A Collection of Recent Letters

Sunderland Echo
Friday, September 10, 2004

Assembly drain
I RECEIVED the Labour Party issue as to why we should vote yes to accept theirNorth East Assembly (Mini Parliament) and the glorious benefits which will bein store for us.

Their statement says if we accept the Assembly things would improved dramatically, ie improvements in health, hospitals, housing.
Also the assembly would have the power to protect our environment, it would also improve ourtowns, cities and countryside. There would be a better transport system andmore jobs.If you can believe this Labour Party manifesto it's going to be a Utopia fromMiddlesbrough to Cumbria.

Wait a minute!

Haven't we got about 40 MPs in Parliament representing the NorthEast?

And what about the local councillors who have (or should have been accountable for the last three decades) been in office for years?Have they been neglecting all of these important issues?

Many of us have known for years that most of our MPs and town councillors have been passengers on the monetary gravy train (with a few exceptions).

The manifesto also admits they will take away power from central Government and quangos which could mean local councillors.

Now the cost of this North East Assembly, based on this year's figures, will beabout £500million.

Of course, we the council tax payers will have to foot the bill as usual. To vote for a North East Assembly will be an unnecessary financial drain on publicfunds and again, I repeat, at our expense.
W. Smith,Farringdon.

No new powers
I WRITE out of utter amazement at the naivety of people who write expounding the virtues of the proposed Regional Assembly.They clearly have not studied what is on offer because their arguments are weakand often simply untrue.

The Assembly will have no new powers. Nor, indeed, will it have any power at all other than to talk about issues and suggest things. There is nothing it will do that is not already being done.

It will not give the North East a voice that it does not already have.

Rather,it will weaken the North East and its regions.

The North East has had the dubious benefit of having one of its MPs in the most powerful of government positions over the past seven years. Add to that the fact we have had more cabinet posts held by North East MPs in that time than atany other point in history and you wonder how much more influence can the NorthEast get?

For the North East Regional Assembly to have a greater voice, it would need to be more powerful and better able to respond than our own MPs. So they must either be admitting they have failed at their jobs, or they have no intention of weakening themselves and will give us less power than they themselves have.

The only long-term power the Regional Assembly has been guaranteed is that it will be self-funding.That means the power to levy a tax on the people of the North East, in addition to Council Tax and national taxes.

So we will pay more tax than any otherEnglishmen.It is important that the Assembly has some legitimacy and authority. It would be a disaster if it were decided either way on a pitiful turnout.

I suspect there is no threshold because interest is very low.

The Regional Assembly, if passed, will have 25 members to represent roughly100,000 people or more each. This actually makes them more remote and lessresponsive than our National MPs, who each represent roughly 68,000 people.

If the North East chooses to have this Regional Assembly it will not solve the problem of the North East being poorly represented because the Government has always stated that it plans to have assemblies for all the regions. We willhave the smallest Assembly, with perhaps the exception of Cornwall.The biggest flaw is that there are problems of governance in the North East andthe Assembly doesn't even come close to addressing them.

A prize for anyone whocan tell me what they are.
Coun Stephen Daughton,Barnes,Sunderland

Public need a referendum
FRED Brady insists(August 19)that we have no alternative but to vote yes for a regional assembly because there is nothing else on offer.

There are a few more choices that can be offered, and there is still plenty of time to do it.I would like to offer a suggestion for a referendum giving real choice to voters.

Any referendum concerning an English governmental system should present the English population with a full set of choices, in the following manner.
Choose one of the following (as in an election ballot paper that everyone understands):

Do you want:
An English parliament only?
English regional assemblies only?
An English parliament in addition to English regional assemblies?
None of the above?

This is an honest and unbiased approach covering all possible choices. Unbiased honesty is perceived, by much of the English electorate, to be alien to our politicians at Westminster and probably explains the low turnout for elections in England.

I suggest the Sunderland Echo conducts its own poll of its readership to ascertain local public opinion on this matter, using the four questions I have proposed.I can understand politicians from all parties would be wary of asking the public questions like these,but referenda is supposed to be about us and not about their future electoral chances.

Finally, The most honest statement made by any Westminster MP on the meaning of regional assemblies, came from the Lib/Dem leader Charles Kennedy at a Lib/Dem conference in Dunfermiline in 1999. He said: " Scotland has a Parliament. Wales an assembly, Northern Ireland, soon I hope, a working assembly too."In England regionalism is growing as never before, calling into question, as it happens, the idea of England itself".So there we have it, they don't like England.
Keith Young member Campaign English Parliament

Northern Echo
10/09/04
REGIONAL GOVERNMENT:
UNLIKE Gill Hale of Unison (Echo, Sept 6) I find the question of a regional assembly very complex. Although Ms Hale thinks there is an overwhelming case, I am not so sure.

In a leaflet circulated by the Government, it suggests reorganisation in Durham will save between £2.8 to £8.3m per year, although there will be an up frontcost of £37m.

To me, this sound like job losses - the last thing Unison shouldbe supporting.On the other hand, the fire service is to be taken away from local authorities and the four existing fire services are to be run by the regional assembly.

There will no doubt be a highly paid group of regional fire officers with a new regional headquarters.

How this will benefit the people of, say, Berwick in the north or Barnard Castle in the south?

John Prescott seems to be up here almost every week propagating the case for a regional assembly - if it is such a good idea why does he not foist it on the region he belongs to?
- Quintin Smith, South Shields.

HAVING read the leaflet from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, it seems the Government does not know what the regional assembly will be doing or what they will control.It states that the assembly will have "responsibilities, power or influence"over nine set areas.

What are "the powers or influences" that it will have and how will it be able to impose its authority over others?

As for the re-shaping of local government, it would be obvious to go for one authority that does the lot rather than three authorities all doing the same as it would save the taxpayers millions in the long run.

A lot of figures are being bandied about as to the probable costs involved. We need to see precise figures.

To vote on this with the little information so far released and the amount thatis being hidden, reminds me of the saying "buying a pig in a poke".
- RLGroves, Howden-le-Wear, Crook.

THE Government-funded elaborate pamphlet puts only one point of view:emphatically in favour of a regional assembly.

Unless equal funding is made available for different views, how can a referendum vote be deemed fair and informed?

It is hardly likely that many of the readers of the leaflet will take up the invitation to send £25 for a copy of the draft Bill covering the powers and functions of the regional assembly.Only the House of Commons has the power to legislate, although it has given upsome law-making powers to the EU and Scotland.

It is most unlikely that suchconcessions will be made to regional assemblies.An assembly will be constrained by the same obligations to stay within lawswhich apply to every unitary county, district or town council. In essence, itwill be an administration with only limited decision taking powers.And the price?

A hardly representative assembly of 15-25 people displacing hundreds of local councillors in close touch with many and varied localcommunities.
- EG Hill, Darlington.