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Here are some articles Mike has previously written
In the first of two articles, new boy at the London Assembly, Mike Tuffrey, calls for the abolition of the government’s regional offices, as a step towards a new regional tier.
The hard-headed case for regions
In one of those quirks of political timing, I’ve returned to regional government after a 15 year Thatcher-induced gap at just the point the tide seems to be turning in the argument for the regions. Our Parliamentarians were right to give John Prescott’s White Paper ‘Revitalising the English Regions’ this May a general welcome while forcibly highlighting its limitations.
Following the successes of our colleagues in Wales and Scotland, now Liberal Democrats in England must seize the moment. London’s new government, for all its faults, points the way. But if we are to win the argument – Labour is planning a leisurely timetable and is making change dependent on a referendum yes vote –we’ll have to face up to some tough choices as a party.
The world has moved on from the days of the GLC and the other metropolitan authorities. Today’s GLA with its 400 core staff is a far cry from the GLC and its 10,000 employees. The public won’t vote for more government, nor will the media give anyone calling for it an easy ride. The argument has to be won on BETTER government – which is why the party’s Reform of Public Services policy review is absolutely right to put devolution centre-stage.
Let’s put the spotlight on the hundreds of unaccountable quangos and shadowy agencies (and thousands of expensive bureaucrats) that try to deliver or coordinate services and strategies in the English regions.
Let’s demand the abolition of the government’s regional offices. These nine ‘coordinating’ bodies control over £6 billion of public spending under more than 70 separate funding programmes. Often seen as the friend of the regions in Whitehall, in fact they provide a fig leaf of respectability to an otherwise demonstrably centralised system. Indeed in the one place where we do have what passes for a regional tier – London – the government office has actually increased its number of staff and departments.
We must make a careful case for a selectively longer list of functions to be devolved, including the power (= money) to go with the responsibility (= drawing up ‘strategies’) unlike London. Health is the obvious starting point, as it is a top public concern where people can readily understand the need for a regional approach. But let’s not over-stretch the public’s faith (and our credibility) in what will be a wholly new and unfamiliar tier all on day one.
And on money, we need to be clear and honest: clear that better government means better spending, not more overall; and honest that greater autonomy means less reliance on the sugar daddy called the national exchequer. Speaking as a Londoner, we already contribute significantly in excess of £14 billion more in taxes each year than we get back in public spending. Yet we have some of the most deprived communities in the country and the highest proportion out of work except for the North East. Our share of public spending under Labour has fallen and we’re getting the lowest rises at a time of overall growth.
Finally, the White Paper’s sting in the tail, anathema to Liberal Democrats – imposition of unitary local government if a regional tier is to be created. Of course, we must oppose such a ‘one size fits all’ approach. At the very least, the option to keep counties and districts should be included as a second referendum question (as the Scots had for tax raising powers). But unitaries do work reasonably well in some areas and the prize of securing a regional tier, on which further reforms could later be built, is a huge one. Tough choices indeed.
Mike Tuffrey (gla@tuffrey.com) was a member of the GLC 1985-86 and this year was elected to the GLA following Louise Bloom’s resignation. In May he was unanimously chosen to chair the Assembly’s high profile Economic and Social Development Committee.
New kid on the block, Mike Tuffrey, say “Use us, or lose us!” – and asks for help on regeneration campaigns
GLA Report
Congratulations to everyone elected or re-elected to their councils this May, and a special ‘well done’ to colleagues in Lambeth and Southwark taking on onerous responsibility for all the demanding issues in those inner city ‘rotten boroughs’. After 12 years on Lambeth myself, May found me thrown in the deep end of my new duties at the GLA, when I was unanimously chosen as the chair of the London Assembly’s newly created Economic & Social Development Committee (of which more below).
May also found me reflecting on how my colleagues and I in the GLA Lib Dem group can support the valiant work of our councillors and campaigners across London – and how you can help us get our job done. In fact, by using us as a resource and integrating our campaigns together, you strengthen our effectiveness and help raise London-wide Lib Dem credibility and vote, securing and building on the regional bridgehead first won in the early 1980s on the GLC in Richmond and then Vauxhall.
What are we campaigning on?
Just some of the issues we’ve tackled during May and June include:
How can you help?
All these issues can be press-released locally, by taking our central press notice and adding your own specific concerns and issues. Better still, feed your campaign issues to us ahead of time and we’ll use them as illustrations of a wider problem and hopefully secure you coverage in the regional media. Put a brief mention in Focus about the issues we’re fighting for. Read the Weekly Briefing we produce (via CIX or forward your email address to Nick Carthew, see below).
Help me!
My becoming chair of the ESDC (economy, housing, regeneration, environmental industries etc) gives a great opportunity to raise our London profile on ‘bread and butter’ political issues where Lib Dems have not always scored well. I need volunteers to feed me intelligence of problems in their areas and stay in touch with me and others through a monthly bulletin. I also need help from those with a special interest and expertise in regeneration, joining a periodic ‘brains trust’ meeting to guide my work.
Please get in touch to Mike.Tuffrey@london.gov.uk (020 8673 1684)
If you have any queries relating to the work of the Liberal Democrats at the GLA, please contact Nick Carthew, Member Liaison Manager: Nick.Carthew@london.gov.uk (020 7983 4962)
In his second article, London Assembly member, Mike Tuffrey, says the Lib Dems must adopt a higher profile on issues that matter to urban voters, if we are to sustain our electoral advance.
Hard economics and social justice the key to winning urban areas
This May, only a few months after arriving at the GLA, I had the good fortune to be chosen to chair the London Assembly’s new and high profile Economic and Social Development Committee. Immediately I set as my goal tackling the 'bread and butter' regeneration issues that matter to Londoners, the ones where Lib Dems sometimes lack credibility and profile.
Take economic regeneration and housing. Polling in London shows this is rising as fast as health, as an area of personal concern, albeit still behind crime, education and transport. The supply of new homes is falling well short of demand, forcing up prices obscenely and stopping millions getting a foot even on the lowest rung of the housing ladder.
In London we need between 32,000 and 43,000 new units a year for ten years, half of them ‘affordable’. Currently we’re only half way there. High costs are depriving public services of key workers and forcing up wages in the private sector.
Hard economics and social justice demand that the Liberal Democrats show how a big increase in the supply of housing can be achieved without the environmental disaster of concreting over the Green Belt. After five years, Labour has singularly failed to articulate any new vision as an alternative to the Conservatives’ private ownership/right-to-buy obsession.
Partly it needs an increase in public investment, funded by capturing a bigger share of land development gains: not a knee-jerk call to put up taxes, but a negotiated share of major housing and commercial developments set aside for affordable housing.
Partly it needs a rejuvenated private renting sector: action to eliminate disreputable landlords and require owners to invest in old stock in dangerous disrepair. Shelter estimates that 1.4 of the expected 3.8 million new households by 2021 could come from private renting and has recommended 26 steps to make this possible.
Take economic regeneration and public spending. New developments that create jobs, build homes, invest in transport and improve the urban environment often need public expenditure ‘pump priming’ to make them viable. One example is cleaning up contaminated ‘brown field’ land. Rather than a general tax increase, we need focused mechanisms to capture a share of the wider wealth these developments create. When London’s Jubilee Line opened after massive public investment, nearby private landholders gained a massive tax-free windfall in rising land values.
We need to learn from places such as Chicago where designated regeneration areas can have ‘tax incremental financing’: the public sector issues bonds to fund new infrastructure, with repayment based on predicted new prosperity captured in a specific local and time limited property tax.
In Los Angeles and New York among others, business improvement districts offer a broadly voluntary approach, where commerce in small local areas pay a tax supplement in return for better services such as policing, maintenance, cleaning or new facilities.
These are not new or untested ideas, just not championed loudly in Britain. I want to use my committee to push the profile of urban regeneration. Our work covers a broad range of issues, including affordable housing, unemployment, low pay, small firms, the City, inward investment and the impact of globalisation.
To help, I'm forming an informal 'brains trust' of people with a real expertise either from their professional or Council work or from personal interest. To learn more, please email me (Mike.Tuffrey@london.gov.uk).
As a party, we must extend our appeal beyond the bedrock market towns and comfortable suburbs. Key groups such as young people and members of minority ethnic communities live disproportionately in urban areas. The need to articulate distinctive and very practical policies on regeneration is urgent.
Mike Tuffrey was a member of the GLC 1985-86 and a Lambeth councillor 1990-2002. He was elected to the GLA in March 2002