Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Baroness Janke and Lord Deben
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, I too rise to support Amendments 3 and 4, and to echo some of the comments that have already been made. This is actually about choice. The Minister has rightly said that the Bill is not prescriptive, and yet it is highly prescriptive when it talks about mayors. We can see different forms of leadership working well in other parts of the country. We talk about international cities and Europe, but mayors in France are not directly elected; they are the top person on the list. People in other cities elect their leaders in different ways. Some call them mayors and some do not, and as I say, some of them are not directly elected.
We heard last week from colleagues who said that in their area of the country, a mayor would be entirely inappropriate. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has explained how it would be unacceptable and inappropriate in her own area. I would say that if we are in favour of no prescription, we should allow innovative forms of leadership to emerge in different parts of the country. We should not try to impose a certain form and say that people will not have powers if they do not adopt a mayor.
Perhaps I may talk briefly about the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and his rewriting of the history of the city of Bristol. I should point out at the start that the successes of Bristol have been well known for a long time. For the past 10 to 15 years it has been the most successful city outside London. It has the highest GDP per head of population of any English city except London and it is the European Green Capital, something that emerged through my own administration and has been carried on by the mayor. Certainly, there was instability of government when the Labour Party lost its majority on the city council, but that is no different from what has happened in many other places. Indeed, the city ran a successful three-party coalition for 18 months. I led that coalition, so it is no good the noble Lord shaking his head; that is indeed what happened—
Lord Deben
I worked with Bristol over a long period and it was one of the most difficult councils to deal with. Bristol succeeded in spite of its local government rather than because of it, and now it is succeeding because of it. That is the change.
Baroness Janke
Again, that is a rather selective rewriting of history. If you speak to the leaders of any of the three parties in Bristol, they will say that there have been successes by all the parties and they are united in being proud of their city. But as happens in national government, there can be differences of view and policy, and I do not believe that the very bad impression given by the noble Lord is at all just or reasonable.
The most important thing about these new measures is that we should address the powers. Much as we applaud what is happening in Manchester and other areas, if you were to speak to the mayor of Toulouse or the mayor of Hannover, one of Bristol’s twin cities, and say, “We are going to finance your area by giving you predetermined, formula-determined grants in sealed envelopes; you will have no power to raise your own capital or to raise revenue; and you will have no other powers than those that the Government give you”, they would be horrified. This is not the spirit of devolution.