Speeches by McMahon.

“I have been very honest and said that we are alive to what are now fairly routine requests that come in from our mayors and local authorities about what I would say are quite marginal freedoms around fiscal devolution. Also, I would return to say that any Government will want to take taxation in the round. That is the …”

“I would not rule anything out, but the focus of the current project is on rolling out the integrated settlements and more freedoms and flexibilities at a local level. In direct answer to whether there is a significant piece of work on radical fiscal devolution, there is not. That is not to say, though, that we are clos…”

“If we take the view that devolution is an evolution rather than a revolution, although some of the parliamentary conversations definitely feel like it is a revolution at the moment, that might be something for the future. I will say honestly that there is not a piece of work taking place on fiscal devolution that would…”

“That is happening now. Manchester has a voluntary overnight accommodation levy in place with the hoteliers in Manchester city and of course learning will be taken from that. Where there are conversations about fiscal devolution and, if you like, marginal taxes, to take that in the round, they might generate a reasonabl…”

“In a way, it is because we are so underdeveloped from the freedoms and flexibilities even within the current system. There has been a priority about unlocking the current system. To do that for local government, in terms of the number of individual grant schemes, with individual reporting requirements and individual te…”

“That would be entirely in line with the way that local government works. Local government can have independent members. Some of them will have independent chairs. They will be drawn from a range of professionalisms, including accountancy backgrounds. Having the same support in strategic authorities, as there will be, i…”

“I would probably come at that from two aspects. One is to what extent people are involved early enough in the formulation of decisions, rather than at the back end when the decision has been made and you go out for a consultation as a check and balance. That is versus the power that people want to feel in the places wh…”

“Combined authorities have done a good job at trying to, by and large, self-organise different scrutiny models in a way that brings members in from the component local authorities to provide some degree of check and balance. As combined authorities have grown and developed, and received more delegation and authority ind…”

“We were clear in the White Paper and there is a section on London. There is a slight danger in England, because we are such a centralised country, that, if you are not in London, you look to London and say, “We want a London-style housing scheme. We want a London-style transport scheme”. We need to raise our heads a bi…”

“The honest answer is that these are live conversations. There are plenty of people who want to have conversations about it and we want to be open to that. Also, it is legitimate for councils in London to look at councils outside of London, and say that the mayoral combined authority model that is today moving to strate…”

“The local growth plans and the integrated settlements would not be a competitive bidding process, but there is always a process by which we have to cut the cloth to suit. If there is a national allocation of any money—we do this in the local government finance settlement as much as we do with capital or any other type …”

“That is a very fair point. Part of the reason why we are determined to see every mayoral strategic authority with a local growth plan is so that there is an anchor document, if you like. There is an underpinning that makes it into the sum of its parts. Many local authorities have tried their best, whether it was throug…”

“For me, that is tied very strongly into the local government finance settlement, the multi-year settlement and the review that we are consulting on at the moment in terms of relative needs and resources. We are determined to move away from the competitive bidding process of the previous Government, where areas were set…”

“That is a piece of work. We had a webinar yesterday with the LGA and Georgia Gould from the Cabinet Office, where we were talking about public sector reform and the one public estate approach for that. It has to happen, partly because, if we want to improve public services in a way that people can see, feel and value—i…”

“I will let Will come in on the detail of the growth fund and innovation funds.”

“There are a couple of things in there. One is—and we have heard it from a number of areas—I suppose a slight impatience on the 18 months. This is a requirement that, in order to receive the integrated settlement, areas have to have been in existence for 18 months. They cannot have had intervention of any kind or concer…”

“There are two aspects to that. One is reorganisation. Our hope and expectation is that Kent will be part of the reorganisation programme in this round, as part of the statutory invitation process, but that is now separate to the devolution priority programme. Kent and Midway are not part of the priority programme, beca…”

“No, the commonality in the priority programme is that they are all working to a mayoral combined authority. Some of them will require reorganisation to unlock devolution. Some areas, such as Surrey, cannot have devolution because it would create a single combined authority. It would not work and would be against the di…”

“It does not really work like that. Once the statutory invitation goes out, that is the start of the legal process. When we receive an application in from local authorities, they are in the process. By then, there is an in-built assumption that, once they apply, they are in reorganisation as part of that process.”

“On the dates that we are working to, the statutory invitations went out on the 5th of this month. There will be a process by which we will thin out the applications that have come, but we are now in the statutory process. Providing for the fact that local authorities make a legitimate request, so they are authorities t…”