Prescott's Fat, Government by the Tories.

For Help with zero tolerance to punctuation, please visit
"Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynn Truss.

Northern Echo
3rd August

Price to pay for self-rule, warn Tories

The public will have to pay £22m a year for a North east regional assembly, the Tories warned last night.

Bernard Jenkin, 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 would cost £22m.

A total of £42m would be needed in Yorkshire and Hunber with taxpayers ultimately footing the bill through regional council tax.

Mr Jenkin said: "John Prescott’s plans for regional assemblies in England come with a very large price tag, "They will not result in one extra nurse, teacher or police officer. But will force up council tax bills via a regional council tax and divert resources away from frontline services."

The cost of running the Greater London Authority had tripled to £60m from a projected figure of£20m in 1998, the conservatives said, while its city hall building was costing the taxpayer more than £120m over 25 years.

In Scotland, the cost of the building for the Scottish Parliament had risen from between £10m to £40m to £431m.

The Conservatives said they were unable to give a figure on how much per person a council tax precept for regional government would cost, but it was likely to be about £241 a year on band D properties, the same as this years increase in the Greater London Authority.

This would be in addition to £110 per person transition costs, which would be spent on restructuring local government, and the estimated £22m would not include the cost of housing a regional assembly.

Neil Herron, of the No Campaign, said: "You only have to look at Scotland to see what will happen. You can bet your bottom dollar that costs will go up and will escalate above £22m."
But campaigners backing an assembly on the North East dismissed the Conservative claims and said the new assembly would cost each household in the region only 5p each in the first year.

Professor John Tomaney, Chairman of Yes 4 the North East, said: "The people of the North East will make up their own minds on whether to believe this piece of propaganda, but the Conservative Party is simply party political point scoring rather than looking at the real issues that are important to the North East public such as jobs, housing and transport."

Full Conservative Press Release click here