WORKING LUNCH: JOHN PRESCOTT
John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, wants to assure business that regional assemblies will provide an accountable stategic steer for the regions.
John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, wants to assure business
that regional assemblies will provide an accountable strategic steer for the regions. Michael Taylor broke bread with him
When it comes to profiling someone for a media outlet, you can only truly get the measure of someone when you've looked into their eyes as they eat their food.
John Prescott is one of those politicians that most people have an opinion about. Usually negative. One of the most widely derided politicians of our time, he's seen as an unreconstructed socialist in new Labour clothing by many business people, who often mistrust the former ship steward and trade union activist.
Watching him grab a bread roll off the side plate of a less bread friendly journalist, in order to mop up the gravy from his own plate, you get the sense he doesn't really give a great deal of thought to what people think of him or care much for airs and graces.
If anyone symbolises the shift from old to new Labour, it's Prescott. He enjoys the rumble of political debate and is passionate in defending his position, sticking up for himself with good humour. "I don't have two jags and I don't have two houses. I have one car and one house. In Hull," he insists.
And yet no matter how many times you've seen him on television, the deputy prime minister still has that capacity to surprise.
After the great debate on regional government, organised by the Manchester Evening News and sponsored by Granada and the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Prescott sat down to dinner with a select group of journalists from the region. He said he thought the debate had got off to "a flying start".
But who won?
"Well I did, most definitely," he says, cracking a smile just after everyone else and testing whether the inquirer could grasp the difference between his well-known pugilistic and abrasive debating style and a distinctive sense of humour. The immediate headlines were grabbed by Prescott's spat with Graham Stringer, MP for Manchester Blackley, and a No campaigner, where he claimed the former council leader was "wrong" about regional funding.
In the company of media people he is open, slightly more articulate than he is on a public stage and certainly more given to listening than he and anyone else in the government is probably given credit for. He also has a much more detailed and forensic understanding of a wide range of regional issues - the fire service in Scotland, the policing of Cumbria and planning guidance for the North West.
But the core point Prescott was in town to ram home is that the northern regions lose out to the South East and that the case for devolution must be linked to a reform of the current status quo.
"My position - and indeed the government's position - is that we believe elected regional assemblies will improve the quality of life in our regions. Our starting point is that things are not acceptable as they stand," he says.
He believes that the number of quangos dominate the delivery of the government's strategy.
"Regional policy making is dominated by a raft of regional strategies - 11 at the last count. The regions are governed through a series of partnerships - in each region there are roughly 50 regional partnerships, 20 sub-regional partnerships and 70 local partnerships. And there are numerous quangos - about 180 in the three northern regions - with more than 3,000 board members.
"The government recognises the regional dimension - as we see for example with the regional offices staffed by civil servants. But there is no system of democratic accountability at regional level. And the implications of that are bad news for the regions," he says.
What he and the government appear less clear on, however, is whether there will be a concerted effort to reduce the quangos in any number or whether they will just be made more accountable.
"This government believes that decisions are best taken at the right level," says Prescott. "That's why we have a programme to cut red tape for local government and give the best local authorities the freedom to take their own decisions without interference from Whitehall," he says.
"That's why we have established the regional development agencies and strengthened the regional government offices to allow decisions to be taken closer to the people who are affected by them. This government also believes in democratic accountability - giving people of the north an opportunity to vote in these referendums is a clear example of that.
"At present there is a regional dimension to a lot of what government does. But it is regional government by quango. The civil servants in Whitehall select the candidates for the boards of quangos. Ministers in Whitehall make the appointments. Quangos are not accountable to the people of the region and often do not even live in the region. But they make decisions about your money - decisions that affect your lives and your prosperity - but with little overall co-ordination based on any sense of regional priority. To my mind that is not acceptable," he says.
Prescott has also gone some way to address the concerns of business. He uses the language of strategic delivery, something businesses understand - though possibly that argument won't go down as well on the council estates and in the shire suburbs, a fact he says he fully understands.
"The CBI wants reassurance that assemblies will be good for business and good for regional economic development. I believe the future economic development of the north is safer in the hands of the people of the regions than civil servants in Whitehall," he says.
The official Yes campaign represented at the January debate has an impressive business pedigree - especially with John McGuire, the regional chairman of the CBI on the panel - but less of the bruising political edge of the No mob. Sir David Trippier, former Conservative minister and patron saint of the great and the good of the region, was in fine fighting form, criticising the promises of "motherhood and apple pie" on offer by the Yes campaign. He also dug out potentially damaging evidence of mixed messages from the government regeneration minister Jeff Rooker about how much power an assembly would have. It's a sign of things to come.
"The debate has got off to a flying start. When the process starts and the legislation is passed to fund the Yes and No campaigns and the party machines swing into action, we will hopefully have dealt with a lot of the local concerns as well," he says.
And with that, a flurry round the room, a quick shake of the hand and a nervous smile, he leaves, taking his entourage with him. However, we will, he assures us, be seeing a great deal more of him in the coming weeks and months
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