Background
8.The White Paper set out the Government’s policy to enable elected regional assemblies to be established in regions (outside London) where the inhabitants of a region vote for one in a referendum. The decision on where a referendum will be held will be largely based on whether the Secretary of State considers that there is sufficient public interest in a region in holding one. So it may be that referendums on the establishment of a regional assembly are not held in all eight regions at one time. Indeed, it may be that in the first instance only one, two or three are held. The Act (additionally to what was proposed in the White Paper) further requires separate referendums to be held, in areas with two tiers of local government, about options for the reorganisation of local government into a single tier in the event of an elected assembly being established.
9.The White Paper proposed that, before a referendum on an elected assembly is to be held in a region, the Boundary Committee must first conduct a review of local government in that region. In areas that currently have a county council and district councils, a regional assembly would add a third tier of elected government below the national level, increasing the layers of government.
10.Under the Act, the Boundary Committee is required to review local government in a region before the holding of an assembly referendum there. However, in addition to what was set out in the White Paper on local government reviews, the Boundary Committee is to recommend at least two options for a single tier of local government in those parts of the region that currently have two tiers.
11.Between 1974 and 1986 a two-tier system of local government operated throughout the United Kingdom. Under a two-tier system, county councils are responsible for social services, strategic planning, education, refuse disposal, traffic, highways, libraries, fire and consumer protection. District councils are responsible for local planning, housing, leisure services and parks, markets and fairs, cemeteries and crematoria, tourism, electoral registration, environmental health and refuse collection.
12.In 1986, the Greater London Council and the six metropolitan county councils were abolished. Since then the London boroughs (in the capital) and metropolitan districts (in the six major conurbations of Tyne & Wear, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and the West Midlands) have formed a unitary tier of local government.
13.In the early 1990s, the Local Government Commission for England looked at the case for replacing the two-tier structure of local government with a unitary structure in the rest of England. As a result, a mixed system was established whereby some urban areas moved away from the two-tier system to a unitary structure, with one body responsible for all the local government functions previously carried out by district and county councils; other areas remained under the two-tier system. Around the same time, following public consultation in Scotland and an independent review in Wales, a unitary system was introduced in those nations.
Other relevant legislation
14.The Local Government Act 1992 (“the 1992 Act”) and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (“the PPER Act”) are both relevant for the purposes of this Act and this Act should be read alongside them.
15.The 1992 Act established the Local Government Commission for England to carry out reviews of local government structure, boundaries and electoral areas in England and to recommend changes, when so directed by the Secretary of State. In April 2002 these functions of the Local Government Commission for England were transferred, with some modifications, to the Electoral Commission by the Local Government Commission for England (Transfer of Functions) Order 2001 (SI 2001/3962). A number of the Secretary of State’s powers were also transferred to the Electoral Commission, including the responsibility for initiating electoral reviews. Structural, boundary and electoral reviews are now undertaken by the Boundary Committee under direction by the Electoral Commission. Many of the provisions in the 1992 Act are relevant to local government reviews by the Boundary Committee under this Act.
16.The PPER Act established the Electoral Commission (as well as the Boundary Committee). Among other things, the PPER Act sets out the legal framework within which national and regional referendums will be held in future (see Part 7 of that Act). These provisions apply to assembly referendums (and to local government referendums to the extent that they are applied by an order under section 2(9) of this Act). The key provisions as regards assembly referendums are:
the Electoral Commission is required to publish a statement of its views as to the intelligibility of the referendum question (section 104(2)) (the Commission commented under this provision on the wording of the assembly referendum question and preamble on 25 November 2002, and, in addition on 16 April 2003);
the Commission is responsible for appointing the Chief Counting Officer for a referendum, who then appoints counting officers for local authority areas in the region (section 128). These officers are responsible for conducting a referendum;
‘permitted participants’ (political parties, campaign groups and other similar bodies) in a referendum must be registered with the Electoral Commission. The Commission is able to decide to designate a group to represent the ‘yes’ campaign and a group to represent the ‘no’ campaign at any referendum. If it does so, these groups will be entitled to financial support and other assistance (such as the distribution of a ‘referendum address’ free of charge and the use of rooms free of charge for public meetings) (see sections 108 to 110 and Schedule 12);
the Secretary of State may, after consulting the Electoral Commission, make an order capping the amount that a permitted participant can spend (see section 118 and paragraph 2 of Schedule 14);
expenditure by other bodies and individuals at a referendum is also regulated (see Chapter II of Part 7);
there are statutory stages in the run-up to a referendum vote, including a period for permitted participants to register with the Commission;
there are restrictions on the promotional material which central and local government can issue in the 28-day period before the referendum date (see section 125).
17.The eight English regions (outside London) to which this Act applies are those specified in Schedule 1 to the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998 (“the RDA Act”). They are the North West, North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands, East of England, West Midlands, South East and South West. The Government Offices for the regions (created in 1994) and other parts of central government also operate to these boundaries.
Regional chambers
18.Regional chambers (designated under section 8(1) of the RDA Act) contribute to the regional economic strategies produced by Regional Development Agencies and scrutinise their delivery. In most regions they also advise the Secretary of State on the content of regional planning guidance prepared by him under section 31(6) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The intention of Ministers, as stated in the
White Paper, is that all eight regional chambers should carry out this role, in the absence of an elected regional assembly. Where an elected regional assembly is established, the assembly will carry out this function. A new power is provided so that the Government can make arrangements for funding, amongst other things, the regional planning activities of the chambers.
