​This week, Rob Parsons speaks to Jim McMahon, a Northern politician at the heart of Government.
In the Commons this week - before her tax affairs become engulfed in controversy - Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner made the case to MPs about what she described as "the biggest transfer of power in a generation out of Whitehall to our regions and communities" and an end to "the begging bowl, micro-managing culture".
She's talking about Labour’s English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which will give more powers to existing mayors and see two-tier district and county councils replaced with one body.
Why should we care about this legislation tinkering under the bonnet of our democratic system?

This week on the podcast ​R​ob asked ​M​r McMahon, one of Angela Rayner's team of Ministers in charge of Local Government and Devolution, as well as being an MP in Oldham. He's a former leader of Oldham council too so knows all too well the challenges local politicians face.
​Mr McMahon talks about how these changes are fundamental to Labour's mission in government, what he says about worries they will allow power to be hoarded away from communities, and whether he'd force areas like Lancashire to have a metro mayor.

PLUS: Why he's forcing councils like Sheffield to abandon their committee system of government and what he thinks of Reform UK's decision in Nottinghamshire to ban any communications with their local paper.

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