Disquiet was expressed at County Hall on the Isle of Wight on Tuesday, over a possible transfer of powers from Westminster to the Solent and Hampshire area.
Councillors Warren Drew and Geoff Brodie voiced unease over the prospect of Islanders voting for a mayor, akin to those elected in combined authorities such as West Yorkshire or Greater Manchester.
Devolution, the transfer of powers and funding from national to local government, was included on the agenda of the Corporate Scrutiny Committee meeting.
A council report presented to the committee said the incoming Labour government clearly intended to further devolution across the UK including ‘announcing agreements’ for the Solent and Hampshire area.
The document said:
“The leaders of the four upper tier local authorities (Isle of Wight, Portsmouth, Southampton and Hampshire) have met, with a collective appetite, to explore with government devolved powers across the Solent and Hampshire area.
“An expression of interest has been submitted setting out that there is a willingness to explore further what devolution could mean for the area.
“As part of any devolution arrangement there is scope to negotiate a sizeable 30-year investment fund for the local area as well as having more flexibility, including funding, for a wide range of policy areas.”
Cllr Drew, who represents Ryde South East, said:
“There’s something of a democratic deficit in many locally elected mayors because quite often, as we know, the turnout for local elections is not great.
“They’re then endowed with a huge amount of power that can often be exercised quite partially in relation to where they hail from.”
Cllr Brodie, representative for Pan and Barton, said:
“I have no problem with devolution but I do have a problem with directly elected mayors and I always have had.
“I don’t think this is of any interest to Islanders. I know it’s about strategic issues and ‘we could have an Andy Burnham’ – great if we could have an Andy Burnham.
“But who knows who the directly elected mayor of the West Midlands is? Can anybody name him?”
Chair of the corporate scrutiny committee Cllr Claire Mosdell said:
“Cllr Brodie I completely agree with you but I’ve looked into this and every devolution deal that has now been put forward that does not have an elected mayor is turned down and sent back.
“So I do think this is something that has to be discussed in Full Council because we are all elected by our residents to represent them and I’ve spoken to people in the local pub and in my ward and know what they feel about it.
“I think we need to be really honest with the general public that that is what devolution will look like, is to have an elected mayor.”
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