The ‘devolution’ deal that George Osborne had perversely sought to impose on Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, ignoring the people who live there and their elected representatives too, has been resoundingly rejected by Cambridgeshire County Council.

If you have been busy over the past few days and feel you missed what was going on, you’re on the right track: this deal was done behind closed doors and very quickly.

A link containing the East Anglian Devolution Agreement was emailed to councillors on Friday afternoon March 18.

Amongst the people who had signed the Agreement was the Conservative Leader of Cambridgeshire County Council, Cllr Steve Count – without the support of his council. It’s not clear when the Agreement was signed because it’s not dated.

The Agreement document is a fairly big deal and deeply problematic. Apart from being arrived at undemocratically, at its core is a single powerful mayor over an ill-thought out region, removing decision-making power from local government bodies. It is about anything but devolving power to local people.

Why the urgency? So that George Osborne could announce the launch of the Deal in a speech on Wednesday March 23, in Ipswich. How do we know? Through a leaked email asking council leaders to hold the date. Everyone was playing Mr Osborne’s game except the leader of Cambridge City Council, Labour Cllr Lewis Herbert, backed up by Lib Dem opposition Leader Cllr Tim Bick.

On Tuesday March 22, a motion was put to a meeting of Cambridgeshire County Council by Cllr Lucy Nethsingha, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, seconded by Cllr Ashley Walsh, Leader of the Labour Group, to reject central government’s imposition of this deal. The motion in a slightly amended form was supported also by the leaders of the UKIP and Independent groups. It quickly became clear as one after another councillors stood up to reject the deal that it had no support whatsoever.

In the end, Cllr Count himself voted with the motion to reject the very agreement he’d signed without the authorization of his council. As did all the councillors in the Conservative Group bar one who abstained. Cllr Count then authorized an official council press release with a rather skewed version of what the council had agreed in its rejection of the deal. This necessitated resounding collective action by the council’s opposition parties. Group leaders of the Liberal Democrats, Labour, UKIP and the Independents today wrote the following letter to Cllr Count to ensure there was clarity about what council had agreed.

George Osborne didn’t make his planned speech on Wednesday and the move by Cambridgeshire County Councillors has prompted a national debate as to the Chancellor’s plans.

Wednesday 23 March 2016

Dear Councillor Count,

We are writing this joint statement as the leaders of the Liberal Democrat, UKIP, Labour and
Independent groups on Cambridgeshire County Council with regard to ongoing devolution
negotiations with national government.

On Tuesday 22 March, Cambridgeshire County Council resolved with the support of all
political groups at a full council meeting that ‘the deal, in its current form, is not acceptable
to this council’.

The council also resolved that our Chief Executive should inform the Secretary of State for
Communities and Local Government accordingly. In a press release on Wednesday 23
March, you acknowledged that councillors made ‘their concerns known loud and clear’ and
that you would ‘take these to Government to see what further proposals can be put forward’.

Our political groups have agreed five areas of common concern:

1. We are opposed to an Eastern region mayoralty.
2. We are opposed to an Eastern region devolution footprint but favour a
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough county footprint.
3. We believe it is crucial that the Local Enterprise Partnership and Chambers of
Commerce support any devolution deal.
4. We believe an appropriate amount of time should be taken to inform members of the
council and the business community about the proposals before a full public
consultation is undertaken.
5. We believe there is currently insufficient housing and infrastructure investment on
offer to Cambridgeshire.

We believe it is the clear will of Cambridgeshire County Council that these five points should
form the basis of any future negotiation between ourselves and national government.

Yours sincerely,

Councillor Lucy Nethsingha
Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group

Councillor Paul Bullen
Leader of the UKIP Group

Councillor Ashley Walsh
Leader of the Labour Group

Councillor John Hipkin
Leader of the Independent Group

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