Devolution (East Anglia)

Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and Lucy Frazer

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I thank the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) for securing this important debate.

I have listened carefully to the debate, and I hope the Minister responds clearly to the genuine concerns raised by hon. Members, many of whom are on his side of the Chamber. When the Chancellor stood up in the House on 16 March to declare triumphantly that his Government had agreed a single powerful East Anglia combined authority, headed by an elected mayor with almost £1 billion of new investment, he was of course wrong. There was no agreement in place. There was only a document signed by council leaders agreeing that they would run the proposed deals through their respective councils and perform public consultation. That was enough for the Chancellor to stand before the nation and declare that the devolution revolution was taking hold. Just days later, the East Anglia devolution agreement began to fall apart.

The Conservative-administered Cambridgeshire County Council voted overwhelmingly, by 64 votes to zero, not to accept the plans. The Minister will be aware that that is not the only deal in disarray. This is more a rebellion than a revolution. Of the 38 devolution proposals from cities, town and counties across England, only 10 have materialised into plans. Many fell at the first hurdle because they disagreed with the Government’s insistence on a directly elected mayor. As we have heard today, this is one of the main problems with the East Anglia deal.

The whole point of devolution is to move away from over-centralised governance, to award more powers to local areas, to create more accountability, to improve the democratic process and to open up a dialogue between central Government and local government about what will work best for an area to bring decision making closer to its people. Council leaders have told me, as they told my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), that they were promised that devolution would be a bottom-up process based on those principles, yet the Government have taken a heavy-handed, top-down, dictatorial approach.

The geographical area covered by this deal makes it the largest of all devolution deals; it covers the three counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire and spanning almost 5,000 square miles. No other deal comes near the expected collaboration requirements. Of the 23 local authorities, 22 have been lumped together. That is more than double the number of local authorities working together in any of the other deals. Common sense should dictate that it is ridiculous to expect 22 local authorities to work together, headed by one elected mayor, when each county has vastly different needs.

Suffolk was promised its own deal, but that was reneged on at the last minute. Cambridgeshire requested its own devolution deal, but was told that the Chancellor would not accept one-county deals. Then Greater Lincolnshire was awarded its own one-county deal. Norfolk and Suffolk asked for £75 million per annum for 30 years. Instead, they gained a county at the last moment, when Cambridgeshire reluctantly joined the deal and everyone was offered £1 billion over 30 years. That might sound good, but when one drills down, it is a modest sum of just over £30 million a year, over 22 local authority areas.

In short, this deal, like many others, is a complete shambles. It is all smoke and mirrors—giving with one hand and taking away with the other. There is huge unease at the speed with which the deal is being pushed through. There is significant pressure on local authorities to develop and complete the necessary work to set up the combined authority before they have had a chance to consult their councillors, let alone the public. Will the Minister comment on the timetable and confirm whether this proposal has been processed so quickly because of the Government’s obsession with having elected mayors in place by May 2017?

Places such as Manchester have had half a decade to progress their deals, but the councils in the east of England have been given seven months. Why will the Government not give those councils adequate time to allow the process to be democratic and fair? Having an elected mayor for a large rural area covering three counties is an unprecedented constitutional innovation. It is untried and untested, and that mayor is likely to be democratically remote. It is difficult enough for counties to get behind the idea of having one mayor covering one county, and unthinkable that one person could cover the needs and demands of three counties with diverse communities, complex internal geography, and varied urban and rural hubs.

Councils have made it clear that they do not want such an arrangement. The Communities and Local Government Committee has said that elected mayors are not an “easy fit” for non-metropolitan areas, and it believes that councils and their local populations should have the right to choose whether to have one. We heard today about some of the many alternatives, such as the one in Cornwall, but the Government continue to insist on elected mayors.

The East Anglia deal is insubstantial. Although the Government entice signatories by promising to devolve more powers at some unspecified future date, those powers are subject to negotiation with the Treasury, not enshrined in statute. Promises can and, given this Government’s track record, will be withdrawn. The elected mayor is the only statutory creation, and once elected, the mayor will be a fixture on the political landscape, even if these devolution deals, as they are currently envisaged, collapse.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) said, housing is critical in the east of England, but it was offered as a devolved power only as an afterthought, just two days before this deal was signed. The £175 million housing investment fund was thrown in on the condition that there was a fast-track timetable in place for an elected mayor by 2017, but that was not the only condition. In the draft deal, that £175 million is earmarked largely for shared-ownership homes—homes that we know are beyond the means of many people and will not address the issue of the affordability of housing. This Government’s assault on council housing continues. That is yet another example of how their version of devolution is actually about delegation.

There is no real fiscal devolution here. Cuts will continue to be made to local authority budgets, yet councils will be expected to support a combined authority with reduced resources and capacity. Draft deals have only been signed because council leaders who genuinely care about their areas want real devolution and want to make it work. For that, they need a Government who want the same thing, but I fear that this Government do not.

When it was in power in Scotland and Wales, Labour achieved real devolution. We did not rush things through at lightning speed, and we did not expect huge decisions to be made that would affect communities and governance for decades. We had robust public consultation, and we would not have introduced new tiers of governance without allowing time for scrutiny and due diligence. We certainly would not have conducted devolution veiled in secrecy behind closed doors, or imposed last-minute changes from the centre.

The sad truth is that the appetite for devolution among councils and the public is incredibly strong, but this Government are failing to harness that or, as noted in a recent National Audit Office report, clearly articulate what exactly they are trying to achieve through these deals. The upshot is that we, local authorities and, most importantly, members of the public, on whom such deals will impact, do not know what the Government are trying to achieve. Yet again, we are seeing a masterclass in undemocratic process, which is leaving councils feeling like they are engaged in a Faustian pact.

[Lucy Frazer]

I know that several Members here are not in favour of the devolution plan that is on the table. Is the hon. Lady aware, however, that some councils are in favour of it? Her speech is a little one-sided. For example, I represent two district councils, including one for East Cambridgeshire, which is very much in favour of the deal. Some questions must be asked, and we would all like some more money, but will she acknowledge that there is some support for devolution?

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I will acknowledge that there is some support, but my role is to scrutinise the Government and to express concerns, so that is what I am using my time for today.

To sum up, will the Minister, once and for all, come clean about the real purpose of the deals? How do they serve the interests of the public, rather than of the Government?