Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260
- 279)
TUESDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2004
MR RICHARD
ALLAN, MR
IAN SCOTTER,
MR JONATHAN
BLACKIE AND
MR ANDREW
CAMPBELL
Q260 Mr Clelland: Have you made any
estimate of what the transitional costs would be to move to the
new structure of regional governance?
Mr Blackie: There are estimates
in the White Paper and the Bill.
Q261 Mr Clelland: I was specifically
thinking about the North East, but that applies to all regions?
Mr Allan: The average figure for
the set-up cost that we have given is about £30 million.
That would be the cost of the setting up of arrangements and moving
from here to there, and then the sort of annual running cost comes
to about £24 million in the North East and more for assemblies
in a larger region.
Q262 Mr Clelland: Have you any idea:
how does that compare with the current costs already involved
in running the non-elected assemblies and that whole system? What
is the overall net cost, for instance?
Mr Allan: I cannot speak for the
costs of the existing assemblies, which vary considerably in their
size and are not directly funded by government except for certain
purposes, but we reckon that about five million per annum out
of the £24 million per annum that I have mentioned would
be the cost of running other bodies, which would be transferred
and therefore netted off the figures that I have given.
Q263 Mr Clelland: So the 24 is gross
of that?
Mr Allan: Yes.
Q264 Chairman: If we were kind, we
could call the Bill "work in progress". Have people
been working very hard since it was published on the missing clauses?
Mr Allan: The Bill is, I think,
a very considerable piece of work and I think we view it a nearly
complete piece of work, but there are some bits to complete which
were identified in the policy statement and, yes, people are working
to have them ready to introduce if that is what the Government
decides later in the year.
Q265 Chairman: Cynically, I would
have thought no more work would have been done at this stage,
we would simply wait until we knew the results of the referendum
and then some people are either going on holiday or are going
to be on substantial over-time. Is that too cynical a view?
Mr Allan: We are continuing to
work so as to be ready whatever the result, Chairman.
Q266 Chairman: So when do you think
the missing clauses could be published?
Mr Allan: The Government is not
planning to publish any more until it is introduced as a complete
Bill.
Q267 Chairman: So some of the Bill
people will have had almost six months to scrutinise, but the
extra clauses, there will be a relatively short period between
their application and the second reading in the Committee?
Mr Allan: I guess that is true,
Chairman, though the Government has made its policy intentions
clear on those areas in the policy document.
Q268 Chairman: But part of the deal
with Parliament has been that there has been pre-legislation scrutiny
and then you can have a timetable to get the Bill through in a
relatively short period of time, but a significant part of the
Bill is not going to be subject to pre-legislation scrutiny?
Mr Allan: I should say that the
Government has published the Bill in order to inform people of
the main functions of the assembly before—
Q269 Chairman: I understand providing
information for people in the North East, but there is also a
question of providing information for Parliament to scrutinise
the legislation, is there not?
Mr Allan: Yes, I understand that
point.
Q270 Chairman: Parliament is likely
on those clauses to be short-changed in terms of the amount of
time that it will have?
Mr Allan: It will obviously have
less time, as you say, Chairman.
Q271 Chairman: If there was an outstanding
vote in favour, is there some prospect that those departments
who have refused to play ball with this scheme for devolution
might be persuaded to start playing ball?
Mr Allan: All government departments
have been working very well with us, Chairman.
Q272 Chairman: So you think that
sport and culture have made a significant contribution to devolution!
Mr Allan: I think what is laid
out in the policy paper and in the draft Bill does represent quite
an advance on what was in the White Paper two years ago.
Q273 Sir Paul Beresford: Can I take
it from your answer four back, when you said that the draft Bill
contains the functions, that there will be no more functions?
That is essentially what the Chairman is asking.
Mr Allan: Yes, there are no plans
to add anything further beyond what we see here.
Q274 Chairman: So we have got the
Bill, it is put forward, assuming there is a "yes" vote,
to Parliament and it gets into committee. What about the regulations,
because a considerable amount of the draft Bill is going to be
done by regulations? Has anyone done any work on the regulations?
Mr Allan: Work is being done on
certainly some of the draft regulations. Ministers frequently
want to publish drafts of regulations around the time that clauses
are considered in committee and I would expect Nick Raynsford
would want to do that sort of thing this time.
Q275 Chairman: If we are doing pre-legislation
scrutiny is it not possible for us to see copies of those draft
regulations?
Mr Allan: Those are not available
now. We are producing those with a view to having them ready at
a later stage.
Q276 Chairman: When?
Mr Allan: We shall be gearing
ourselves to the committee timetable for the Bill, I think.
Q277 Chairman: So you hope to have
the draft regulations out for the start of the Bill, but not any
earlier, so that this committee or anyone else can scrutinise
them before the Bill?
Mr Allan: I would not say the
start of the Bill, Chairman. Again, this would be for the minister
in charge of the bill to decide.
Q278 Chairman: But he must have given
you some encouragement. It is not much good him deciding that
they will be published tomorrow if you have not done the work.
When will you have completed the work?
Mr Allan: Our experience is that
ministers usually want to be able to point to drafts when they
are taking that particular part of the Bill through committee.
Q279 Mr Betts: It will be true to
say that even in Yorkshire (where I come from) there is not an
immediate ground-swell of public support or, indeed, interest
in regional assemblies. We will get there eventually. Probably
you would agree that one of the ways they can be made more relevant
to people in their daily lives is through their local elected
member of the assembly. How is that going to be possible when
we are talking about constituencies three times the size of the
Westminster constituency?
Mr Allan: The Government has always
intended that the elected assemblies should be small streamlined
bodies, as you know, which means that the constituencies are going
to be relatively large, but it will still be the case that roughly
two-thirds of the members of the assembly will be members of a
specific constituency.
| 
