- guardian.co.uk, Thursday January 6 2005 12.15 GMT
The deputy prime minister, John Prescott's, dream of regional devolution was thwarted by the resistance of his cabinet colleagues to the idea, a committee of MPs has concluded.
The plan for directly elected regional assemblies was dropped in November after 78% of voters rejected the idea in a referendum in north-east.
In a critical report published yesterday, a Labour dominated select committee said voters were unconvinced because of the lack of powers proposed for the assemblies.
The Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister said that during Whitehall "horse trading" Mr Prescott failed to convince other departments to surrender any of their powers to the initiative.
It said: "Not all government departments had 'played ball'. The ODPM and to a lesser extent the Department for Trade and Industry were the only government departments prepared to devolve powers."
In a report into the draft regional assemblies bill, the committee explained: "The draft bill was the outcome of a very uneven, ODPM-inspired process of 'horse trading' with other government departments rather than a concerted government-wide attempt to define, in principle, what elected regional assemblies should do."
It added: "The fact that limited powers and resources that were to be devolved under the draft legislation were mainly to come from the ODPM, suggested that other departments were not signed up to the proposals."
The committee said that if the policy was ever revived, the government would need to devolve more power. "This would provide greater clarity, and could also fire the imagination of the general public and potential assembly candidates," it said.
It also criticised Mr Prescott's department for failing to fully cost the proposal. "We find it odd that the government had done so little detailed planning of the costs and benefits," it said.
A spokeswoman for Mr Prescott's office said it would study the report.
She said: "We accept the democratic decision in the north-east and the government is not proceeding with the regional assemblies bill."
