My conference diary in Manchester - events with Women2Win, Newcastle University, CSJ, and multiple meetings

The diary is packed for the next 3 days in Manchester but you will find me at various events:
- Sunday I will be at the Women2Win reception for all the female MPs, candidates and future leaders who W2W have guided in the past and will do more to assist in the future. I am passionately behind this project, as a trainer and mentor, which saw amazing women enter parliament at the last election: the event is at the Stanley Rooms in the Midland at 7.30-9
- for more details read here:  http://guyopperman.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/working-with-women-2-win-is-one-of-best.html
- I am also chairing a Newcastle University discussion event between 5.45-6.45, when I will be listening to a number of academics, think tanks and specialists from Newcastle University and beyond debate energy security, climate change and more. It promises to be an entertaining hour, although as the chair I am impartial, and simply keen to get our experts being grilled by the public so come along. Later that evening I will be at the northern conservatives reception.

- Monday I will be up early for the Women2Win morning event at 8 in the Conservative Home Marquee. I then have 7 meetings that day with organisations as diverse as Newcastle Airport, Shelter, and Northumbrian Water. I will be at the Destination Full Employment debate at the Jurys Inn in the evening at 6, which promises to be a fascinating debate.
- Tuesday I am again going early to the breakfast event hosted by the Centre for Social Justice on reforms to reduce reoffending. Anyone who has read my book Doing Time knows that this is an issue I am passionate about: http://guyopperman.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/my-first-book-doing-time.html
I will then be going to the Membership of a political party in the 21st Century discussion hosted by Policy Exchange with Rob Halfon MP, who is both a mate and an able deputy party leader. I am then going to a Forestry lunch, before a series of meetings and events about the Northern Powerhouse, and dinner with local members who are attending conference.

Delay in asking for a NE Mayor only explained by a power struggle in North East 7 County Councils

The Journal Report today makes very depressing reading: http://www.thejournal.co.uk/business/north-east-mayor-dispute-rumbles-9619494
The harsh reality is that whilst the North East squabbles the Labour led Local Authorities of Greater Manchester, Yorkshire, Liverpool and elsewhere are pressing ahead and embracing the governments offer of devolution. Let us be clear: all the North East businesses, the LEP, NECC, and a multitude of other organisations see the force in uniting transport, health, and a large number of regional services, in an integrated manner, under the ultimate control of a directly elected Mayor. This model has worked well in London [imposed on London without a referendum, by a former Labour government] and worldwide in Germany and elsewhere. The Manchester example is genuinely amazing.


The only objectors are some or all of the 7 Local Authority county council leaders. Why?
There are only two possible explanations:
-either they wish to preserve their own fiefdoms and fear that someone from Gateshead, Sunderland or Newcastle might be in charge [please delete as applicable according to who your sworn enemy is] with the result that the Mayor will not favour them / feather their nest as only they can.
- or they do not have aspirations for the wider North East? I cannot believe that this is the case, because surely they accept that we are better together as a larger unit, competing as we are on the global scale and other larger regions. Certainly this is the view of the Local Enterprise Partnership and the North East Chamber of Commerce etc etc.
Is this is a power struggle amongst the 7 Local Authority leaders? I do not know. But it smacks of the old story of "if Newcastle gets this then Sunderland must get a bridge". This attitude is genuinely holding us back. I urge everyone to write to their local Chief Executive making the case for unity, for a Mayor, for greater devolution and greater jobs and prosperity.
In the last parliament we started this process with City and County deals, which many of our areas received and prospered with, including Newcastle and Sunderland. But surely we want to be bigger and better. Have we not moved on now? Are we going to go backwards? I see the only justification given from Simon Henig and Catherine McKinnell, MP for Newcastle North, is that Cornwall is being given a County deal and that this is should be used as ammunition to argue that the North East shouldn’t be pressured into having a mayor. So now the North East wants 7 separate County Councils like Cornwall with a City Deal / County Deal - which we already have? Words fail me. The great North East wants to be Cornwall? Is this the highpoint of the 7 Counties collective aspirations?
I believe we are Better Together.
I believe there are genuine opportunities ahead
I am certain that we will be left behind by Scotland, Yorkshire and Greater Manchester without a Mayor


I know some Labour MPs have their head in their hands over the behaviour of the Labour Council leaders, but whilst the train is leaving the station, it is not too late to jump on board. Do the right thing. I appreciate that this will be a big step, as there is a lot of history here but the end more than justifies the personal compromises and the need for trust between the 7 leaders. And I say this as the most rural of all the MPs who would be so affected. I have faith this is good for rural Hexham.


The North East Combined Authority is meeting next week on the 14th July in Morpeth at 2pm in the County Council. I urge anyone to go along and make the case to them. I will be stuck in parliament. Details are here:  http://www.northeastca.gov.uk/who-are-we

Greater Manchester's predominantly Labour Leaders decide to have a Boris style elected Mayor - good news

I fully support the decision of the Greater Manchester Council leaders who have decided to embrace regional control of budgets and the power to decide what happens with transport, housing, planning and policing. One politician told the BBC they were "amazed" at the amount of powers being released to them by Central Government. This is the culmination of a long process of negotiating with Manchester's Local Authority leaders - mostly Labour and some other parties, who were originally sceptical about a regional Mayor - now they are convinced that a Boris-type elected mayor is what the region needs.

The concern was about one person having all the power over an area where different places have different needs. So what Wigan and Oldham need might be very different to what Manchester needs or wants. But in order to introduce major changes, the mayor will still need the support of two thirds of the combined authority's leaders. One council leader said this effectively "puts the brakes" on the kind of elected mayor they were worried about. On that point individual city mayors were rejected a few years ago but what is now proposed and agreed upon by the Labour run Greater Manchester is totally different. This is about different areas coming together and working as one, in partnership not competition, but with the democratic accountability and checks and balances you need. I support this plan and think it would work in the North East. I stress that Greater Manchester is run by Labour local authorities working together for the common good of the region. I think we have much to admire about that and that this is a plan for the future.
The BBC report of the announcement and why Greater Manchester has agreed are set out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-29876939
The possible people who could do the job for us in the North East are mischievously shortlisted in the Journal: http://www.thejournal.co.uk/north-east-analysis/analysis-news/who-would-north-easts-answer-8043381

Manchester, ID cards and the Congestion Charge

Pity poor Manchester. I was working there this week, and was amazed how upset some Mancunians were with the government. The decision has been taken that Manchester is to be the nation's guinea pig for the ID Cards scheme. The papers rightly point out that it was Manchester who recently rejected [by 80%] a massive area wide congestion charge planned by the government. As some sort of punishment Jacqui Smith has now decided to introduce ID Cards there: once again the project is very costly, is ill thought through, offends civil liberties and is easily avoidable by the unscrupulous. Manchester must wonder whether it is now the Government's test pilot for all things unsavoury. The problem is we are all going to be asked to take on what Manchester so obviously does not want. Put simply this money could be better spent elsewhere.