Draft Tees Valley Combined Authority Order 2016

Debate between Andy McDonald and Graham Allen

Tuesday 15th March 2016 General Committees

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I strongly welcome this statutory instrument and hope that other people throughout the English regions—and particularly in Nottingham, Derby, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire—seize the opportunity that the Government have offered to devolve power. None the less, as my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar has pointed out, important details on a number of other issues need to be resolved. I believe that the Tees Valley combined authority will be a very good vehicle for adding extra muscle to make sure that the inequalities that undoubtedly exist—and which have, in some cases, been exacerbated by the Government—can be ironed out. I hope that the Minister, given his location geographically, will take this vehicle very much to heart and ensure that this combined authority, as much as any other, works effectively to deliver things that people in the local area need, and particularly the grant aid to which my hon. Friend referred.

We should say, using our political judgment, that this is probably the second such piece of legislation, after the Scotland Bill, to come before both Houses, and therefore it is in my view a demonstration of the Government taking devolution seriously. Those who are critics of devolution in general should understand that if a Bill becomes an Act early in a Parliament, there is plenty of room in a five-year Parliament for further devolution Bills to come forward. I therefore urge my very good friends who will make up the Tees Valley combined authority collectively to work together to help Government frame the next devolution Bill, and the one after that, that will come before a general election in 2020. This is the first important step on a long path, as the Tees Valley combined authority—the TVCA, as we will no doubt come to call it—make its progress.

I pay tribute to the leadership that has been shown in Tees Valley; Bill Dixon in Darlington, Chris Akers-Belcher in Hartlepool, David Budd in Middlesbrough, Sue Jeffrey in Redcar and Cleveland, and Bob Cook in Stockton-on-Tees have done a superb job in pulling this together. I know from the experience in the east midlands how delicate and sensitive such discussions are, but it looks, from the outside at least, that these were conducted in a really positive, creative and imaginative way.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to recognise and commend the excellent work of the five authorities across Tees Valley. They have worked consistently in a collaborative and collective way for long enough, and I welcome that this combined authority will underpin that. My grave concern is the lack of funding that follows it. Addressing the issues of transport, economic development and regeneration functions with the sort of sums that this Government are talking about is frankly, insulting, and rather than propelling us forward, this may do worse and set us back. Does he recognise that there are inherent dangers in the financial settlement?

[Mr Allen]

There are difficulties that will need to be negotiated. A forceful Tees Valley combined authority will add to the individual efforts of local authorities to make sure that this is properly funded. I hope that the mechanisms the Minister outlined will be used effectively to listen to those questions. I am very conscious of one thing that has been strongly on our agenda in this place—namely, the steel closure that has ruined a community. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland is a member of this Committee and might want to say something about that. It would be a travesty if this authority cannot be seen to deliver something on that. It is almost a test to make sure that the authority is seen in a good light. My hon. Friend has been foremost in the campaign to save the steelworks, so I will give way to him with pleasure.

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[Mr Allen]

Or they can number more than one. I am happy to take further interventions from colleagues who have serious tests to raise about how the Government are taking this forward. As the Minister knows, in principle I am totally committed to this, and future, devolution—but it undermines all of us who believe in that concept if it does not deliver stage by stage, however modestly. It must be seen to deliver for people in the area. Otherwise the same old arguments flow in: “Yet another structure of government,” and so on. This structure of Government needs to be given life and to prove its worth, swiftly. I know the Minister is aware of that.

[Andy McDonald]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s record speaks to these issues? My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland makes a valid point. We are addressing the prospect of devolution and a northern powerhouse, yet our received wisdom is a history of job losses and failures, and of the Government failing to intervene. Does my hon. Friend agree that we are entitled to be circumspect about the continuous promotion of this as jam tomorrow?

[Mr Allen]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. This authority, and the Government’s whole concept of devolution, needs to deliver—and deliver speedily. The general competence around who does what—whether it is central or local government—is a serious issue. Local government used to be a jewel in the crown; it was where the real decisions were made, locally. One thinks back to the London authority, the Birmingham authority and many local authorities who ran their water, gas and electricity supplies, their transport and their cleansing—which was particularly important in the days I am talking about. Local government has been reduced to a subservient holder of a begging bowl, asking for crumbs, when serious things happen locally that only sensitive, dynamic local government can answer effectively. That is what devolution seeks to build, and the perpetuating of the begging bowl mentality has to finish. I hope that devolution can deliver that and that the Government push devolution on, which was not done, sadly, when we had our spell in government. I know you would bring me to order, Mr Bone, if I went over old ground about how the north-east referendum took place four years after the momentum of Scotland and Wales.

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[Mr Allen]

I am delighted: not that I talk to the media, but I am delighted to put it to the media that the Chair has no views on the European issue. I am sure that that will be front-page news tomorrow. More seriously, if we look at the way in which the localities, the centre and the regions operate in all our European neighbours or in the north American democracies, we see that there are regulated, clear, and constitutional—and I use the word “constitutional” very wittingly—bounds between the three levels of local, regional and national. We do not have that in this country. It is essential that we end up there, and that the umbilical cord of dependence is severed.

It does not mean that we do not have equalisation, to answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North. It just means that people can be enabled to spend money—much less money—more sensitively and more accurately. It is in their interests to get value for money rather than just spend the money that appears in the begging bowl, whether that goes up or down. That level of responsibility and accountability will strengthen our democracy against any efforts to separate from the Union, and possibly against efforts to separate from partners in Europe.

I can only speculate on that but—more accurately and certainly more pertinently—it will mean that we have a different sort of governance in this country, which is built on solid blocks of who does what. There is a horrible European word, although I am sure that the Chair in his current capacity will say that it is neither horrible nor wonderful. I think “subsidiarity” is the most ugly word to describe the most beautiful concept, which is that people should be enabled to decide at the appropriate level what their governance is. Much of this can be done in the locality and by regional or sub-regional organisations, such as the Tees Valley authority. That is where we ought to be going on this. I am sorry for that rather long-winded explanation. I hope, unless other Members are prompted to intervene in my second speech, that I can move on and allow the Minister to engage seriously with the issue.

[Andy McDonald]

Before my hon. Friend moves on, was he as surprised as I was to hear the Minister in his opening remarks tell the Committee that this was the first of several steps in the route map to devolution and that it included financial settlement? That is the issue that concentrates the minds of many contributors today. Is he as surprised as I am that the Minister somehow now wishes to depart from that unity of thinking that sees this thing right through to what it ultimately delivers for the people of Tees Valley?

[Mr Allen]

I hope that this is the first step and that there are many others to come. I heard the Minister’s remarks challenging in a positive way those people who will make up the Tees Valley authority to come up with a menu—a shopping list—for the next round of devolution. I thought that was an incredibly generous and positive offer, and I hope it will be seized by those who are listening to our debate so that we can take this forward. That has to include further devolution of finance. We could end up being the odd one out in England.

We see progress in Scotland, where they now have assigned income tax, so their Parliament can take this forward and ultimately introduce its own spending programme. We have seen many developments in the Northern Ireland Assembly that allow it to change rates on particular items at particular taxation levels. We see in Wales a growing move towards the Scottish settlement, where Wales can look after much of what is appropriately done in Wales, which is quite right.