My new blog on the top 5 takeaways from Labour's new devolution report: #1 Devolution is seen as part of economic policy #2 Local gov boundary reform would help #3 Fiscal devo is on the way #4 We need more mayors #5 Urban devolution is now a consensus and political battleground

Ant Breach Fiscal devolution makes local politicians but doesn't deliver 'levelling up' because of path dependency. You still need large fiscal transfers for that and the task then is to prevent Whitehall micro management

David (Doomster and Naysayer) Higham Ant Breach Is that right David? I think OECD evidence suggests that fiscal devolution and high local capacity are both important for delivering economics benefit? Andrés Rodríguez-Pose

Simon Parker Ant Breach Andrés Rodríguez-Pose Different point. I'm sure that fiscal devolution and strong insitutions deliver better results in terms of local outcomes. What it won't deliver is 'levelling up'.

David (Doomster and Naysayer) Higham Ant Breach Andrés Rodríguez-Pose Depends what we mean by levelling up... a high degree of fiscal decentralisation is associated with lower regional disparities, though obvious question of inverse causality here.

Simon Parker David (Doomster and Naysayer) Higham Ant Breach Andrés Rodríguez-Pose You need to factor in national redistribution processes.

Neil McInroy David (Doomster and Naysayer) Higham Ant Breach Andrés Rodríguez-Pose It isn't a binary. You can have strong local taxation and national redistribution. Indeed, this is the case in many European countries.

Simon Parker David (Doomster and Naysayer) Higham Ant Breach Andrés Rodríguez-Pose Yeah I know. But a few English devolutionist go on about 'fiscal devolution' byt barely mention national redistribution.

Neil McInroy Simon Parker Ant Breach Andrés Rodríguez-Pose I agree with Neil (there’s a first 😂). Obviously you still need national redistribution, particularly if Mayors seem curiously resistant to using the fiscal powers they already have. Whitehall isn’t going to hand money over w/o strings until Mayors step up to the plate 1/2

Neil McInroy Simon Parker Ant Breach Andrés Rodríguez-Pose And then there are those who see fiscal devolution as an opportunity to deliver Trussonomics. Those places are really going to rely on Whitehall bailing out statutory services 2/2