What English devolution white paper means for Tees Valley
Plus: Home counties council selling Cleveland supermarkets, Ben Houchen to face questions from public
As always, thanks again for reading The Teesside Lead. This is the 17th edition.
There’s been a lot of talk this week about English devolution and sending more power (and one would assume, money) out of Westminster. What does this mean for Tees Valley, which already has a combined authority and a directly elected mayor? I’ll be diving into that in this issue.
If you don’t subscribe, why not take a free subscription and make sure you get each edition straight to your inbox every Wednesday and Sunday morning?
I know it’s pushing it to ask for people to take a paid sub at the most expensive time of the year (it is cheap, though), so I’m experimenting with a new Substack feature to try and incentivise word of mouth.
If you enjoy reading The Teesside Lead, you can now get free access to the premium content by referring friends. Three friends signing up will get you a month for free, five friends gets you three months gratis.
Use the link below (or click here) to start twisting people’s arms.
The Labour politician Ron Davies is regarded as “the architect of devolution” in Wales. As Welsh Secretary in Tony Blair’s government he published a white paper in July 1997 outlining the process for establishing the Welsh Assembly and giving Wales powers to control its own fate.
His famous quote, “devolution is a process, not an event”, was echoed this week by Tees Valley’s Conservative mayor Ben Houchen, as the new Labour government published its own white paper on devolving power to English regions. It’s been called the biggest shake-up of local authorities for half a century.
Speaking about the government’s plans, Lord Houchen said: “Some will be frustrated it hasn’t gone further, but devolution is a journey - and whilst it might take time, it’s a one-way street.”
Lord Houchen tends not to fit into Conservative pigeonholes, but it will always surprise me to see him echoing a former Labour politician.
There will be huge reforms brought in across English local authorities, and you can read an excellent analysis from my colleague Jamie Lopez at The Lancashire Lead at this link about what that means where that devolution journey is only just beginning.
But Tees Valley is seven years down the road now, so what is there for established mayoral authorities?
Lord Houchen hasn’t taken to social media to bang the drum for the white paper in the same way his Labour counterparts have. That’s probably a combination of party politics and the fact there isn’t really that much coming the way of the Tees Valley Combined Authority.
A lot of the big changes for established combined authorities come from the integrated settlements that were announced in October’s budget. That’s a single pot of money from Whitehall for combined authorities to spend how they wise, rather than the current model of mayors only being trusted to spend amounts as decided by central government.
However, as I reported after the budget, there’s a big asterisk next to Tees Valley in this regard, as it isn’t eligible for an integrated settlement because of the ongoing process of dealing with the recommendations of the Tees Valley Review.
The Labour mayors are singing the praises of new tax raising abilities, but Ben Houchen has repeatedly said he wouldn’t raise a mayoral precept, so that’s safe to rule out.
Is it really any wonder Ben Houchen isn’t shouting about the white paper? Surely, it’s business as usual for him.
There is, however, a big juicy carrot dangling in front of Lord Houchen’s face, thanks to the government’s devolution white paper, that of rail.
Combined authorities will have a “right to request” further rail devolution.
In January, Lord Houchen pledged to spend £5m on a study to pursue rail devolution in the area. The money for that, is ironically tied up in the CRSTS2 pot of funding which is currently under review from the government. However, there’s every chance this is something Houchen has successfully lobbied for, given his previous enthusiasm.
It would mean rail services came under the remit of the Tees Valley mayor, with train services being integrated. Think of how London’s trains and underground network operate together with a single ticketing system. A similar sort of thing could be on the cards for the Tees Valley.
Some of the main obstacles are capacity, but with investment in Darlington and Middlesbrough stations it could be that this particular path on the one-way street of devolution in the Tees Valley is already mapped out.
On the subject of rail devolution, Lord Houchen was boasting this week of TransPennine Express’s decision to add a new stop on the route between Redcar and Manchester Airport, with services now set to pick up passengers in Eaglescliffe.
While the service stops at Leeds and all three of Manchester’s city centre stations, its ultimate destination is an unfortunate reminder to Teessiders of the Tory mayor’s poor connections at his own airport.
Teesside Airport station (located a mile from its namesake) hasn’t had services for over two years because of the dangerous condition of its platforms.
TVCA’s cabinet approved £20m to be spent on improving the station in January this year, but this - again - is from the CRSTS2 pot of funding currently under review by the Treasury.
If holiday makers from Eaglescliffe want to fly without driving to the airport, they might have to consider crossing the Pennines until further notice.
The delay on releasing funds is also holding up emergency works needed to stop the Transporter bridge from falling into the Tees. Ben Houchen picked up The Teesside Lead’s calls for politicians to lobby for the release of funding when he was on Laura Kuenssberg’s show recently.
Home counties council selling Cleveland supermarkets
In property news, you can buy the building which houses Aldi and Iceland in Guisborough if you’ve got £6,070,000 burning a hole in your pocket, as the units went up for sale last week.
Perhaps not an exciting story on the surface, but it’s being sold by West Berkshire Council, who own the building as part of its commercial portfolio.
The council’s portfolio includes nine properties, valued over £62m. Only two of the properties are in West Berkshire, with the rest in places as varied as Eastbourne, Lincoln, Dudley and Nottingham.
Like most local authorities, West Berkshire is facing rising demand for its services which is causing a budget blackhole.
It’s expecting an overspend of £9.5m by the end of this financial year, and disposing of this Guisborough asset would help officers balance the books.
Ben Houchen to face questions from public
You might be forgiven for being on the mental wind-down already this week ahead of Christmas, but for Tees Valley Combined Authority’s cabinet, they don’t have that luxury.
The cabinet meets on Friday for the final time this year.
In addition to approving next year’s draft budget, the cabinet will also consider the sale of Zetland car park in Middlesbrough to a private company.
Elsewhere on the agenda is news about the introduction of a Mayor’s Question Time, where members of the public can directly hold the mayor to account.
It’s an event which has been held by Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham since 2017.
The government’s scrutiny protocol, published in November 2023, says the mayor should take questions from the public at an event chaired by an independent person (such as a local journalist) which is held “at least every 3 months”.
When the proposal first went to TVCA’s scrutiny committee the suggestion was that two events would be held each year. In this week’s cabinet papers they have thankfully now said it would be held “on a quarterly basis”.
It’s not clear when the first event will be held, or if it will be remotely viewable or uploaded to YouTube, as is the case for Greater Manchester.
When I asked TVCA to clarify, they didn’t respond.
Thanks again for reading!
I’m easy to get hold of for feedback and story tips. Get in touch at teesside@thelead.uk or via social media: Bluesky or X-formerly-known-as-Twitter.
If you’re close to juicy news (maybe about resignations from public roles, for instance), I’d love to hear directly from you. It’s all well and good hearing juicy rumours, but I can’t verify them via third parties, so get in touch. Discretion assured!
Until Sunday!
Leigh
Amusing that Houchen is boasting about Eaglescliffe gaining Transpennine Express calls when, of course, Saltburn is losing nearly all of its service from Transpennine. I seem to recall he boasted about that too when it started, but has he said anything now the service is effectively withdrawn?