Birmingham’s young professionals back elected mayor
PLANS for an elected mayor for Birmingham have won the broad backing of the city’s young professional community.
Birmingham Future said it believed a mayor with suitable powers would be able to get things done more quickly and efficiently for the good of the city.
Alex Bishop, partner at law firm Shoosmiths and a former chair of the group, said: “This is a really great city and it needs a really great leader. An elected mayor would provide a clear focal point, an identifiable personality to speak up for the city nationally and internationally.”
On the matter of a regional mayor she said: “Internationally, no one’s heard of the West Midlands but plenty of people all across the world could tell you where Birmingham is. We need to lead by example so that, in time, our neighbours will see the benefits of being part of a ‘Greater Birmingham’.”
Former Labour MP for Erdington, Sion Simon, who quit Parliament with an eye to securing his party’s nomination for the mayoral nomination, said: “It will radically transform our ability to get things done. Birmingham has one of the worst unemployment rates of any comparable UK city and yet there’s no structural reason that it has to be like this.
“We need a leader who is accountable. An elected mayor has nowhere to hide. We need someone to help us capture a sense of city pride and build on our strengths. This isn’t about finding just another leader of the council. I believe an elected mayor can make a real difference and that’s why I want the job.”
Cllr Philip Parkin, deputy leader of Birmingham City Council’s Conservative group, said: “I genuinely don’t know whether an elected mayor is a good idea because no one knows what powers the office will hold.
“I don’t think it’s the lack of an elected mayor holding us back, nor is it our ambition or our ability. Our problem is that we have insufficient power to do what we want to do but you don’t need a mayor to give local government more power.”
Chris Game, of the Institute of Local Government Studies at the University of Birmingham, said there were few direct lessons to learn from London because of the two cities’ very different systems of local government and the different legislation defining their mayoralties.
“Local government needs to have local power. Ideally, it might be good to have a more inclusive form of local political management but, if an elected mayor is the only way in which central government will allow Birmingham to take greater control of its own destiny, then let’s try it,” he said.
James Watkins, executive director of Business Voice WM, said elected mayors needed to be introduced “sensitively” if the move was to offer economic benefit.
This was particularly important considering the number of other political structures coming in – for example, Local Enterprise Partnerships, Technology and Innovation Centres and Growth Hubs.
“Business will be working with Ministers and others to ensure that elected mayors are introduced sensitively and sensibly in order to boost job creation, economic and business growth,” he said.
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