The Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Act 2003 (c 10) was an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

. Its core provision was to allow the

Deputy Prime Minister A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president, ...

to make orders for

referendum A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...

s in each of the

Regions of England The regions, formerly known as the government office regions, are the highest tier of sub-national division in England, established in 1994. Between 1994 and 2011, nine regions had officially devolved functions within government. While they no ...

on the question of whether they wish to have an elected regional assembly. If the answer was "yes", this would have been implemented by further legislation; and existing two-tier local government areas (

shire counties A non-metropolitan county, or colloquially, shire county, is a county-level entity in England that is not a metropolitan county. The counties typically have populations of 300,000 to 1.8 million. The term ''shire county'' is, however, an unoff ...

) would have become

unitary authorities A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...

. Three such referendums (the Northern England referendums) were expected in 2004, for the regions of North East and

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

and

Yorkshire and the Humber Yorkshire and the Humber is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. The population in 2011 was 5,284,000 with its largest settlements being Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Hull, and York. It is ...

. There were no immediate plans for any in the other 5 applicable regions (

East of England The East of England is one of the nine official regions of England. This region was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics purposes from 1999. It includes the ceremonial counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire ...

East Midlands The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It comprises the eastern half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It consists of Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Li ...

South East The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

South West The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

Greater London Greater may refer to: *Greatness, the state of being great *Greater than, in inequality (mathematics), inequality *Greater (film), ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film *Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record *Greater (song), "Greate ...

already has the

London Assembly The London Assembly is a 25-member elected body, part of the Greater London Authority, that scrutinises the activities of the Mayor of London and has the power, with a two-thirds super-majority, to amend the Mayor's annual budget and to reject ...

. It contained further consequential provisions, including causing the

Boundary Committee for England The Boundary Committee for England was a statutory committee of the Electoral Commission, an independent body set up by the UK Parliament. The committee's aim was to conduct thorough, consultative and robust reviews of local government areas in Engl ...

to make recommendations about what the pattern of unitary authorities should be; and then if a referendum was successful, the composition of the Assemblies. It was expected that the proposed assemblies would have had a similar level of representation to the

, which has 25 members, 14 of which represent constituencies, the remainder being apportioned on a top-up party list system. Following the overwhelming defeat of the referendum in North East England,

John Prescott John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott (born 31 May 1938) is a British politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and as First Secretary of State from 2001 to 2007. A member of the Labour Party, he w ...

told the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

he would not move orders for the other two referendums within the effective time limit of June 2005 permitted by the Act. The Act was repealed by the

Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The legislation places a duty on local authorities to promote understanding of the functions and democratic arrangements of th ...

References

Halsbury's Statutes ''Halsbury's Statutes of England and Wales'' (commonly referred to as ''Halsbury's Statutes'') provides updated texts of every Public General Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, Measure of the Welsh Assembly, or Church of England Measur ...

, {{UK legislation Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning England United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 2003 2003 in England Referendums in England

See also

References