On Thursday evening Stockport became the first of the ten Greater Manchester councils to fully debate Devo Manc. It was a good debate with lots of contributions and took a little under two hours.

The overwhelming view across all the political parties was in favour of new powers coming down from Westminster and Whitehall with spending to be decided at a Greater Manchester level. The plans would devolve nearly £2 billion of spending including transport, health and social care, housing, business support and a lot more.

There was a good debate on the Mayor for Greater Manchester, and on whether a newly-created directly elected authority would be better than devolving to the Combined Authority.

The need for more and better scrutiny of the Combined Authority by councillors from around Greater Manchester was mentioned. It was suggested that the Stockport model of councillors scrutinising decisions: where the plans come to Scrutiny meetings before the decision is made and the elected politicians come to the meetings to be quizzed – would be a good approach for the Combined Authority and the mayor.

Councillors also spoke about the need to sell the plans, the Combined Authority and the mayor to voters – to get people excited about the proposals.

You can watch the debate here – it starts one hour five minutes in.

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