Peter Facey (London, Unlock Democracy): There is a real danger that the debate about English devolution is becoming sterile, with the debate crystallising into two irreconcilable camps.
On the one side you have individuals who put all their emphasis on an English Parliament, and regard any talk of decentralisation below this level at best premature and at worst a plot to break up England - not to mention something that has already been rejected by the public.
On the other side you have the regionalists who regard any mention of England or English identity as dangerous or racist, who believe that there is not a serious question of English national identity to be addressed, and that those who do are trying to break up the Union.
I believe both these extremes are wrong, and are now getting in the way of moving forward.
It is important that we find a solution that addresses the national character of England and that answers the democratic deficit that has developed. But to simply say that England should be treated in exactly the same as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland ignores the real problem of the centralisation of power, the diversity of identity and the fact that you can't govern a nation of the 50 million in the same way as you govern a nation of 5 million.
Meanwhile, the patchwork model of regional government, with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland sitting as equivalents to a number of roughly equal sized English regions, is based on essentially the same fallacy of trying to shoehorn in like with like: in this case on the basis of population size rather than national identity.
With that said, the death of regionalism is often overstated. The referendum in the North East would at least have been more vigorously fought over if the government had been prepared to give the proposed assembly meaningful powers, and thus given the "yes" campaigners something to actually fight for. Opponents of regionalism often forget that a much larger region, Greater London, with a population greater than Scotland and Northern Ireland put together, voted overwhelmingly in favour of devolution in 1998. Finally, it is also worth pointing out that it took the people of Wales two goes to say 'yes'.
Both regionalists and supporters of an English Parliament reject the richness of English local cultural identity at their peril. England cannot be artificially broken up into 9 roughly equal units, but that isn't to say there aren't many parts of the country that have a strong regional identity and are big enough to devolve many more decisions to. Essex, with its 1.3 million people (only 300 hundred thousand less than Northern Ireland), could, if its people wanted it to, provide lots of the services that have been devolved to the Welsh Assembly or Northern Irish Assembly. Several counties are larger still. Cornwall is larger than Wyoming, Luxembourg, Malta and three Spanish Autonomous Regions. Shouldn't we be presuming that such areas can withstand devolution - rather than that they can't?
Many supporters of an English Parliament will accept that, but consider it to be a second order priority. They argue that we need an English Parliament to solve the West Lothian Question first, which can then hand power over to the counties and cities. But would it? The Scottish Parliament has not exactly been forthcoming in giving local authorities more power. While the SNP are pressing ahead with directly elected health boards, their proposals to replace Council Tax with a local income tax will actually reduce the autonomy of local authorities, by not allowing them to vary the rate. Meanwhile, in London, Mayor Livingstone is constantly clashing with local authorities.
Parliaments and Assemblies are power hungry beasts by nature: why would an English Parliament be any different? At least the GLA and Scottish Parliament themselves represent a major shift in bringing power closer to the people. How would an English Parliament, covering a population of over 50 million, be able to claim the same?
So where does this all leave us? To make progress we need to address the national, regional and local levels, and how they might interlock, all at the same time. Localists and regionalists need to recognise that England is a nation, that Englishness is a cultural identity and that both must be reflected somewhere in our constitution (for example, who will represent us on the British-Irish Council?). Meanwhile supporters of an English solution need to look beyond the West Lothian Question and recognise the importance of giving English people meaningful control over their own lives. I am not saying that if we do this we will all agree, but at least we may have a chance of finding a way forward.
Winding each other up can be fun - but it only really suits those who want to maintain the status quo.
