Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)]

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, whose contributions are always thought provoking. I support the Bill but am delighted that it is my noble friend the Minister rather than I who has to answer his questions.

The need to rebalance the economy has been much spoken about in recent years but not just in terms of financial services versus manufacturing. Clearly, this is also a geographical issue. The Bill is a sensible step in that direction. There is no doubt that the increased concentration of wealth and power in London has been detrimental to other parts of the country, and you do not have to go very far from the capital to feel that. There are places only 25 miles from the centre of London where people cannot believe that MPs cannot keep three families on an MP’s salary.

Not so long ago local towns and cities had thriving businesses of their own. They had the sort of economic infrastructure that could support strong communities and growing new businesses, but gradually local businesses, whether grocers, department stores, dairies or local newspapers, were taken over, generally by businesses headquartered in London or the south-east. Simultaneously, Starbucks and McDonald’s have plagued our high streets. The end result is that local, professional firms, whether accountants or printers, again lost business to the big firms of accountants and printers headquartered in London.

Things have to change. We have to find a way to bring back businesses that can thrive in local communities. It seems to me that the mayor proposed in this legislation is a very important step in that direction. The mayor will be in a position to stimulate local enterprises and support movements such as the shop local day that has proved so successful in the United States and has recently been launched here. He can pioneer high street partnerships that will bring new life on to high streets and help stimulate the businesses there.

The Government envisage that the new combined authorities will be able to develop certain specific sector strengths in their areas. We know that clusters work. We have seen how the clusters of high-tech business can generate new ideas and thrive to the benefit of their communities. Now we need to find other ideas and all sorts of scientific innovations. The Bill envisages that the new combined authorities will work with universities and develop science initiatives and that sort of technical business in new areas. My noble friend the Minister referred to local enterprise partnerships in her introduction. I, too, see them as very important but I stress, as I did last week, that the quality of the local enterprise partnerships varies enormously and it will be important to bring up the lesser-performing ones to the standard of the better.

Then there is the matter of planning. Any thriving local community needs housing, as we have heard already, but the nimby tendency in this country is not to be underestimated. When we put several authorities together, there is a great danger that there will be very different views on where the housing development and indeed any other development should go. I am not entirely clear what the mayor’s role will be in ironing out that sort of conflict. I would be very interested to hear from the Minister exactly how the planning decisions will be taken in these new combined authorities.

The Bill gives the new mayors the power to raise levies and to borrow—for example, for transport. I would also be interested to hear what the Government’s attitude towards municipal bonds will be. In the current climate, there is obviously an appetite for bonds that appear to be slightly community-spirited, and they do not need to offer a hugely inflated interest rate to attract interest, although I would be very interested to know whether attitudes might change. There have been unfortunate incidences with some local authority schemes in the past but I think people have moved on and municipal bonds might be worth exploring.

When we come to devolving power from London, I would be interested to hear the latest thinking on devolving jobs. Some government jobs have moved out, but all too often when departments move it is the less important jobs that go and the higher earners tend to stay in London. I think those who did move out have generated sufficient taxi and train bills to make it imperative that they were moved back fairly quickly. If we are serious about devolving from London, we should be devolving the important jobs from the centre as well. Given the effectiveness of Skype, teleconferencing and videoconferencing, some of the objections that might have been raised in the past can presumably be dealt with more easily now.

Finally, I would just like to make a plea that the mayors who are elected follow the example of our own mayor in London, who has been a source of joy and delight to the community. This joie de vivre has obviously come from a mayor of the people—there have been festivals and fireworks and, generally, the feelgood factor. Our mayor uses bicycles and public transport. I would like to think that the new breed of mayors will not live in mansion houses or travel in limousines. Could we have mayors of the people?