CUTTING THE COST OF GOVERNMENT AND EMPOWERING PEOPLE

Labour Governments are notorious for leaving Britain with more bureaucracy and red tape than when they came to power. No more is that the case than with tiers of government. Many people in Britain, especially if you live in a county area, are governed by up to six layers of government - Parishes, District and County Councils, the Regional layer, our national Parliament, and the European Parliament. Many people have a feeling of kinship to their parish, district, county or city and our national Parliament.

The Conservatives have long believed though that the regional tier of government is not needed and that decisions should be taken by the people closest to them. The cost of government needs to be reduced as well and David Cameron has proposed reducing the number of MPs in Parliament to reduce expenditure. One other area of cost cutting will be eliminating the regional tier of government and making sure that the powers it has rest with local authorities.

Conservatives propose to:

• abolish all regional planning and housing powers exercised by regional government;

• strip the Regional Development Agencies of their powers over planning; and give local governments the power to establish their own local enterprise partnerships to take over development functions from RDAs;

• abandon plans to regionalise fire control (while providing new measures to enhance resilience in the case of a national emergency); and

• replace the Infrastructure Planning Commission with speeded up public enquiries for infrastructure development or private/hybrid legislation for major projects.

This should reduce cost and bureaucracy while allowing councils to form alliances and relationships around issues that need to be tackled across their borders.

The Conservatives believe that the best government is that which is closest to the people and allows maximum freedom under the law. Our proposals will rein in the power of the state, eliminate unnecessary tiers of government and lower the cost the taxpayer has to bear to run the country and their local community.