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said ministers were looking at “further measures we can take on protests”, amid calls for tougher action against antisemitism at pro-Palestine marches. Starmer said the phrase “globalise the intifada” was an example of “extreme racism” which should result in police prosecution.
Speaking to PoliticsHome, Mann said there should be a greater police presence in Barnet permanently, as well as more government funding for security measures to protect Jews across the country, like CCTV and alarm systems in shops.
But he stressed that tackling antisemitism must go further than greater security, calling for every secondary school teacher nationwide to be “taught the basics” of identifying it: “about how to recognise antisemitism, and how to deal with it in the classroom”.
“Very basic level training, nothing particularly expensive or fancy, a basic level for every secondary school teacher, starting with the new teachers. I think that is doable, and that it needs to happen. And I’m impatient on that happening,” the peer said.
He continued: “If a Jewish child at school, or a Jewish staff member, doesn’t have people at work who understand how to recognise antisemitism, they’re clearly not going to be able to deal with it properly… and the impact on children is far more important than anything…
“I put it to the last government, I put it to this government. It hasn’t happened yet.”
Mann said the recent creation of a cross-departmental group in government focusing on antisemitism was a “really significant” development, but warned that it “would take some time for that to have a real impact”. He added that he expects his report on antisemitism in the health service to be published by Health Secretary Wes Streeting in the coming weeks.
Speaking during a visit to Golders Green on Thursday, the Prime Minister said the government was looking at “what more needs to be done in health and education” to tackle antisemitism. “So there is a lot that is being done. Of course, we need to do everything we can,” he said.
However, Mann argued that the UK does not yet have a “comprehensive approach” to dealing with antisemitism, after charity Community Support Trust said in February that 2025 saw the second-highest annual number of anti-Jewish hate incidents on record.
“We don’t have a comprehensive approach, in my opinion, to extremism. What it is, how it manifests,” he said.
“The growth of Islamist extremism has been pronounced and is very dangerous, and we’re not on top of that. We have left-wing extremism and right-wing extremism to contend with… both have grown. Older problems and newer problems all converged together.”
Last month, the cross-party Home Affairs Committee concluded that Prevent, the government’s anti-terrorism programme, is “outdated and inadequately prepared”.
Committee chair Conservative MP Karen Bradley said Prevent “has the clear and explicit function of stopping people becoming radicalised into terrorism, but more and more it is having to support those with no ideological motivation, who may have complex needs and operate in digital spaces that are poorly understood”.
“There needs to be a comprehensive structure in place at a local level, but implemented nationwide, that triages referrals to where they can receive the right support.”
Mann believes that “very big numbers” of Jews will start to leave the UK “very quickly” if things do not change, telling PoliticsHome that “the freedom to be Jewish in this country has been significantly impaired”.
“That’s unacceptable, because people aren’t doing that willingly,” said Lord Mann.
“They’re doing it under duress.”
The independent adviser compared what he believes could happen in the UK in the coming months to what happened in France following rising levels of antisemitism in the 2010s, culminating in a lethal attack on a Jewish supermarket in Paris in 2015, when, according to the World Jewish Congress, around 8,000 Jews left the country.
“I would define the breaking point as when a significant number of people start to move,” he said.
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(Alamy)
3 min read
The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) think tank has called for the government to scrap the “unaffordable” triple lock on state pensions.
In a new report published on Friday, the think tank said current pensions policy is unsustainable and outdated and should be replaced by a more flexible alternative.
“Britain’s state pension system was built for a different era. We can’t keep pouring money into a system that is increasingly unaffordable,” said Tom Smith, TBI Director of Economic Policy.
Under the existing policy, pensions are guaranteed to rise by the highest of inflation, average earnings and 2.5 per cent.
However, there have been growing warnings that factors like people living longer, a falling birth rate and high inflation levels mean that it is not sustainable in the long term.
The TBI report points to the number of pensioners in Britain being expected to rise from 12.6m this year to 19m in 2070, with spending on the state pension expected to increase from 5 per cent of GDP to 7.5 per cent, costing the Treasury an additional £85bn a year.
There is also an argument that to maintain the triple lock in its current form would worsen generational inequality, given the financial challenges faced by younger people.
Despite these warnings, the triple lock continues to enjoy broad cross-party support, partly because older people are seen as a key voter group. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said last week that the government was not changing its triple lock policy.
TBI’s Smith said it would take “political leadership” to reform the policy, but that doing so would create a system “fairer, more flexible, and designed for how people live today”.
The think tank has proposed what it calls a new ‘Lifespan Fund’, which would replace the fixed pension age with a system whereby one full year of contribution would add half a year of entitlement, up to a maximum of 20 years of support.
It would also allow people to use the fund earlier in life to support them in key moments like finding work, funding child care, and looking after a sick relative, with safeguards included to ensure people do not draw out too much too early.
Smith said the model “keeps the promise of a secure retirement while making the system more flexible and financially sustainable” and would be “the upgrade Britain needs”.
The TBI estimates that these reforms would keep long-term state pension spending at around 5.5 per cent of GDP, rather than allowing it to rise towards 7.8 per cent, avoiding roughly £66bn a year in additional costs by 2070.
The intervention was welcomed by the Labour MP for Dunfermline and Dollar, Graeme Downie, who, in a recent piece for The House, called for the triple lock to be reformed to help fund greater defence spending.
“This is the kind of conversation I called for a few weeks ago,” he told PoliticsHome.
Our welfare needs to be fit for the future, helping those who need it most and being a strong safety net, effectively supporting people to get them into work and keep them in work to drive economic growth, and to fund critical national priorities like defence, which are vital to protecting our people and our democracy.”
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Politics
Politics Home | East London Labour Deploys Rayner In Bid To Avoid Seismic Locals Defeat To Reform
6 min read
Angela Rayner has accused Reform UK of being anti-working class in a bid to help Labour keep hold of a London council that it has controlled since its inception over six decades ago.
On Wednesday night, the former deputy prime minister campaigned in Barking and Dagenham, east London, where Nigel Farage’s party is hoping to make a major electoral breakthrough in the capital at the 7 May local elections. A YouGov poll published last week gave Reform a slender four per cent lead over the Labour Party.
The Manchester MP’s visit to the outer London area came a day after Prime Minister Keir Starmer avoided being referred to the Privileges Committee over the Lord Mandelson affair, and amid intense speculation about how much longer he has in No 10.
Speaking to Labour activists at the Trades Hall working men’s club in Dagenham, the party’s former deputy leader, who resigned from cabinet in September over unpaid stamp duty, joked about the current negativity within Labour as it braces for a bruising set of nationwide results next month. On the same night, pollster and Tory peer Lord Robert Hayward projected that Labour would lose a huge 1,850 council seats across the country.
“The one thing I say about Labour is we’re not happy unless we’re unhappy. So, we do like to know about the things we haven’t got, right?” said Rayner.
Accompanied in east London by a videographer, as well as her partner, Sam Tarry, a former Labour MP who was also previously a Barking and Dagenham councillor, Rayner sought to frame Reform UK as a threat to the area’s working-class communities.
“The kids here, he [Farage] wants those kept in poverty.
“He doesn’t want employment rights, and we’re delivering employment rights in the biggest way for a generation. We’re bringing down waiting lists in the NHS. He wants to make sure that we go to an insurance-based system. He doesn’t want a free NHS at the point of use anymore.
“So that’s not going to work for our communities here.”
Rayner added: “I talked about the poverty I grew up in when I was a child, but the one thing that never occurred to me, and was never an issue, was that I could be evicted from my council home, and that’s why we need the biggest wave in a generation of council homes, and we need to build them now.”
The local Labour MP, Margaret Mullane, who used to be a barmaid at the working men’s club, told PoliticsHome that Rayner’s working-class roots made her an effective campaigner in that part of the capital. One Labour activist described her as a “future prime minister”.
While Rayner is seen as a leading candidate to succeed Starmer in Downing Street, her political future is currently complicated by an outstanding HMRC investigation into her tax affairs, which many Labour figures believe must be completed before she can launch a bid to become prime minister.
She could also face a competition with Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to secure the support of the Labour left and soft left. Burnham, who PoliticsHome revealed last week is also campaigning in London ahead of polling day next week, must find a parliamentary seat before launching a leadership bid of his own.
Rayner showed no signs of rebellion on Wednesday night, using her speech to campaigners to talk up the Labour government’s achievements after nearly two years in office.
“I’m so proud to have had the opportunity to represent you as your deputy prime minister, and make no apologies for being part of this Labour family and to continue believing what Labour does, because I’ve seen in action what Labour has done to give me opportunities that my mum never had,” she said.
However, should 7 May go as badly for Labour as the new Lord Hayward research suggests, then Starmer’s position in No 10 will almost certainly come under renewed pressure at the end of next week, which in turn will likely push Rayner back into the spotlight.
As well as losses in London, where Zack Polanski’s Greens are expected to be the primary beneficiaries, Labour is set to lose council seats across England, go backwards in Scotland, and fall out of power in Wales for the first time since Cardiff’s devolved institutions were established at the turn of the century.
Defeat in Barking and Dagenham would be particularly painful for Labour, with the party having won all 51 council seats when they were last up for election four years ago.
Local Labour councillor Phil Walker said that the Mandleson vetting row was being brought up by residents on the doorstep in Barking and Dagenham, compounding the PM’s unpopularity. “They think Starmer is stupid”, he told PoliticsHome. “It adds to an image that isn’t good.” Another councillor said the issue had cut through “even to kids”.
Walker added that next week’s elections pose Labour’s biggest test in this London council “since 2006 when we kicked out the BNP (British National Party)”.
“The one thing I say about Labour is we’re not happy unless we’re unhappy,” Rayner tells activists
The Dagenham wards seen by Labour activists as most at risk of falling to Farage’s party are Village, Heath and Eastbrook. A collapse in support in this part of east London would be especially ominous for Mullane, who will be defending a majority of just over 7,000 at the next general election. “There is real pressure to keep Village – it is the heart of the constituency,” she told PoliticsHome.
Many residents who opened their doors to Labour activists on Wednesday night described themselves as undecided, which Mullane said demonstrates that “turnout will be crucial” for Labour if the party is to stave off the threat of Reform in Barking and Dagenham.
The cost of living and crime dominated doorstep conversations, as did the recent five per cent council tax rise. Labour’s decision early in government to make the winter fuel allowance means-tested, later amended after a major backlash, was cited as having caused “so much damage” with voters in the area, even nearly two years later.
Shortly after being visited by Labour activists, one resident came out of his house to dispose of the party’s literature in the recycling bin.
Speaking earlier this week ahead of the locals, the Prime Minister’s political spokesperson said: “These local elections come down to a simple choice.
“Labour on your side, with your local Labour council working in partnership with a Labour Government, or Nigel Farage and Reform, who would put your family, your NHS and your community at risk.”
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