Regions 'need own MP committees'

Regional Development Agencies set priorities to boost a region's economy

Select committees should be created for England's regions so MPs can check the work of Regional Development Agencies, a Parliamentary committee has said.

"Regular, robust" scrutiny was needed of RDAs around England, the Commons Modernisation Committee added.

Up to 10 MPs would sit on each regional select committee, most of them local.

England's nine regions are the East and West Midlands, North East, North West, East, South East, South West, Yorkshire and the Humber, and London.

Regional Development Agencies had "significant budgets" and a "central role" in co-ordinating the economy and budgets of an area, the Modernisation Committee said.

It was for these reasons that they should be "the chief focus" of the new select committees, it added.

In addition there would be a number of "grand committees", made up of a greater number of MPs, which would have the power to question England's regional ministers.

It recommends that these changes be introduced before the end of the current Parliamentary year, in early December, and then reviewed.