Regions of England
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| Regions of England | |
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The region is currently the highest level of Local government in England. The present policy of the UK Government is to increase the power of government at the regional level, as part of the "devolution" that led to elected assemblies in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and part of the concept of regions in the EU. Critics claim that the English regions are largely artificial; and are largely based on those devised by the UK government in the Second World War for coordinating civil defence in England.
As in several other European countries, England's existing regions also double as European Parliament constituencies for the election of Members of the European Parliament.
Some people in the Northern regions, (North East England, North West England, and Yorkshire and the Humber) have expressed interest in having elected assemblies, and the Labour Government plans to hold referenda there in the late 2004. To this end, the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Act 2003 was passed. Elected assemblies are to be introduced in each region if desired by the population of the region in question. If they are introduced, any existing shire county authorities in the region will be abolished, and a pattern of unitary authorities established. It has been claimed that these regions were selected for this was due to their being traditionally Labour-voting areas, and so are likely to return such authorities if they decide to form them.
However, there is also opposition to the introduction of such assemblies. Opponents of regionalism argue that instead of decentralising power from London, the new tier of government will simply take power away from county councils, and that the assemblies will be far weaker than those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
There are nine regions, each with a government office and a few associated institutions, including a Regional Development Agency (RDA), known by different names in different regions, such as ONE North East, Yorkshire Forward, Advantage West Midlands, and EMDA (East Midlands Development Agency). Greater London is a special case because it has an elected mayor and is governed by the London Assembly.
- North East England
- North West England
- Yorkshire and the Humber
- West Midlands
- East Midlands
- East of England
- South West England
- Greater London
- South East England
These are sometimes known as 'Government Office Regions' from an earlier administrative division, though they are also used for elections to the European Parliament. Critics of the regions argue that many of them are unnatural in their boundaries, cutting across traditional links such as those between the "Three Counties" of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, lacking in historic meaning being mostly reliant upon points on the compass for names and unlikely to generate a sense of identity amongst the populations on a region wide basis.
Prior to the establishment of the 'Government Office Regions', there were eight 'Standard Statistical Regions':
- North - current North East plus Cumbria
- North West - current North West less Cumbria
- Yorkshire and Humberside - as now
- West Midlands - as now
- East Midlands - as now
- East Anglia - Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire
- South West - as now
- South East - as now, plus Greater London, Bedfordshire, Essex, and Hertfordshire
See also
Subdivisions of England, List of subnational entities, UK topics
External links
References
- Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Regions_of_England" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_England, used under the GNU Free Documentation License
