Yesterday, Cllr Ben Bradley MP spoke in the debate in the House of Commons on the new Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. This is a bill that was outlined in the Queen's Speech on the 10th May.
The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill is being brought forward to drive forward local growth in areas such as Mansfield, ensuring that everyone across the country can share in the country's success. The Bill seeks to do this by empowering local leaders to regenerate their areas through avenues such as devolution deals, like the one Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire have bid for.
Within his speech, Mr Bradley raised the importance of ensuring that decisions on levelling up and how best to achieve this were made by local leaders. In order to illustrate this point, Mr Bradley raised the distinction between the East Midlands, with no devolved powers or functions, and the West Midlands who have significant devolved powers and funding that comes with this.
Collaboration with local leaders was also a key aspect of Mr Bradley's speech, with the raising of the combined devolution deal that Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire authorities have applied for. Highlighting this proposed deal, Mr Bradley also raised the importance of ensuring any devolution deals that are brought forward are properly supported by the Treasury through adequate funding.
Mr Bradley also urged Ministers that “The Bill’s progress needs to be swift, not least because devolution is the best way to deliver many of the planning reform outcomes we want.”
Commenting, Cllr Ben Bradley MP stated:
'The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation in this Parliament from Mansfield's perspective. As such it was important that I spoke in that debate to ensure both Mansfield's and Nottinghamshire's voices were heard.'
'A key way that the government can help level up the country is to ensure local decision makers, who know their area best, have the powers they need to drive economic and social development. I made sure to raise this point during the debate as too often in the past centralised decision making has led to our region not gaining as much as we could have.'
'I also raised our proposed devolution deal that we have submitted as a county alongside Derbyshire. I made sure to impress on the front bench the importance of sufficient funding for our county deal in order for it to have a real substantive effort on our region.'
'I look forward to the hopefully swift passage of this key bill for Mansfield and further look forward to more news about the powers we will be getting back from government through our county deal.'
You can watch Ben’s speech on his YouTube Channel.
