Finishing the Journey: A Constitutional Settlement for the England Brown's Reforms Forgot

In September 1997, as Scotland voted overwhelmingly for a parliament of its own, a quiet asymmetry was written into the British constitution. Power would flow to Edinburgh, Cardiff and eventually Belfast — but England, home to 84 per cent of the population, would remain an administrative convenience, carved into Whitehall fiefdoms and quangos. Gordon Brown, the chief architect of the devolution settlement, always understood this was unfinished business. The rest of the political class preferred to look away.

It is long past time to finish the job.

The Ghost in the Constitutional Machine

Devolution was never meant to be a Scottish settlement alone. It was the opening move of a broader argument: that decisions are made better when they are made closer to the people they affect. Brown's later advocacy for a federal United Kingdom — a Senate of the Nations and Regions, powers dispersed not just to nations but to English cities — flowed from the same conviction.

Yet England today remains governed through a patchwork of half-measures. Metro mayors in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands have demonstrated the appetite for regional voice, but their powers are scraps from the Whitehall table. County councils bid against each other for pots of central money. Communities feel, with justification, that the constitutional journey passed them by.

Six Reforms to Complete the Settlement

First, entrench devolution in statute. English devolution should no longer depend on the goodwill of whichever secretary of state holds the pen. A Devolution Act, guaranteeing powers to combined authorities in perpetuity, would end the charade of endless deal-by-deal negotiation.

Second, give metro mayors real fiscal teeth. Let them retain a share of business rates, borrow against future revenue, and control adult skills and transport budgets. A mayor who cannot raise or redirect a penny cannot be held properly accountable.

Third, establish an English regional bank. Modelled on the Scottish National Investment Bank, it would channel patient capital into the industrial heartlands that levelling-up rhetoric never reached.

Fourth, create a UK-wide stability fund. A formula-based pot, insulated from ministerial whim, would redistribute to struggling regions across all four nations — ending the spectacle of communities competing for photogenic grants.

Fifth, reform the House of Lords into an elected chamber of nations and regions. Brown himself proposed exactly this. An elected second chamber would give England's regions the representation the 1997 settlement denied them.

Sixth, devolve tax powers downward. Income tax varying powers exist in Scotland and, in embryonic form, in Wales. English combined authorities should be able to levy a modest precept for local priorities.

A Union Worth Arguing For

The Union's survival cannot rest on nostalgia or grievance. It rests on demonstrating, in institutional steel, that power in Britain flows outward, not merely upward to Westminster. Brown grasped this in 1997; his critics, in both parties, have spent a quarter of a century proving him right by refusing to act.

Completing devolution is not a concession to nationalism. It is the strongest argument against it — a United Kingdom in which Fife, Fenland and the Forest of Dean all hold real power over their own futures. That was the promise of 1997. Labour should finally keep it.