The Attempted Balkanisation of England Revisited

The following is an SNP press release from 12 January 1995:

Labour are miscalculating in seeking to impose assemblies throughout England, merely to lend cover to their Scottish devolution plans. Labour's only response to the anomalies inherent in devolution is to issue parrot cries about creating regional assemblies in England. In other words, Labour are proposing assemblies for regions whose names sound like contenders in the 'Come Dancing' television programme, merely as a means of disguising some of the inadequacies of their Scottish devolution plans!

It's a shame that we didn't have Scottish and Welsh nationalists in power in 2001 when the UK Government was hatching its plans to regionalise England. I remember well the odious Rhodri Morgan campaigning enthusiastically alongside the even more odious John Prescott in the North East. This was back in the day when serious political commentators referred, only half-jokingly, to John Prescott as the First Minister of England on account of the swingeing undemocratic powers over England that the fat Welsh buffoon had stolen away to the ODPM. My new Freedom of Information request is an attempt to shed some light on exactly what support for the balkanisation of England was offered by our partners in the United Kingdom, and what support if any John Prescott requested.

Dear Ministry of Justice,

I would like to make a request under Freedom of Information to see all the minutes of the 2nd Joint Ministerial Committee meeting during which the Government’s White Paper on English Regional governance was discussed.

The devolved administrations expressed their support for devolved regional government in England and offered to assist the process based on their experience of devolution to date.

However, no representatives of England were present at this meeting. Attending were representatives of the UK Government along with representatives from the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish administrations, as follows:

UK Government
Rt Hon Tony Blair MP, Prime Minister
Rt Hon John Prescott MP, Deputy Prime Minister
Rt Hon Paul Murphy MP, Secretary of State for Wales
Rt Hon Helen Liddell MP, Secretary of State for Scotland
Rt Hon Dr John Reid MP, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

National Assembly for Wales
Rt Hon Rhodri Morgan AM, First Minister
Jenny Randerson AM, Acting Deputy First Minister

Scottish Executive
Rt Hon Henry McLeish MSP, First Minister
Rt Hon Jim Wallace QC MSP, Deputy First Minister

Northern Ireland Executive Committee
Sir Reg Empey MLA, Acting First Minister
Mark Durkan MLA, Minister of Finance and Personnel

I understand that the meeting took place on 30th October 2001.

Yours faithfully,

Gareth Young

I'm reasonably sure that this request will be refused, they wouldn't want to 'prejudice the UK government's current dealings' with the devolved administrations.