New North East devolution deal "a whisker away"
North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll - "we're almost there"
The North of Tyne mayor, Jamie Driscoll, says that a new devolution deal for the North East is a “whisker away”. The metro-mayoral arrangement for the North East of England currently excludes the authorities south of the Tyne river. But Jamie Driscoll says that '“we’re almost there” with a new deal from central government that could include the authorities to the south, creating an expanded Tyne and Wear area combined authority.
In this second part of a discussion covering topics including Labour, devolution and the rail strikes, Jamie Driscoll sets out his experience of the negotiations for greater devolution for the North and outlines some of the changes he wants to see.
There has been a big debate about reorganising the North East devolution settlement over several years. Driscoll has been the metro mayor since 2019. He is strongly invested in reform: he jokes that when he was asked by his dentist at a recent appointment if he wanted Boris Johnson to resign, he immediately said no - he was so focused on ensuring that the government delivers on its discussions with North East leaders that he did not want a surprise election or a reshuffle upending the negotiations.
He says, “I don't want him [Boris Johnson] to go for about four months because if there's a reshuffle, I've spent these last three years working with different ministers to get us to this point for a regional devolution settlement and I don't want it going out the window because he does something daft like calling a snap general election, something like that.”
Beyond the lighthearted context, he has a very serious point to make about the limitations of the present arrangement for the North East and why a new deal is being discussed: “I want it through. It was immediately apparent to me once I started delving into the realities of devolution, even as I was getting elected - before I was taking office - that this can't work for the benefit of the region, if only half the region is in it. And transport is the obvious. Thirty-six [Metro] stations north of the river, twenty-four south of the Tyne: you can't change the governance of a train as it goes over the river Tyne. So we needed that power.”
While he says there may be other good alternatives to the combined authority system it is also “quite clear that the government weren't going to do it without it being a mayoral combined authority. That's their model, they got a majority, fair enough.” Talks began. “So I started talking to leaders south of the river, some were very keen, some were 'it would have to be a good deal otherwise we're not doing it', and one was 'not over my dead body'. But [we] worked away.'“
Jamie Driscoll provides an interesting insight into his discussions with government. He describes meetings in the Treasury, including with other metro mayors, and finding that opportunities might be available. He says he was meeting the Treasury (during the period when Sajid Javid was Chancellor) when he began talking to officials and junior ministers and “got wind that they were creating what has now become the city regional sustainable transport settlement - and we were going miss out. So I said, ‘can we have it please?’”
The solution was to ask that, if the government had a condition of changing governance in the region, this needed to be clear, in writing. “And they did and it was in the budget on March 11th 2020.” From there, talks began again. “I started talking to the other regional leaders about this, and there was a lot of scepticism but we ended up with a meeting with [then minister] Luke Hall in September 2020.”
Talks have also been affected by Durham’s interest in pursuing a “county deal” as opposed to possibly being part of a wider settlement.
But even the final deal does not include Durham, the talks have covered a wide range of issues. Jamie Driscoll describes discussions with the Education Secretary, Nadhim Zahawi. “Some of this is on schools, some of it's on adult skills,” he says, and describes a constructive working dialogue with Zahawi - who came to Newcastle - having put to him some areas of deadlock: “it was look, we haven't got answers with the officials on some of these things, this has been been a bit of a block with with some sectors - do you agree with me that we can work together on it? He said, yes, I'll speak the officials and move it along. That's how the negotiations work.”
Jamie Driscoll adds: “I spoke to the Chief Secretary of Treasury, obviously the devolution minister Neil O'Brien quite a lot. Grant Shapps on transport devolution.” Indeed, Driscoll seems to relish negotiation. It is an interesting perspective from a Labour mayor, selected and elected from the left, who places emphasis on creating the political space to deliver. “You've got to take people with you, including central government, including the business community, and the trade unions. I regularly meet with the trade unions and tell them what's going on and bring them in to the table as well. And that's how you get there. And it's a lot of work, but we are a whisker away. I just hope that central government don't collapse in the meantime…”
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The Tyne and Wear Metro is an extensive metro rail system that serves a wide part of the North East of England, stretching all the way across from Newcastle airport to South Shields and Sunderland. It has huge potential, even with its present footprint - let alone any expansion of it. So the opportunity to to do more with public transport would be a major prize for the North East. Driscoll says: “devolution is just a set of tools, and the reason I've been negotiating so hard and adding extra things is because I want the best set of tools. What you do with them is where your politics comes in. So there are those mayors who've focused entirely on dealing with big business and haven't done a damn thing about their buses despite having the powers. What I want to see with the transport system is a completely integrated system, which stops looking at vehicles and starts looking at people - that's the only way you can have a green transport system.”
He enthuses about the use of ticketing and apps to assist in creating a more efficient transport for the region. A system where people can use use their mobile devices to understand what parking was available would avoid “people driving round and round in circles trying to find the parking spaces.” He is an advocate of bus priority measures and policies to ensure safe travel at the end of public transport journeys.
Shifting people onto public transport has been a theme of the Labour metro mayors. Driscoll asks how people feel about moving to alternatives to car use: “But do you have confidence in the public transport system? Well if you live near a Metro station you usually do, and if you live on a bus line you might not, especially if you're not a regular bus user. So that's what we need to get to. And that's the critical mass.”
Driscoll's argument is that with more powers, bigger and clearer steps could be made to integrate transport in the North East. His critical mass “enables you to do things, like if there's a young person in life, gets a job on the Team Valley as an apprentice, what are they going to do at the moment? They literally can't afford the transport. So it's narrowing these people's horizons.”
A new transport plan would change that, with low or free travel, perhaps involving employer contributions, which would need to be negotiated. “Once you've got the infrastructure, you can do these things and you can get towards a zero carbon transport system. You can take one hundred thousand cars off the road - because why would anyone own a second car if you have to transport system that good? We see that in London, a lot of people just choose not to.”
When Margaret Thatcher implemented bus privatisation she left London with powers to franchise, albeit in privatised model. Mayors outside London are now at the forefront of the battle to obtain bus franchising powers. That includes Driscoll and other North East politicians. Of his proposals for cheaper and smarter ticketing he says, “you can only do that if you have the powers for bus franchising, where you determine the rules and you're doing it for social good, not for an immediate silo of profit. There's nothing evil about bus companies making a profit, it's just dysfunctional if it stops the transport system working as well as it could.”
The renewed debate about a reformed devolution deal is gathering speed. For the Mayor of the North of Tyne it’s about securing a positive deal:
“And now we're almost there with a set of tools - I'm going to be spending the next set of time building our vision ready for when the new authority comes online, fingers crossed in May '24”
A move towards a north-south combined authority for the North East would be a major development, having faltered the last time round, with the south of the Tyne not joining the authority.
So it would be a very big step to return to this argument and seek to secure a different outcome.
Driscoll sees a number of factors that led to the present North of Tyne metro mayor structure. “I mean, it was a it was more of a collapse in the negotiations, rather than necessarily people saying no. And some of that, I think was was poor diplomacy, some of it was very poor way of offering it. Some of it was a distinct lack of trust.” He says that these were Labour authorities and “who was going to trust George Osborne at that time? I'm not sure I would trust him now. So there was 'is the is this just a vehicle for cuts?' And then I think there was a belief, talking to some people, that there'll be a Labour government along soon enough”.
On the other hand, some factors have now shifted. “I think it's now very different that the North of Tyne has existed for three years,” he says. “I work closely with people, don't try and impose my will on anybody. There's no point - even if I had the power, which I don't have, to say, 'this local authority must do this' they wouldn't do it anyway.”
He suggests that political leaders from different parties involved in the existing North of Tyne body have come to like the consensual model of the present structure. That may be an implicit pitch to the authorities currently considering a new devolved deal.
“And this is the plea,” he suggests, “that people often focus on the structures, and there's a great TS Eliot quote: people are dreaming of systems so perfect, that nobody has to be good. It doesn't matter how good the system is, if you haven't got good people it won't work.
“Equally, it doesn't matter how good the people are, if you have a dysfunctional system, they can't get anything done. You need both.”