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Former Tory Treasury minister calls for ‘true devolution’ to improve Covid response
Former Tory Treasury minister Lord O’Neill called for “true devolution” to improve the coronavirus response and for a “tailored” version of the furlough scheme.
The crossbench peer, who is a vice-chair of the Northern Powerhouse group, said local leaders would run better test and trace systems.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “That mess clearly demonstrates the needs for true devolution of decision making. I’m certainly with those who believe if you gave that kind of power to local areas they would almost definitely have done a much better job than central Government did.”
And he said fresh financial support is needed amid the prospect of greater restrictions on Covid-19 hotspots, which currently centre largely in northern England.
“Some kind of tailored specific version of furlough is almost definitely something that’s going to have to be introduced and maybe additional forms of support schemes linked to the general loan programme,” he said.
“I certainly think they have to consider, if they want compliance in this difficult phase we’re going through, because it’s all been going on for so long, they need to obviously have incentives to abide by whatever new rule they set and they need to be fair.”
