JOHN INNES
The Scotsman 3rd August
THE government’s proposed regional assemblies would cost taxpayers in the planned areas £122 million a year, the Tories claimed yesterday.
Bernard Jenkin, the shadow minister for the regions, said the "spiralling costs" of devolution in London, Scotland and Wales proved that regional government was "fat government".
He said a regional assembly in the north-east of England would cost £22 million a year, in the north-west £58 million, and in Yorkshire and Humberside £42 million, with taxpayers ultimately footing the bill through regional council tax.
If regional assemblies were extended to the whole of England the cost would be £360 million, the party said. "Regional government is fat government," Mr Jenkin said. "Britain already has too much bloated bureaucracy and we don’t need more palaces for politicians. "I can’t believe that people will really vote for another row of politicians rather than 1,150 extra police officers on the streets," he added.
The cost of running the Greater London Authority had tripled to £60 million from a projected figure of £20 million in 1998, the Conservatives said, while its City Hall building was costing the taxpayer more than £120 million over 25 years.
The estimated cost of the Welsh Assembly together with the Wales Office had been £92 million, but in 2002-3 the figure had increased to £177 million, while the cost of the assembly’s new building had risen from £17 million to £55 million.
In Scotland the cost of the Holyrood building has risen from between £10 million and £40 million to £431 million, while by 2005-6 the running costs of the Scottish Executive are set to be £242 million.
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