Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister—as I am sure are all noble Lords who have been following this very difficult process. It has been a difficult process from the outset because the Government have brought forward very substantial changes with these new clauses. I do not blame anybody for that. That is the way life is. It will be apparent from the noble Baroness’s long explanation that the concerns of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee are substantial—and she has answered them substantially. But she was very generous earlier in saying that, between now and Third Reading, she would think about some of the issues that have been raised.

I wonder whether the House shares my view that we are in some difficulty. I do not know how many Members who have been following these proceedings have been able to read the report in detail. It was available only yesterday afternoon. I wonder, therefore, whether there would be general agreement in the House—and perhaps the noble Baroness would also agree—to giving us a little more time to see how these two quite distinct views might be brought together. The unanimous decision of that well-respected committee was that there were concerns about these two clauses. The fact that the noble Baroness needed 12 or 13 minutes to explain what exactly was involved in the new clauses rather supports my view.

Rather than having a detailed debate, and since there are only a few days between now and Third Reading, I wonder whether she would agree to withdraw government Amendment 62 and the associated short Amendment 77, as well as Amendments 71 and 72, so that everybody can be sure that we are bringing together the important concerns of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee with the substantial answers that the Government would wish to give. It may be that, with a small tweak here and there, the concerns of the committee can be met. Then we should be a great deal more satisfied with the process and reassured that the House’s consideration of the Bill has been properly undertaken.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that if an area currently without a combined authority agrees a devolution deal that involves the creation of a combined authority, without Amendments 62 and 77 it could be at least a year, if not two, before any powers could begin to be devolved?

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, take this opportunity to raise again an issue covered in Amendments 62, 63, 64 and 65, on which I am still not sure we have got to the right position. Is there any flexibility here? I think we all recognise that the Minister has been extremely helpful to the House, but she is still holding to the view that you can belong to only one combined authority: therefore, I address the issues in Amendment 64. That is fine if you are part of Greater Manchester and a whole big combined metro authority. It is also fine when you want a combined authority of adjacent urban unitary authorities with shared goals and objectives. However, I think the Minister was the first to recognise that there are very real problems where you have an urban unitary area surrounded by rural areas. Plymouth may be an example of that, although I am not speaking for it as I do not know whether it shares my views. Equally, where you have shire districts, as with Norwich and Cambridge—I am speaking for them—possibly Exeter, and many other medium-sized cities of England, there is a complexity because they are, if you like, islands of urban economic generation. Therefore, it makes sense not to have that one-size-fits-all version of a combined authority.

For example, my city produces economic growth. We have only about 20% or so of the relevant population but produce more than 50% of the relevant jobs. We want city and district partners for what we have now— that is, a greater Norwich partnership for economic development, travel to work and issues of connectivity. However, it would be desirable to have a wider geography with which to tackle the bigger issues of public sector reform, and integrated NHS and social care, for example, which cannot be done on a sub-county basis, and where it may make sense to go beyond a county basis and link across counties. How do we do this? I have just received an email from the leader of Cambridge City Council—not my own, so it offers a different view. We have been trying to see where the voices lay on this. Mr Herbert states that a growing number of councils want to create city-district partnerships for economic development and travel to work, while being part of a larger geography for public sector reform and tackling care and the NHS jointly. He says that the ideal solution might be,

“to have different combined authorities for those different functions, bringing together the partners who it makes most sense to work with on these different issues. That is particularly true for the largest county towns/cities and the new unitaries who have a strong common cause with immediately adjacent authorities, but not necessarily with all authorities in a county or LEP area”.

Mr Herbert adds, however, that the problem is that,

“the current legislation around Combined Authorities, and the draft Bill the new Government has brought forward, seemingly do not allow for this—insisting on a single Combined Authority”.

He talks of addressing the issue:

“While the Bill is still in draft, and before we get forced into arrangements”,

which I maintain do not work for a large chunk of the country, such as urban authorities surrounded by rural authorities, unitaries surrounded by shire districts and district cities, which provide the energy for their counties, which are surrounded by other districts. The proposed single combined authority that the Minister has laid down will cramp the contribution that such areas can make to economic growth. I absolutely understand that this has to be negotiated in a bespoke way with the Secretary of State and am perfectly happy that that should be the case, following the thrust of what the Minister has argued in the past. Will the Minister or the Secretary of State therefore meet the leaders of such authorities in such situations for whom the single combined authority—the one-size-fits-all approach—does not work? If it is too late for this Bill and if the Government are willing to expand the remit, perhaps amendments to that effect could be tabled in the other place.