Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woolmer of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the Bill. I listened with great interest in particular to my noble friend Lady Hollis about concentric circles. The Bill is prescriptive in some important respects. It refers very early on to “a combined authority” and a mayor of a combined authority, which appears not to allow for a more complex arrangement of functions between local authorities that might wish to be part of more than one combined authority. That appears to be inconsistent, first, with the Bill and, secondly, with having a mayor of a combined authority. Those are matters that no doubt we will turn to again later on.

I wish to comment briefly on the position in Yorkshire with regard to rural and coastal areas and the complexity of the arrangements. A noble Lord is present who is a former leader of Sheffield City Council. I am sure that he will contribute during the Bill’s passage. There is a very strong case for making the two conurbations of South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire into a combined authority, leaving North Yorkshire, the East Riding and Hull Humber to decide separately what they want to do. There is a case for the two metropolitan areas of West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire to combine together to rival the strength of Greater Manchester.

Of course, the truth is that in Yorkshire, as in many parts of the country, the strength certainly of West Yorkshire is that it has North Yorkshire to its north and South Yorkshire to its south. Without them it would be a much diminished conurbation. Therefore, of enormous importance to the future development of West and South Yorkshire are the arrangements for North Yorkshire, East Riding and Hull. It would be enormously damaging to the Yorkshire region if North Yorkshire, East Riding and Hull did not have strong combined-authority or local-authority powers—many of the powers that the conurbations seek.

There is an understandable temptation for rural areas such as North Yorkshire to want to remain independent, but noble Lords may be surprised to hear that there is a lot of discussion in North Yorkshire about the merits of coming much closer to West Yorkshire, East Riding and Hull. One of my concerns about the Bill is that the understandable haste to have mayors alongside these strengthened devolved authorities will make more difficult the gradual bringing together of parts of Yorkshire. Once you have a mayor of South Yorkshire and a mayor of West Yorkshire, they are not likely to want to go in with North Yorkshire. If North Yorkshire had a mayor, it would be much more reluctant to give that up and combine with West Yorkshire. Therefore, in our later discussions on the Bill I will counsel that there is a disconnection between granting more, genuine devolution to parts of our local areas and necessarily divorcing that for a while from mayoralties, not because mayoralties will not come about but because once you establish a combined authority with a mayor it will make bringing authorities closer together all the more difficult. It will depend on working together, not being part of a community together.

My view from the conurbation of Leeds and West Yorkshire is to recognise wholeheartedly the importance of strong devolution in our rural and coastal areas, but Yorkshire without its coastline or its dales and moors would be greatly belittled. I would like to feel that the Bill will enable all parts of my region to be strengthened and even, although this will probably strike terror into the hearts of people at the Treasury, offer the possibility of moving towards a Yorkshire region, because that makes enormous sense. If we can countenance, as we have, a semi-independent Scotland, why should we resist a strong Yorkshire? Just because regional devolution was originally a Labour idea and got kicked into touch, I hope that it will not necessarily be kicked into touch on ideological grounds. There would be an enormous amount to be said if it was. To secure that would require statesmanship and long-term strategic thinking but would result in a devolution to that part of England that would, in my view, be greatly welcomed in large parts of that great county but would also lead to a viable, vibrant and strong economic and social community.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for the points they have made, particularly my noble friend Lord Heseltine, who appears to have answered most of them right at the beginning.

Amendments 1 and 2 would insert two new clauses placing statutory duties on the Secretary of State to provide reports to Parliament setting out his strategy for ensuring devolution opportunities are available across England, and annual progress updates. I agree that there are merits in the Government being clear about what the devolution offer is to all areas and about future devolution agreements between local areas and the Government following local areas developing their proposals.

We have set out, not least at Second Reading, our broad strategy for devolution in England. Our intention is to ensure that there are devolution opportunities available to all parts of England, including rural and coastal areas, counties, towns and, indeed, cities. Many noble Lords have alluded to this. We also want to ensure—and I can give noble Lords this commitment—that no one place will be prioritised over another. Rural, city, coastal—we want to hear from all areas with their proposals. We want to hear from Norwich just as much as Nottingham, and we want them to tell us how it might work. We are not going to prescribe. I should have perhaps asked between Second Reading and now whether noble Lords who are making suggestions about certain areas speak for those areas—I do not know, and I am not assuming anything—but we want to hear from those areas about how they see devolution working. I cannot stress that enough, really.

As some noble Lords have said, some of the existing city regions include large rural and coastal communities; for example, as the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, the Sheffield city region has rural communities within and around it, including the Peak District; and the North East Combined Authority includes Northumberland. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, also made a point about areas being forced into hooking on to other areas. The Bill does not force anybody to do anything; it enables areas to do what their ambitions are. We have been clear that our approach is for areas to come forward with proposals that address their specific issues and opportunities. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, mentioned business clustering, which is vital for growth. Clustering is what leads to growth and supply chain enablement. The Bill is enabling legislation which will provide the legislative framework to give effect to the different aspects of devolution deals—and they are different—and we are listening carefully to debates on the Bill to ensure that it does this.

Turning back to the specific amendments, I agree that it is important that Parliament should be able to question and hold the Government to account, both on their pursuit of devolution and decentralisation and on the progress being made in those areas that have agreed devolution deals. There are already mechanisms, such as Parliamentary Questions and debates, by which Parliament can ask Ministers to account for anything within their remit. These are opportunities that both noble Lords and Members of the other place rightly take regularly.

I was asked about our response to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. We intend to respond in full before the end of Committee stage. But as that committee recognised, the Bill is an enabling Bill providing the primary legislative framework needed to deliver the Government’s manifesto commitments in full. It also made a point about ensuring that the overview of scrutiny—something which I know that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is keen on—is effective, independent from any majority group on a combined authority and transparent. The Bill provides powers for us to make provision about all these matters and we are very interested in hearing views from all concerned about how the scrutiny could be as effective as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

Before the Minister sits down, I wonder whether I might take her back to the comments that she made about the report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, on which I sit. I think she said that your Lordships’ House would have an opportunity to see the Government’s response to the important recommendations from that committee before the end of Committee stage; perhaps she would confirm that. I draw her attention particularly to the recommendation in paragraph 29—it is rather different from the others, which are very detailed—in which the committee says:

“In line with our conclusions in paragraph 22 above, we consider that, if the Government believe that the negative procedure is the appropriate level of scrutiny for particular categories of modifications of primary legislation, they should specify those categories in clause 55”.

There is a wider issue here, which the committee draws attention to: in parallel with the consideration of the full Bill, we also have an LRO on some specific powers, which I understand was prepared before the general election—certainly before the Bill was being prepared by the current Government. I wonder if the Minister can give some assurance to your Lordships’ House that these two quite separate exercises will at some point be brought together. Otherwise, the lack of co-ordination is a matter of concern to the committee and, I think, will be a matter of concern to Members of the House.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I can confirm just what the noble Lord thought he heard, which was that we would be responding before the end of Committee stage and that the LRO would be incorporated into the Bill.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, as we are in Committee we have ample opportunity to extend the discussion on this. Did I hear the Minister correctly when she said that you could not have combined authorities within combined authorities?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Yes, my Lords.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

In that case, I suggest that she is wiping out the possibility of effective devolution over half of shire England. Only if you are a fairly large unitary, possibly in combination with some adjacent districts, can you offer the full range of services, from the very local to the very large. With the two-tier structures that we have—and no one is suggesting a complete overhaul of local government—you cannot do that. Therefore, you have to have appropriate partnerships or appropriate combined authorities for different issues, requiring a different sense of scale. Perhaps you will need a smaller one for local housing, local transport, local skills training and connectivity issues, but a bigger one for the interface between health and social care, for example, and a still bigger one for major transport and planning issues, as with a LEP. If the Minister is saying that you cannot have combined authorities within combined authorities, that strategy of having services appropriate to size and scale of partnership is denied us. Counties are perhaps too large for personal services but probably too small now for strategic services. I sympathise with my noble friend on Yorkshire, for example; we could do the same in East Anglia.

I ask the Minister to reconsider. Whether she uses the phrase “combined authorities within combined authorities” or says that there is an “economic prosperity board” here, a “combined authority” there and a “consortium” somewhere else—I really do not care what the nomenclature is—what matters is that we have the capacity to deliver services at the size and scale appropriate for the services that they are, working in partnership. If she says that we cannot have combined authorities within combined authorities, we can say goodbye to effective devolution for two-tier shire county England.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I am afraid that I do not agree with the noble Baroness. We have mechanisms to deliver services of different scale. The whole point, for example, of the Greater Manchester devolution deal is that devolution delivers what is not possible at a very small level. That is why the local authorities came together: first, to form the combined authority and, secondly, to do the devolution deal with government. But it does not preclude districts from being involved in, say, shire deals. There has to be agreement.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

Forgive me, but can I just pursue this point? This will not work. I am sure that other noble Lords have experience of shire county England. For example, in my county of Norfolk, with seven districts, three of us are working together around the big city to deliver more than 50% of the jobs in Norfolk—the focus around the city, the former county borough of Norwich, is perhaps the main difference between us and Cumbria. Some other districts, such as King’s Lynn and West Norfolk, look towards Cambridge, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. They do not wish to be involved in such a strategy even if they could be.

However, there are other, countywide issues in which the greater Norwich partnership would play its part along with others to try to benefit the whole county in delivering peripatetic, rural-focused services. Beyond that, there are bigger decisions, such as those relating to Aviva and major transport issues, which can only be delivered at LEP level. This means that we must have flexibility. If this Bill means anything, it is about having flexibility to suit the localities and the geographies of different parts of the country.

The Minister must take each proposal on its merits. If there is something wrong with our proposal, fine, let us discuss it and negotiate it. I am perfectly content with that. But what she cannot surely do at this stage is rule out a possible structure that reflects the needs of many two-tier districts—as far as I am aware, Cambridge and Exeter may well be in the same situation, and Norwich certainly is. She is saying to us, “You cannot do, with your knowledge, with consent and in partnership, what makes the best sense for your greater area, for your county and for your region”.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I think we agree but have perhaps got our wires crossed. It is an entirely flexible process. If Norwich and the surrounding areas want to come up with what they see as the best proposal for that area, the Government are here and listening. I am saying that there cannot be combined authorities within combined authorities under the law, but the whole purpose of this enabling Bill is to allow areas to come forward with the proposals that they see as the best. There has to be agreement across the piece.

[Lord Warner (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister clarify one of her remarks? She talked about the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government being the accountable Ministers for these local deals. One of the great attractions of the Greater Manchester deal is that £6 billion is being transferred from the health budget to work within the Greater Manchester scheme. Where does the Health Secretary sit in the accountabilities for some of these schemes?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, as I understand the health and social care aspect, Greater Manchester has agreed a memorandum of understanding with NHS England. The Secretary of State for Health runs the relevant department.