The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill got its third and final reading in the House of Commons last night with a government majority of 57. Ayes 321, Noes 264. All six of Cornwall's MPs voted in favour of the measure which will abolish Cornwall's political border with Devon.
Apart from the potential for embarrassing the MPs, does it matter? I think the answer is that potentially, yes it does, and the MPs themselves recognised this in their failed attempts to amend the Bill. The reasons have nothing (or very little) to do with nationalist sentiment but are rooted in hard-nosed economics.
For more than a decade now, Cornwall has been able to draw upon a huge treasury of European economic aid. A pre-condition for securing this aid had been Cornwall's "divorce" from Devon, for statistical purposes, to present a greater contrast between rich and poor parts of the Cornwall and Devon economic areas. As a result, Cornwall's Members of Parliament had been able to make a much more coherent case.
Similarly, Business Secretary Vince Cable has just approved a new Local Enterprise Partnership for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to take over the economic regeneration responsibilities held formerly by the South West Regional Development Agency. The new LEP may well find that in the months and years ahead it is competing for funds with similar organisations in Plymouth and the rest of Devon. Any MPs with a foot each side of the Tamar will consequently find their jobs much more difficult and constituents in both Cornwall and Devon risk losing out.
A final thought on Devonwall, which has consumed far too much of this blog since I first wrote about it on 2nd June - hardly a word has been heard about the thing which was supposed to be really important, the referendum on the Alternative Vote system. Polling day is only six months away.
No comments:
Post a Comment