It looked very close for a while, but the people of Scotland have now spoken. The vote was clear and they chose to keep our country of four nations together.

All three UK parties made clear commitments during the referendum campaign to give the Scottish Parliament more powers; this promise must be honoured. The government is now putting together detailed proposals for Scotland to decide for itself in more areas of taxation, spending and welfare.

Just as Scotland will have more power over its affairs, England - as well as the devolved administrations of Wales and Northern Ireland - must also have a bigger say over theirs. There must be fair arrangement for the Union and I am pleased that the Prime Minister has committed to making this happen.

I fully support more powers being devolved to local areas in England but I would be very wary of creating ‘city regions’. In this area, Birmingham would be the centre and I worry that if Birmingham is given more power, Worcestershire and other counties on the outskirts would suffer. As the urban core with a much bigger population and more elected representatives, Birmingham would inevitably dominate Worcestershire. After all they’re already trying to push even more new houses on us. We could end up having less power over local decisions, not more.

For local people to get the most from devolution, I think more power should be given to existing local authorities. Worcestershire County Council and the districts should be given additional decision making powers to make the right choices for the local area.

It’s absurd that Eric Pickles in Westminster seeks to tell councils when and how often they should be doing rubbish collections for example. Surely this – and much bigger issues too- should be decided by local people. National politicians certainly don’t always know what’s best for Worcestershire.

Our local councillors already do a lot for our area but with more responsibility and powers, local council elections would become even more important. We would have more directly accountably representatives deciding really important local issues – but in Worcestershire, not Birmingham.

Things are moving quickly and draft legislation on the new Scottish powers should be ready in January 2015, but it is essential that we sort out the English question too. We need to make sure the right powers are devolved to the right people. I would really welcome your views.