Labour and its local difficulty

Indeed, the Labour leader has endorsed the call by his local government spokesman, Leeds MP Hilary Benn, for a “new English deal” to address the devolution deficit resulting from the Scots and Welsh gaining their own administrations.

The road to decisive devolution, however, is paved with good intentions, many of which never attain reality. The coalition Government, after all, has found it hard enough to live up to Lord Heseltine’s plans for depriving Whitehall of spending powers and passing them to local decision-makers. How can we be sure that Labour would be any more successful?

The omens, after all, are not good. A strong, centralised power base has traditionally been a feature of Labour governments and the few glimpses of policy which Mr Miliband has so far offered do not suggest any departure from this.

A 50 per cent tax rate and the desire to govern by issuing edicts to power companies, banks and construction firms do not give the impression of a leader willing to allow organisations to make their own decisions. On the contrary, they suggest that Labour still believes that the man in Whitehall knows best.

One way in which Mr Miliband could demonstrate his support for the regions, however, is to be far less equivocal over high-speed rail. Indeed, with the cities of the North now building HS2 into their regeneration plans, Labour will be left behind unless it makes its mind up on this now. And if Mr Miliband wants to show a clear commitment to Yorkshire, there could be no simpler way to do so.

Public support for fracking essential

THE objections to the Government’s drive for shale gas expressed by Caroline Flint would, of course, carry more weight if her own party had not spent 18 years in power avoiding decisions over Britain’s long-term energy needs.

As it is, the intervention by the Don Valley MP and Shadow Energy Secretary offers no reassurance that Labour has solved its own problems on this issue or that it has any credible plan for keeping Britain’s lights on. It does, however, pose serious questions for the coalition’s own energy policy.

David Cameron may have made up his mind that fracking for shale gas is the best way forward if Britain is to provide a relatively cheap, home-grown energy source that will boost domestic power reserves. But all the evidence suggests that the public is a long way from sharing the Prime Minister’s certainty.

Mr Cameron may believe that increased money from business rates and a portion of companies’ revenue are a fair way for communities to share in the benefits of

shale gas, but because

the Government has

failed to allay the very reasonable concerns over fracking’s effect on the environment, this plan is perceived as little more than a bribe to silence local objections.

It is also true, as Ms Flint points out, that the Government is pushing shale gas while continuing to dither on other energy projects, such as carbon capture, in which this region has a huge stake.

It is for these reasons that fracking has become the subject of the latest Yorkshire Post Big Debate, a discussion in which Ministers need to participate fully if public support is to be earned and not taken for granted.

No end in sight to NHS rationing

IT IS deeply ironic that, as the main political parties desperately pay lip service to the idea of devolving decision-making to the lowest possible level, the NHS remains wedded to arcane processes, decided on high at national level, which leave the minimum amount of room for flexibility in response to individual cases or changed circumstances.

A prime example is Nice, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which continues to make life-or-death decisions over patients’ access to medicines.

One of its latest decisions, that men in England should not qualify for the prostate-cancer drug, enzalutamide – shown to improve survival rates by almost 30 per cent in men who have not yet undergone chemotherapy – has angered the Yorkshire journalist and prostate-cancer sufferer, Sir Michael Parkinson, who says that this illogical decision should fuel demands for better diagnosis, better treatment and better education about men’s rights.

In its defence, Nice protests that it, too, is deprived of any flexibility and can only comply with restrictions imposed by even higher authorities, namely the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and the European Medicines Agency. Yet, as Sir Michael points out, the drug is available in Scotland without the same restrictions, a situation which only emphasises the absurdity of the present system.

However, the reality is that, as long as the NHS remains tied to its present funding arrangements, which make the rationing of drugs inevitable, and as long as politicians shy away from radical change, this system will continue, Sir Michael’s ideas for more responsive diagnosis and treatment will remain vague aspirations and patients will continue to have life-extending drugs permitted or denied according to the whims of remote and faceless organisations.