The UK’s Enablement Acts 2023, Part 2: The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill
Another day, another Bill, another attack on UK citizens by their own government.
The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) (REUL) Bill, covered in part 1 of this series, deals with dangerously deregulating the UK, subverting parliamentary democracy and sowing chaos in our legal system and the wider country. All that remains for today’s Conservative Government to consolidate its Establishment coup, is for it to radically restructure the established systems of power and democratic accountability beyond recognition and to take it beyond the point of no return.
This next line of attack comes in the form of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill (LURB). Part two of this Bill only applies to England, but it will have grave consequences for the entire UK. It will further enable the by-passing of Parliament, dramatically alter the structures of power in England and undermine democracy for the whole of the UK.
While the UK looks set to be broken up into separate countries, notably with each country having their own Freeport(s) installed before the split, England is on course to be fractured into multiple feudal fiefdoms, ruled by regional dictators, benignly referred to as “Mayors” or “Governors”.
Misdirection and manipulation
The LURB is framed and publicly discussed by most MPs as if it is merely providing new planning procedures and incentives to expedite development projects such as social/affordable housing, key infrastructure and commercial developments. However, as with everything this Conservative Government says and does, this is highly misleading.
Bankrupting the nation, council by council
Not only do the new procedures open loopholes for the more profitable commercial developments to be prioritised ahead of social/affordable housing and key infrastructure projects, but they will also prime many Local Authorities for the Bill’s true purpose.
The LURB does introduce a series of measures, including a new infrastructure levy system, for local development projects. The new levy is to be paid to Local Authorities by developers and is based on the final gross development value of the project. This means that larger and more profitable commercial/industrial projects will be prioritised by cash-strapped councils ahead of social/affordable housing and essential infrastructure projects. Worse yet, the new infrastructure levy will not be due to be paid until the completion of the developments and the proposed solution is to allow Local Authorities to borrow against future levy receipts, without knowing their precise value.
Socialised risk, privatised profits
At the 18th sitting of the committee debate for the LURB on the 6th of September 2022, Labour MP Matthew Pennycook stated, “the Minister must surely recognise that all that proposition entails is a transfer of risk and cost from the private to the public sector”. He did not receive a response to this specific point from Conservative MP and momentary Minister of State for Housing, Marcus Jones.
This new system will inevitably lead to many more Local Authorities issuing Section 114 notices (effectively declaring bankruptcy) in the coming months and years as they borrow heavily to invest in development projects. Many of these then may be delayed, scaled back or scrapped entirely before councils ever receive the payments they expected to pay off their debts and the developers can walk away unscathed.
Debt traps and spending cuts
It is important to note that while a council cannot technically go bankrupt, the issuance of a Section 114 notice means the council cannot make any new spending commitments and that such a move would only be made if a council’s chief financial officer believes they cannot meet their current spending commitments. Another option would be for a cash-strapped council to seek ‘capitalisation directions’ from central government, allowing a fire sale of their assets, including social housing and other property, in a desperate attempt to raise funds.
Once a council issues a Section 114 notice, it is obligated to make drastic spending cuts, but it is still required to provide certain legally mandated core services. If the council is unable to balance the books following their fire sale of key assets, then central government can effectively take over and appoint commissioners to run the council. At this stage in the process, a commissioner’s report is likely to be used as the justification for deploying the new powers outlined below.
Nationalised cities and privatised Freeports
Many Local Authorities, including some conveniently within and immediately adjacent to Freeport sites, such as Thurrock (Thames Freeport — Figure 1 A), Kent (across the river from Thames Freeport), Hampshire (Solent Freeport — Figure 1 B) and Liverpool City Region (Liverpool City Region Freeport — Figure 1 C) councils, have issued Section 114 notices or have already had commissioners appointed to take over in recent months. Largely due to years of colossal cuts from the Conservative government alongside phenomenal financial mismanagement and ill-advised investments in dodgy and doomed development projects.
The new levy system will be deliberately manipulated to exacerbate this issue, increasing insolvency among other Local Authorities struggling to stay afloat and priming them for a hostile takeover.
Combined County Authorities (CCAs): Divide, conquer, exploit and entrench
The Bill’s main purpose, hidden behind the smokescreen of streamlining planning and development procedures, is to divide England into new regions, known as Combined County Authorities, CCAs.
The CCAs will be formed from two or more existing councils and will be overseen by regional Mayors, constituent members, non-constituent members and associate members. These CCAs blur who is responsible for unpopular decisions and make it difficult to impossible for voters to hold decision-makers accountable for their actions and choices via the ballot box.
The mechanism provided in Part 2 of the Bill for the establishment of CCAs gives the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (currently, Michael Gove) the power to pass secondary legislation, a backdoor means of passing laws to amend Primary Acts of Parliament without proper scrutiny, to create the CCAs (Figure 2).
The Bill provides a mechanism for the Secretary of State to define any pre-conditions for the appointment of the Mayor and any other constituent, non-constituent or associate members as well as the nominating bodies within the CCA (Figure 3), by means of secondary legislation. This means that political patronage will determine the conditions applying within a CCA and that Parliament will have no say on potentially significant decisions, such as the locations and operations of factories, waste sites and refineries.
This patronage could feasibly include the handpicking of loyal/blackmailed candidates as regional Mayors to act as figureheads for each CCA. It could also be used to ensure that private interests exploiting the area are over-represented as associate members.
Mayors are by default to be granted functions/powers including those of a Police and Crime Commissioner for the area, all fire and rescue functions and the ability to pass regulations relating to these functions, with approval from the Secretary of State for Levelling Up (Figure 4).
The Secretary of State will also be able to pass secondary legislation defining any additional functions and powers that will be exercisable only by the Mayor (Figure 5). Section 27 (2) defines “general function” as anything other than the default functions/powers outlined above.
The implications of this are that powers could be taken away from democratically elected local representatives and awarded to handpicked loyal/blackmailed stooges who will do what they’re told in the vain hope of gaining a Peerage, a kick-back or under the omnipresent fear of leaking kompromat.
The terminology is deliberately vague so this could also be interpreted to include devolving key functions of central government, not just to the CCA but solely to the regional Mayors.
The Secretary of State will also be able to define the powers of the CCA in relation to its constituent Local Authorities (Figure 6), meaning that any function of a Local Authority may become exercisable by the CCA and consequently, solely by the Mayor.
There are also mechanisms within the Bill for the Secretary of State to define the Constitutional arrangements of a CCA, including its functions, membership and even the voting rights of different CCA representatives. This includes giving different weights of votes to different types of members of the CCA (Figure 7).
In this context, executive arrangements of a CCA refers to the leadership structure and the specific responsibilities of individuals within it, while ‘executive bodies’ is another vague term that could be interpreted to include groups operating on behalf of private interests.
It is plainly apparent how the powers proposed in this Bill will be exploited to reinvigorate the robbery of the public purse at the expense of our currently crumbling public services and to fortify the flourishing oligarchy in the UK that the Conservatives have been carefully cultivating.
Carving up council assets, services and revenues
Making provision for the functions of the CCA which are solely the responsibility of an executive (Mayor) and for those that may be discharged by a body other than the CCA, opens up a major new highway for further privatisation of local public services.
An executive body could be established in a CCA that is solely responsible for overseeing housing, schooling, fire and rescue services or social care in the area, while also mostly being comprised of representatives of private companies operating in these sectors. Such bodies could then award contracts for these essential services to be outsourced to the businesses they represent with no means of challenging them.
While seizing revenue streams on multiple fronts may help local monopolies and power blocs turn a fast buck, this will not stimulate the competition or transparency required to avoid industrial stagnation, political corruption and social exclusion. Rather, it will enable and entrench these issues on a new scale.
Exploiting ambiguity and taking stark control
As with the Retained EU Law Bill and many other recent pieces of legislation passed by the Conservative Government, the majority of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill is deliberately vague and is to be clarified by means of future secondary legislation, which will bypass proper parliamentary scrutiny.
As a rule of thumb, any law that is vague should be viewed as carrying the potential to be used in the worst way imaginable, and should therefore be reframed with this possibility in mind.
Slowly but surely, they drew their plans
With the proposed powers outlined above, Local Authorities will be coercively controlled into becoming part of a CCA due to their purposely engineered insolvency or with dubious pledges of future funding. The new CCA could then quickly find itself being run by a manipulated Mayor, executive bodies and legions of associate members representing private interests, with a handful of locally elected councillors remaining to preserve any pretence of democracy.
The handpicked Mayors, executive bodies and associate members can then be granted favourable voting rights, enabling them to outvote any remaining representatives of the people and allowing them to gain full control of all manner of essential local services.
They could even be gifted far greater golden geese, such as regionally devolved healthcare, tax policy, business rates and regulations, legislative jurisdictions or judicial jurisdictions. The language is so vague that nothing is off the table with this Bill and we the people, our public services, national resources and most importantly, power, are all on the menu. Once established, these new structures will have a self-reinforcing grip on power and will likely gain increasingly important devolved powers over time.
The way in which such powers could be exploited is crystalised when viewed through the prism of the kaleidoscopic Freeport plans. It is not difficult to imagine these powers being used to create CCAs within or next to Freeport sites, such as those in Figures 1 A — C, and giving increased voting powers to those representing the private companies operating the sites. Part 3 of the series will explore this in more detail, tying in the impact of the REUL Bill and the wider implications for both the domestic and international plans for Freeports and Charter Cities.
Independence in name only
Although the Bill only directly applies to England, the shrinking role of central government at Westminster will impact all of the UK. Scotland and Wales both have burgeoning independence movements, but they should be worried about this Bill’s implications. Both countries have been seeded with Tory Freeports/proto-Charter Cities ahead of their departure and will likely struggle economically following independence without full control of their key strategic ports.
This will have implications for trade/vital supply routes, national tax revenues, energy security and even defence. The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will make it far more difficult to legally challenge the morphing parasitic Freeports as they push on with their respective power grabs.
Democracy’s death knell
While the perennial privatisation of every exploitable grain of sand progresses, this Bill presents another far greater problem for the peasants of Britain, the definitive execution of our decaying democracy.
The motivations behind this Bill are not merely about money, but rather securing a stranglehold on power and creating new systems that cannot be easily undone.
Once a CCA is fully established, many legally binding contracts will be signed between a CCA, its nominating and executive bodies and private companies. These contracts will be all the harder to revoke once the REUL Bill throws our legal system into chaos and they will act as a safeguard against any early challenges to reverse the carving up of the country.
Once several key functions of central government have been passed into the hands of regional Mayors, who are effectively ruling by decree, we will truly be at the mercy of tyrants. The political landscape of England in 2023 will more closely resemble that of 923, prior to the unification of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms in 927.
Fascism replaced by feudalism, Freeports unchained, a country carved into despotic districts, central government shrunk so that it can finally be “drowned in a bathtub”, and elected officials replaced by Mayors more akin to Monarchs.
One step at a time, Britain is being returned to the Dark Ages.
Cormack Lawson
