Devon and Torbay Combined County Authority Regulations 2024
(3 days, 17 hours ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage
That the Grand Committee do consider the Devon and Torbay Combined County Authority Regulations 2024.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, I shall also speak to the Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority Order, the Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority Regulations and the Lancashire Combined County Authority Regulations.
Regulations were laid before Parliament on 26 November 2024 for Lancashire, as well as for Devon and Torbay. The Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority Order was laid on 4 December and the Greater Lincolnshire regulations on 11 December. The other place debated these instruments on 21 January 2025. Knowing how much noble Lords appreciate brevity, I hope they agree—while recognising that combined authorities and combined county authorities are distinct legal bodies with different types of enabling statutory instruments—with me simply using “combined authorities”, unless there is a reason to be specific, over the course of our debate. I hope that that is okay with everybody.
In December 2024, the Government published the English devolution White Paper. At its core, the White Paper sets out how the Government will widen and deepen devolution across England as part of our central mission to drive economic growth and improve living standards. These instruments deliver on that ambition and are significant steps in the devolution journeys for these four areas. The instruments provide for the implementation of the devolution agreements confirmed on 19 September 2024 between the Government and the upper-tier councils in each of the areas concerned. On 18 November 2024, all the respective constituent councils consented to the making of these instruments.
The three sets of combined county authority regulations will be made, if Parliament approves, under the enabling provision in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. If approved, the combined authority order will be made under the enabling provision in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. The combined authorities will be established on the day after the day on which the instruments are made.
The Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority and the Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority have chosen to adopt a mayor for their combined authorities, with the inaugural elections to take place on 1 May 2025. The elected mayors will take up office on 6 May with a four-year term. The instruments make provision for the governance arrangements of the combined authorities. In each case, the constituent councils nominate one or more of their members to form the combined authority, alongside the elected mayor where a mayor is being adopted. Each place has specific arrangements, enabled by either the 2023 Act or the 2009 Act, as set out in these establishing instruments.
For the three combined county authorities, district councils will play a key role in ensuring the success of devolution in these areas. District representation and input to the combined county authorities is determined locally within the framework provided by the 2023 Act. The instruments confer public authority and local authority functions on the respective combined authorities, as agreed in their devolution agreements and set out in each area’s proposals.
Alongside the regulations, we have laid reports under Section 20(6) of the 2023 Act and, for the order, Section 105B of the 2009 Act providing details about the public authority functions being devolved to the combined authorities. These functions include Homes England’s concurrent regeneration functions and powers over transport, as well as mayoral development corporation functions for the mayoral combined authorities.
The agreements include the devolution of certain education and skills functions, together with the adult skills fund. The Government will devolve the adult skills fund to the combined authorities from the 2026-27 academic year. The Department for Education will work with the combined authorities to support their preparations and ensure that they meet the necessary readiness criteria; it will legislate in due course when the Secretary of State for Education is assured that the combined authorities are operationally ready and is satisfied that the required statutory tests have been met in each area.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I remind the Committee of my relevant interests as a councillor on Kirklees Council in West Yorkshire and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
These four statutory instruments are politically and historically interesting. First, they recreate in whole or in part the historic counties of Devon, Lancashire, Lincolnshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire. That is a positive change. It is another reversal of Thatcherite policy, which, in this instance, abolished county councils. Strategic planning and provision of such key local services as public transport, housing and economic development can be much better made across a larger geography. That change is therefore welcome. However, I am not letting the Minister off the hook that easily. I have a number of questions applicable to each of the relevant instruments.
First, on governance, can the Minister confirm that meetings of either the mayoral or the combined county authorities will be held in public and that scrutiny committees are a requirement, with powers for pre-decision scrutiny and to call any decision that is challenged under the relevant procedural rules?
The Devon and Torbay Combined County Authority combines two very unequal—in both population and geography—partners. Can the Minister say whether that disparity has been considered and whether any issues have been raised in the wider county on this point in the consultation, the details of which I obviously have not seen? I ask this because there will be inequality of representation on the authority from these very unequal parts, and I wonder whether that will result in a bit of friction when it comes to making difficult decisions.
I note at this point that, because of the efforts made during the passage of the then levelling-up Bill by the Minister, her team and me, district councils will have representation on the combined authorities by law. That was a very important change to the Bill.
I move on to the Hull and East Riding Mayoral Combined Authority. There will be a mayor from May this year; we will see how that pans out. I recognise the appeal to the Government of having a single person elected to lead a combined authority. However, I and my colleagues are not convinced that, from the residents’ standpoint, this is a positive move. Mayors will be tolerated—this is my experience; I live in a mayoral authority—while there is no mayoral precept and while they are basically determining the details of delegated powers and funding from government. However, when either of those things changes—if there is a mayoral precept of a considerable amount or when there are difficult decisions to be made on funding allocation, which I anticipate will come with bus franchising—I anticipate greater concern from residents that their voice is not being heard.
For instance, in the Hull and East Riding Mayoral Combined Authority area, which I know better, I can easily see that, with the rural parts of East Riding and the very urban area of Hull City Council, it could be difficult to make decisions on allocating funding under the bus franchising legislation, which I hope will be passed. Trouble is coming down the track, I think.
The Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority recreates the historic county of Lincolnshire, which is positive. It combines the seven district councils of the current county council, plus the two unitaries of North Lincs and North East Lincs. The issue I want to raise concerns transport funding. In this statutory instrument, the constituent authorities remain the highways authorities but central funding goes directly to the mayor, who then has the responsibility of cascading the funding to each of the three existing highways authorities. Can the Minister describe how fair allocation can be assured and whether using this mechanism will add to bureaucracy by adding yet another layer of governance?
The Lancashire Combined County Authority will, as we know, consist of the existing county council, the unitaries of Blackpool and Blackburn and Darwen, plus the 12 existing district councils of the current county council. We have had the devolution White Paper. If its proposals are accepted—I hope that there will be some challenge to them—this will result in the demise of district councils. For Lancashire and Lincolnshire, this would result in another wholesale local government reorganisation within a short period, with the added confusion that accompanies such structural change. Those of us who are involved understand what might happen; residents will not. Have the Government considered these two separate reorganisations and how they will be managed without causing confusion and additional costs?
As I said at the outset, this is the right move for strategic decision-making. However, I look forward to the answers to my queries from the Minister.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s exposition of these SIs. I completely understand why we are moving in this direction: greater efficiency and effectiveness. I very much hope that the Government can, as this process moves on, increase the level of effective devolution and perhaps even give some real independence over revenue to these authorities so that they can develop their full potential.
In addition, when we reach Committee on the hereditary Peers Bill, I will propose that, rather than hereditary Peers being the eligible candidates in by-elections, it should be people nominated by these new authorities and their mayors. We can use the existing mechanisms that we have to start to introduce a measure of regional representation into the House. I hope that the Government will have their imaginative hat on when we come to that. The mechanism is in place; let us use it to move in a direction that many of us would like to go in and to take at least a small step.
I am a resident of East Sussex, which is one of the candidates for the next round of this measure. I note that the local proposals involve a mayor for the whole of Sussex, thereby recreating not the original county council but the original kingdom of Sussex—perhaps we might have a prince rather than a mayor. What concerns me most is how the towns and communities in these new unitaries will come to cherish, assert and grow their own identities. I very much hope that I can persuade the Minister to circulate widely to all the councils that are candidates for this, as well as their constituent parts, examples of how communities flourish in unitaries, including what structures and relationships make that happen well.
The process of transition from “a county plus districts” to a unitary system will be hugely time-absorbing for the councils involved. They will have no space in their heads to do anything other than make that work well. The constituent communities underneath that need to understand how to play their part and how best to organise themselves so that they have a real role to play in what comes afterwards.
Looking in particular at East Sussex, along the seaside, we have Rye, Hastings, St Leonards, Bexhill, Pevensey, Eastbourne, Seaford and Newhaven. They are all immensely different places. Each has its own identity and its own way of doing things. In the interior, you have towns such as Lewes, which are really different, as well as ordinary country towns such as Uckfield and Heathfield. There is a huge variety of different communities within what will be one unitary: different histories, different spirits.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)
My Lords, I have spoken on many subjects in Grand Committee in this Room, and this is the first time that I have spoken on local government. In fact, there is a much better qualified inhabitant of Lincolnshire to speak on this subject—the noble Lord, Lord Porter of Spalding—but he must be away because I phoned him up at the weekend to check whether he was able to do this. However, I feel I should speak on this order because local government is, to my mind, perhaps the most important institution that affects people’s day-to-day lives. Governments talk about the big issues, but delivery of much of the Government’s policy is through local authorities, and it is very important that we get the balance of this right.
I speak as somebody who lives in an area of the countryside that is part of a small market town. I was born in Holbeach and I live in Holbeach—I live in the house that I was brought up in—so I have not moved very far, and the world has sort of moved around me, if noble Lords see what I mean. But I can see the change in local government from even when I was a boy in Holland County Council. Lincolnshire was divided into three parts, with the city, and it seemed to work because there was local interaction between citizens and the local authority. I am not talking about the councillors, but the staff of those councils were responsive to people making contact with them and telling them that there was a pothole in the road. Sure enough, somebody would come along and fix it. It was much more immediate.
There is an interesting thing in Peterborough station. An electrical board has been out of action since Christmas. The central heating in the waiting room has been out of action since that time, and there is a door that was working well before Christmas but is now closed. Fortunately, the door that was not working well before Christmas is now open. When I mention this to people, they all say, “Oh, well, it’s been reported”. How often that happens in life. If we can make local authorities really responsive to people’s convenience, we will do so much better.
I am speaking on this because Lincolnshire is a big county, and I am looking ahead at what will happen when we devolve government powers to the mayor and the mayoral authority, which is very good indeed—at least there is a bit of local knowledge there to help local government to apportion resources. But I represent a particular part that is quite removed from the Humberside end of the county. We are still very much one county. I was president of the Lincolnshire Agricultural Society and am proud to belong to it. I am proud to be a Lincolnshire horticulturalist and farmer, along with so many people in that most productive corner of the country.
I am also pleased to hear that the Humberside authorities are thinking of uniting together as a district of their own. If we are going to have three units in Lincolnshire, we will have to look at the numbers because, at the moment, I am told that 500,000 is the sort of population figure that the Government are thinking of. I hope the Government will be elastic in this area, if only to make sure that there is some sort of general practical application of boundaries to the new district authorities.
I mentioned the noble Lord, Lord Porter of Spalding. He was instrumental in setting up the confederation of East Lindsey, Boston and South Holland, where he and I come from. They have shared senior staff members of councils, co-ordinated activity and shared specialisms. We all know that a lot of the service in local government is quite specialised; if you are going to get good people, you have to pay reasonable salaries, and they are best shared if that can be done.
I hope that any new arrangement for Lincolnshire will have the north, including the Humberside, the west, including the city of Lincoln, the east and the North Sea coast, which will carry the electricity. We were talking briefly about energy beforehand, though I came in halfway through; we know that the power links to the North Sea come ashore in Lincolnshire, to be distributed through the eastern part of the county. It is also the home of the food valley, which stretches from Grimsby right down to Peterborough, the A1 and the road system that is the artery of the eastern part of the county. There is seafood transported from Grimsby and there is the production and distribution of the country’s vegetables and flowers—bulbs, to mention my own interest. We also have centres in the eastern part of the county, so getting communications right and enabling them through a combined vision of what the area represents economically is most important.
The Government are avowedly keen on growth. I support them in that venture. I hope that they set up a local government structure that encourages growth, where soil types and economic potential recommend themselves. In my view, that is how the authorities might develop in future. Surprising to say, I support this measure, as it is a good development. Local government can be reformed, but I hope that it will be in a way that brings it closer rather than further away, as much of the trend was before the last Government introduced the Act.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I am a Central Bedfordshire councillor and therefore have some interest in this, although not in these particular SIs. I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, about the importance of local government. Most residents see local government services on a daily basis, not central government services. I also echo his comments and those of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, about the unique nature of all our local areas and, therefore, how much better it is for them to be run locally, in so far as is possible, rather than centrally. In that spirit, these regulations build on the work of the previous Conservative Government; we support this important devolutionary shift, but it is also important to go further.
However, before that, I want to assess some of the proposed changes. First, on the Devon and Torbay Combined County Authority Regulations—I shall say “combined authority” for brevity—that deal was signed in January 2024 by the previous Conservative Government, Devon County Council and Torbay Council to provide powers and funding to the new combined authority to
“improve the economic, social and environmental well-being”
of people in the community, as well as to devolve further powers locally and provide wider flexibility for local action.
The Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority, formed by Lincolnshire County Council, North Lincolnshire Council and North East Lincolnshire Council, will have authority over transport, housing and regeneration functions in the region. It will be tasked with transport planning, local transport services and highways maintenance, with a mayor due to be elected in May 2025.
I turn to the Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority, which comprises Hull City Council and the East Riding of Yorkshire Council and, again, will be overseen by a directly elected mayor. The mayor will govern and drive strategic development across the region, including in areas such as transport, housing and regeneration. Additionally, the mayor will have the authority to levy taxes, such as a precept or business rate supplement, to fund those projects.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I thank noble Lords for all those thoughtful points and for the general support that we have received for the instruments this afternoon. As noble Lords who have heard me speak on this topic before know, and to misquote a phrase terribly, I have always believed in devolution, which is more effective than revolution. I hope we will take this programme forward successfully, but there is a lot of water to go under the bridge—hopefully not so much for these local authorities, which have already taken some very important first steps towards the changes they want to see.
I will take this opportunity to address noble Lords’ contributions and questions, starting with the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. First, she asked whether meetings and scrutiny committees would be held in public. Meetings of the combined authorities will be in public and, under the Combined Authorities (Overview and Scrutiny Committees, Access to Information and Audit Committees) Order 2017, amended in 2024, combined county authorities have overview and scrutiny committees with the usual call-in powers—so they will have call-in powers. I hope that is helpful from that point of view.
The noble Baroness asked whether the disparity between areas had been considered. She was referring particularly to Devon and Torbay, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, also referred to this. Devon and Torbay were already in the process of establishing their non-mayoral combined county authority prior to the publication of the White Paper and the announcement of the devolution priority programme. We see these steps as foundational. A list of all those that have applied for delays to their elections has been published on GOV.UK—no decisions have been taken yet—and Devon County Council has requested to delay those elections.
Matters to do with the distribution of funding, responding to disparity or the potential disparity between different constituent councils in an area, are for those constituent councils. It is for them to work out how they will work. That is devolution, but they will work it out between them. If they use that as a foundation step, they may wish to build on their authority in the future. Who knows? We will wait and see what happens with Devon and Torbay but, for today’s business, we are putting through the programme that was set before us previously.
The noble Baroness asked whether the change in Hull and East Yorkshire was a positive move from the residents’ standpoint. It is the Government’s ambition that all parts of England ultimately have a mayor. We recognise that non-mayoral devolution can be an important foundational step for areas, which would see the benefits from devolution in the short term as they assess all options to unlock deeper devolution. The instruments before the Committee to establish mayoral combined authorities and a mayoral combined county authority provide that some functions conferred on those will be mayoral functions.
I think the noble Baroness was particularly concerned with transport issues in Hull and East Yorkshire. I will point only to the significant steps forward that have been made in existing mayoral authorities. Manchester of course is always flagged up as the example of this, but it has done an exceptional job to create a transport infrastructure that, so far—touch wood—works much better for the people of Manchester than the situation they had before. I hope that that continues in these new areas as they continue to use and develop their powers. The combined authority will have responsibility for improving and maintaining local transport and for the creation and implementation of a new area-wide local transport plan. We will see what happens with that.
The noble Baroness asked about funding, I think in the context of transport. Funding is conveyed for transport issues in their area, including those that I just mentioned.
The noble Baroness knows that, in the past, I have spoken widely in the House about district councils and their role. When you look at this, you see that there is clearly an appetite for reorganisation in parts of England. I have seen that in my work with district councils and now in government. In the past, Governments have often not been brave enough to follow through and make this programme really work across the country, but we just need to get on now with delivering what areas need.
We expect all two-tier areas and smaller or failing unitaries to develop proposals for reorganisation. We are going to take a phased approach to that delivery, because not everyone is in the same place at the same time. We will have our priority programme for people who feel ready to move more quickly, taking into account where reorganisation can unlock devolution, where areas are keen to proceed at pace, or where they can be helped to address certain issues that they may have failed with in the past. For those that want to take a bit more time, we will do it at their pace. But it is important that this is driven by local areas, so we are working very closely with our colleagues in local government to make this work properly.
The noble Baroness asked about mayoral precepts, and I think the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, also related to that. Mayors can use their mandate for change to take the difficult decisions needed to drive economic growth. As I said, the Government’s ambition is for all parts of England to have a mayor of a strategic authority. They will have the standing and soft power to convene local partners and tackle shared problems, but it is also important that they have this additional ability to raise funds in a number of ways, of which the precept is only one. The Government will work with them as we devolve funds out of Westminster. This is not necessarily about new money; it is about money and decision-making going from here out to local areas. It is important to stress that about the programme we have set out.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for his point about hereditary Peers and having a regional element there. That is above my pay grade; I am not going to go there. But I will say that we already have a very effective chamber of national and regional leaders, which is now convened, and mayors from England attend. It is very important that all areas have a say in the Council of the Nations and Regions, as it will increasingly make a large contribution to what goes on in our country.
The noble Lord specifically mentioned Sussex in relation to local places. I think there is a genuine way of strengthening the role of local places within these wider authorities, where they have existed for a while. I do not want to keep citing Manchester, but there is still a very distinctive identity in Oldham, Rochdale and wherever you go around the Manchester area. Those areas still have their distinct identities. I know Sussex a bit and there are some wonderful places there. I am sure they will continue to be their own places, with their own strong identities. If mechanisms need to be put in place to do that, by strengthening local community councils and improving and strengthening the role of community councillors, the Government are there to assist with that. Boundary issues must be driven locally, but the Boundary Commission stands ready to do what it needs to do to help.
The noble Lord spoke about cherished assets, such as downlands, and how to protect them. There is always a place for a local voice. Mayors have been real champions of these types of local assets, and they will continue to be champions in those local areas. The noble Lord also spoke about independent local panels. We are currently conducting a whole review of standards issues. I have a round table tomorrow, I think, and another at the end of the week, with partners from across local government and outside. We are doing that work as we speak and, if the noble Lord would like to contribute to it, I would love to hear from him.
On the AI issue, I will have to refer to a specialist answer, because it is not my area of expertise. I will find it in a moment.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach—whom I always think of as Lord Holbeach, because he is Lord of Holbeach—for his huge contribution to Lincolnshire, in both business and horticulture. I agree with him about local government being the most important institution; I have spent most of my life in it. When you walk out of your front door, it is what you see, and what will you the impression of whether or not things are right with the world. That is the way I look at it; that is how important it is. The noble Lord spoke about the confusion between councils. I live in a two-tier area and it is very common to have that confusion between councils. That is one reason why we need to sort this out now: just get on with the job and do it properly.
The noble Lord asked whether there was flexibility with the 500,000 figure. There certainly is. We set the 500,000 figure to give a guideline about what we see as strategic. If something slightly less or more than that works better for the local area, that is fine. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Porter, for all the work that he has done. The federational, or shared, services that the noble Lord spoke about will form a good foundation for these bigger authorities.
On UK Food Valley, seafood farming, and flowers and bulbs, mayors are there to create the infrastructure that will make that work better than it does at the moment. They will have oversight of a strategic spatial plan and I hope they will do a great job on that.
I turn to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson. I agree about the unique nature of local areas. I know that the noble Lord has made a huge contribution to central Bedfordshire, so I am grateful for that. Devon and Torbay and Lincolnshire have both applied for election delays, so they are obviously thinking through their next steps very carefully. Hull and East Yorkshire and Lancashire are going ahead with their programmes, as set out in these instruments.
The noble Lord spoke about mayoral precepts and asked whether they were for genuine additionality. That is certainly the idea; they are not there to fill gaps in local government funding but to drive the mayor’s priorities and ambitions for the area. As we have seen, the areas that already have mayors drive forward their own priorities—and they are very strategic priorities. Mayors are not there to run the councils that sit underneath them; they are there to drive the strategic capability of the area concerned.
I hope that I have covered everything. If I have not, I shall write to noble Lords—and we will look through Hansard to make sure that we have covered everything. These instruments deliver the commitment made in the devolution agreements with Devon and Torbay, Greater Lincolnshire and Lancashire to establish combined county authorities for their areas and with Hull and East Yorkshire for a combined authority. I beg to move.