Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

Debate between Lord Beamish and Scott Mann

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am pleased to hear what the hon. Gentleman is announcing about Cornwall, but will he tell the House whether the Government insisted that there should be a mayor?

[Scott Mann]

That was not the case, no. The powers were devolved to Cornwall Council, to the local enterprise partnership and to the business community.

I welcome the prospect of every local authority in the UK having the same powers that Cornwall now has. Local MPs, local councils and local business leaders will of course know what is best for their areas. It is my hope that this deal will empower local communities and make local authorities more accountable. There have long been calls in Cornwall to pull up the hypothetical drawbridge over the Tamar and to cut ourselves off from Plymouth and the rest of Britain. We can rightly be proud of our heritage, traditions and culture, but we do ourselves and our young people a disservice if we continue to navel-gaze. Our young people deserve better than that.

The nuts and bolts of the Cornish deal revolve around three main areas: buses, the European spending programme and the NHS, and I shall now address the issues involved. Cornwall’s transport network has been dysfunctional for years. The train services rarely meet up with the bus timetabling, and the bus network is very fragmented. My area of North Cornwall has no train services, and my villages have a less than satisfactory bus service. Under the stewardship of Nigel Blackler, we will be implementing a smart ticketing service and a more integrated network. I am confident that we will deliver that very well.

In the past, Cornwall has been seen as an economically deprived area. We have received two rounds of EU funding through convergence and objective 1. The last round of the European spending programme was set to deliver 10,000 jobs, but it delivered only 3,500. The constraints that the European Union placed on the spending, together with a lack of any coherent strategy, led to a woeful return on the investment. Economic development has never been well delivered by bureaucrats, by local government or by the European Union. I believe that by placing the funding programme with the local enterprise partnership, we will have business leaders searching for value for money, working with colleges on vocational training and ensuring that every penny is diverted to business from business.

Cornwall’s health services and social care providers are spread out and not working together. Many cottage hospitals in North Cornwall feel that they are under-utilised and could be providing more. Although the NHS is geared up around the primary care provided through the Treliske and Derriford hospitals, our GPs and services in the community are not being utilised to their full potential. I am in no doubt that handing this matter over to the Kernow commissioning group will help in the delivery of the service. However, as Superman’s father famously said on Krypton:

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

The Cornwall deal asks leaders to deliver. It seeks inspiration, job creation and innovation. I say to the leaders of Cornwall Council, the local enterprise partnership and the clinical commissioning group, “Now is your time. Show us your skill. Show us you can deliver for Cornwall and I give you my word that devolution will not stop here from this one nation Conservative Government.”