Decentralisation is key to social change, says Clegg
Nick Clegg has warned that ‘excessive centralisation’ is hampering social progress in the UK and called for a radical decentralisation of both power and finance.
Speaking at the Core Cities summit this week, the Liberal Democrat leader called for constitutional and tax changes to allow local areas to regain power.
A ‘general power of competence’ needs to be enshrined in law, he said, referring to Tories devolution proposals to give councils the powers to do what they like. Clegg went further than Tory proposals however, saying that constitutional change needs to be matched with a radical decentralisation of taxes.
He called for the localisation of business rates and for the current council tax system to be scrapped.
He cited the criminal justice system as one sector ‘blighted by centralisation and the tyranny of top-down populism from Whitehall’.
And calling for a reinvention of our banking system he called on delegates to mobilise every possible idea and resource to ‘free ourselves from the over-dependence on capital from the City of London’.
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