Cities and Local Government Devolution [Lords] Bill

Debate between Karin Smyth and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I add to what the Minister has just said? In my dealings with Mr Meacher in this House, he never put his strongly held political views above his fundamental good manners and civilisation. He was always the most decent man to talk to, even though I doubt there was a single subject of any political importance on which we agreed. He is a loss to this Chamber.

I will come on to my amendment 46, which would exempt Somerset, God’s own county, from the provisions on having a mayor. The Minister suggested that Somerset was not exceptional. I think that that was a momentary lapse because he is not only a most honourable gentleman, but somebody of fundamental good nature and wisdom. We will forgive him such a momentary mental lapse on this occasion and put it down to the wet weather or something like that.

The Government are giving fine and good undertakings. I will quote briefly from the Secretary of State on Second Reading:

“It is a fundamental tenet of this Bill, in contrast to other reforms debated over many years, that it does not give me or any of my ministerial colleagues the power to impose any arrangement on any local authority.”—[Official Report, 14 October 2015; Vol. 600, c. 326-327.]

My hon. Friend the Minister has reiterated those undertakings. They are excellent and encouraging, and they provide a solid basis for proceeding. Unfortunately, there is a “but” coming.

Everything I hear from local councillors in North Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset tells me that they are having their arms twisted. We are seeing a velvet glove today—a finely manufactured velvet glove of the highest quality velvet. Behind it, however, is a firm iron fist that expresses the Government’s will that things should go in a certain way. I encourage the Government, through my amendment, to make the background noises—the conversations in smoke-filled rooms—match the fine words that we are hearing in this House.

And so I come to why I want to exempt Somerset. Well, there is history—there is always history! I will start, as always, with Alfred the Great. If we go all the way back to 879, Bristol was in Mercia and Somerset in Wessex. One of those two kingdoms was completely under the Danes—that was obviously the Gloucestershire bit. The borderline between the two has been there for over 1,000 years. There is a strongly embedded history in Somerset and, indeed, in Bristol which means that they see themselves as independent, distinct units.

It is important that the Government go with the grain of communities that have built up over generations, centuries and, in this case, even a millennium, rather than create new administrative regions that mean very little to people. Most people have no interest in the title of their council. They have an interest in where their home is. Their home may relate to a great city, to a great county or to a village, a county and the country. The use of power needs to go with that. Therefore, devolution from the United Kingdom to an administrative body with which people do not have sympathy and about which they do not have a feeling makes things no better. People have a loyalty to the nation and a loyalty to their locality, but if interspersed between them is some random political agglomeration that came about through a sudden burst of enthusiasm by a Government, people have no association with that, no enthusiasm for it and no loyalty for the institution.

Of course, this has been tried before. This is my second and perhaps more important appeal to history in the context of Somerset, particularly in relation to North Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset. We were part of a much disliked, most unsuccessful, high-cost organisation called Avon. It is known to the cognoscenti as CUBA—the county that used to be Avon. The name CUBA was appropriate because it was almost as left-wing as Mr Castro in its approach to government and it was exceptionally expensive. It had one of the highest increases in rates in the 1980s. It was felt by people in the rural areas that it was run for the benefit of Bristol, with the cost being borne by people in rural areas.

We continue to see that in Avon and Somerset police, the cost of which is borne by the rural areas, even though—I am sorry to say this with the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) sitting opposite me—most of the crime is in Bristol. Inevitably, being an inner city, Bristol has more drug dealing, more armed crime and more social disorder than Nempnett Thrubwell and other villages in my constituency, which are bastions of law-abiding civility.

[Karin Smyth]

I was not going to intervene, but the hon. Gentleman is maligning the great city of Bristol, which draws in people from North East Somerset with its great employment and cultural opportunities. Indeed, that causes some great problems in my constituency in respect of travel arrangements and so on, but we are grateful to have his constituents coming to work in the city. Perhaps we can have a more balanced discussion.