The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
I am pleased to inform the House that the Government have reached devolution agreements with local authorities in the Liverpool city region and in the west midlands. These agreements are another significant step in the Government’s ambition for the northern powerhouse and midlands engine respectively.
Both agreements will give local leaders far-reaching new powers and enable voters in each region to directly elect Mayors in 2017, who will take on new powers over local transport budgets, adult skills funding, and strategic planning.
The deals also include local control over investment funds for the next 30 years, which will help realise the economic potential of each area.
As part of the agreement, the new, directly elected Mayors of the Liverpool city region and west midlands will act as chair of their respective combined authorities and will exercise the following powers and functions devolved from Ministers in central Government:
Responsibility for devolved and consolidated transport budgets, with multi-year settlements to be agreed at the spending review.
Responsibility for franchised bus services, which will support the combined authorities’ delivery of smart and integrated ticketing across the city regions.
Powers over strategic planning.
The Mayors will also have the option, on the basis of support from local business, to raise business rates. Further details will be set out following the spending review through a place-based settlement.
The Liverpool city region combined authority and west midlands combined authority will, working with their Mayors, receive the following powers:
Control of multi-million pound investment allocations over 30 years, to realise the economic potential of their local areas as well as maximise the opportunities from HS2.
Greater control over local skills provision including control over the 19+ adult skills funding from 2018-19.
Joint responsibility with Government to co-design employment support for the harder-to-help claimants.
More effective joint working with UKTI to boost trade and investment.
Develop and implement a devolved approach to the delivery of national business support programmes from 2017.
Liverpool city region’s deal will build on the success of international festival for business 2014 and international festival for business 2016, and Liverpool city region and the Government, and in particular UKTI and the GREAT Britain campaign, will continue engagement to establish international festival for business Liverpool as a vital feature of the international business calendar in 2018 and 2020.
As part of the west midlands devolution deal, the Government will support the combined authority shadow board’s HS2 growth strategy, and will approve the business case for a significant extension of the enterprise zone at Curzon Street.
Local enterprise partnerships have played a key role in the negotiation of these agreements. The Government welcome and support co-operation between businesses and local government, and will work with both areas to ensure that devolution supports both the public and private sectors to deliver strong, sustainable local growth.
These agreements mark the next step in an ongoing process to devolve funding, responsibilities and powers from central Government to the Liverpool city region and west midlands. I look forward to both areas continuing to hold discussions with Government in the future, to build upon today’s agreements.
Copies of both agreements will be placed in the Library of the House.
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