North East Mayoral Combined Authority (Establishment and Functions) Order 2024

Lord Beith Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Grand Committee

I reiterate my support for this order and hope that the election and its aftermath will be highly successful for the north-east region.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, resident as she is of the constituency I used to represent. She is a tireless supporter of the north-east. I particularly endorse her point that the creative industry and cultural work have a very important place in the economic successes of the region, and could much more into the future. Of course, we are both veterans of the referendum to which she referred, when the Labour Party sought to introduce a measure of devolution. In my view, it was a very underpowered one, which did not help to achieve success in the referendum. It was opposed tooth and nail by the Conservative Party, so it is a slightly strange experience to be discussing a scheme of devolution put forward by the Conservative Government. This has the same problem of being underpowered in some important respects.

I tend to view this from the standpoint of the more rural and remote parts of the region, partly because of where I live, in Berwick-on-Tweed, and partly because we are so outnumbered and outvoted in the region as a whole. I tend to look at what is proposed here as, in some respects, an enlargement of local government or a more distant local government, which we have already seen with the amalgamation of authorities—things are decided far away, not locally to us, and dominated by an urban area that is 60 miles away and obviously far more numerous in population. In fact, many parts of the area we are discussing today are 120 miles from where I live.

When we look at functions, we must see that there are dangers and limitations in what is proposed in this order. For example, if you take transport, which the Minister rightly referred to, there are quite a lot of things that cannot be done under this order. The continuing failure to deal with the A1—a subject of constant promises and abandonment of promises by successive Governments—is outside the remit of the authorities created by the order. The slashing of train services from Berwick—I have just come directly from a meeting with a Minister about the halving of train services from Berwick-on-Tweed—will be outside the remit of the bodies we are discussing in this order. There is more scope for the provisions in the order to be used for the problems of operating rural bus services, but I am worried that they will be outnumbered by the need to deal with the urban bus problems.

The Minister made reference to skills and adult education, and she said this was tailored to the needs of the area. Well, there is no college of further or adult education in north Northumberland at all, and those who seek further or adult education find themselves involved in 50-mile or 60-mile journeys each way, if they are able to persevere with getting the qualifications they need for their work. All we have is one or two outstations of a college 50 miles away, dealing with hairdressing, the construction industry and one or two other things like that. But the absence of any centralised institution that is even partly centred locally seriously limits people becoming equipped to do jobs or change jobs, which is one of the functions that adult education seeks to meet.

Clearly, I hope that this new authority will address these and other concerns, but I fear that it does not have the resources to do that. The figures the Minister produced sound very good until you work out over how many years they are to be spent, and recognise that the cost of a small piece of new road soon eats up a large part of the sort of figure she cited.

I worry that we will be constantly outnumbered and outvoted when rural and remote area needs are considered. I worry that this is a concentration of power in one person. I supported a regional assembly, and I would have supported a trimmed-down regional assembly on a slightly smaller scale if it had the powers. With the powers, I will accept almost any system that is genuinely democratic. But I am worried by a heavy concentration of power in one person, who is elected because of legislation we have already passed by the first-past-the-post system, which again limits the influence of the remoter and minority areas. I have hopes for what will be done, but I have anxieties about some of the problems inherent in what we are agreeing today.

Teesworks Joint Venture

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, my understanding of the genesis of the report is that it was requested by the Tees Valley Mayor himself to allow a response to the very serious allegations made by a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons about corruption and illegality. Those allegations have been found to be untrue.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I know that the Minister takes seriously the importance of this project for Teesside, but I do not recognise anything that she said about those parts of the report that are excoriating in their description of how public and private money has been handled. It states that

“most decisions are vested in a small number of individuals. This together with the limited reporting means that there is not a robustness within the system. Inappropriate decisions and a lack of transparency which fail to guard against allegations of wrongdoing are occurring, and the principles of spending public money are not being consistently observed”.

That is pretty serious, and I am sure that she must recognise that.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I absolutely recognise the issues raised by the independent panel. It has clearly considered a number of specific issues, and the Secretary of State has written to the Tees Valley Mayor asking him to respond to the panel’s recommendations within six weeks. It is not right for me at this time to comment further on specific examples, but it is important that the combined authority shows progress. We will wait to see its own proposals before deciding on any further action. It is worth making sure that the report is taken in its full context and that we look at the full picture. Another quote from the report that may be useful is:

“There are many voices which articulate a positive view of the project, highlighting the work that has been done and the clear evidence of the achievements which have been made in regenerating an historic part of the UK’s industrial heritage, the final demise of which, in 2015/16 had devastating results for a community that had been badly affected by the changing global patterns of industrial production. A significant amount of regeneration of the area has occurred and new businesses are moving in bringing jobs and other collateral benefits for the local area”.

Levelling Up: North-east England

Lord Beith Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I am aware of the figures that the noble Lord cites, and I think it is a tragedy. The Government are committed to doing all we can to address it. We have seen a real increase in pressure on the private rented sector over the past year, which leads to increases in people in temporary accommodation. At the Autumn Statement, we announced further funding towards tackling homelessness to help address this. We also announced that the local housing allowance will be increased to the 30th percentile, which will help address those cost pressures in the private rented sector, so we are doing a lot to try to address this issue.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

When the Prime Minister announced the cancellation of HS2, he made promises that there would be transport improvements for the north-east, affecting both rail capacity on the east coast main line and the dualling of the A1 north of Newcastle. Given the number of broken promises we have had over the last 50 years on these subjects, will they happen?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that the decision not to press ahead with the final leg of HS2 has released a huge amount of money for people’s priorities across the north of England when it comes to investing in transport. Where that investment will be made will be influenced and led by local leaders and their priorities, working closely with government. It is in their hands as to where we should best allocate this funding.

Housing: Modular Construction

Lord Beith Excerpts

Thursday 8th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

On my noble friend’s last point, that is exactly what we are doing: we are encouraging all the time through investment and support to help housebuilding. On other issues of building public buildings in particular, we want to encourage the take-up of MMC across the whole range of traditional building sites. We can do that by sharing across government. We have introduced a presumption in favour of MMC in our capital programmes, such as within the Department for Education’s school rebuilding programme and the Ministry of Defence accommodation programme. Significant progress has been made on schools and prisons programmes, and we are using those examples of best practice to help shape future policy for MMC.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, in the social housing sector, Legal & General stopped production on the basis that there was an insufficient pipeline of orders and it had had six years of losses. What discussions are the Government having with the social housing sector to see whether modular construction can contribute not just to owner occupation but to dealing with a very serious shortage of social housing?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

As I have said, it is across all sectors. We need to support the MMC sector to increase the amount of housing across the board, whether that be private, affordable or social rented.

Local Government (Exclusion of Non-commercial Considerations) (England) Order 2022

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

From the officials.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Beith) (LD)]

Has the Minister sat down?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

The Minister’s getting up, but the Minister’s getting confused. I am sorry; I meant “the noble Lord, Lord Khan”. I have been confused by people writing the wrong name. I am just reading from the top of the page—my apologies.

Here is the piece of paper. Going on to the next point, I say that we do not know about the impact on employment, and the impact on business is dependent on whether the country or territory of origin of supplies or location of business activities is Russia or Belarus and whether the relevant authority has decided to terminate contracts. Therefore it is not easy to estimate the impact on employment. But, again, this is a permissive power, and local government will ultimately make the decision in the interest of local services and value for money.

I will answer the noble Lord, Lord Khan, about what local authorities should do when these regulations come into effect. The Government will make sure that we provide guidance to local authorities as and when this order comes into force. There has been considerable engagement, and a need has been identified to do this and to bring forward the secondary legislation. These councils have been writing to the Secretary of State since the invasion of Ukraine, setting out the need for the Local Government Act 1988 restrictions in this area to be lifted, to allow local authorities to act. This statutory instrument will allow them to do this, so there has been considerable engagement, as noble Lords can see, and I hope your Lordships will support me in supporting the order.

Elections: Multiple Voting

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, it is very important to mark the Grenfell tragedy in which 72 lives were lost—the largest loss of life in a residential fire since the Second World War. As the noble Lord knows, with his background in local government, we have a system of electoral registration officers—EROs—who know their patch very well, and they go out and do great work in terms of expanding voter registration. This is very much a locally led matter; we have not looked to centralise the electoral registration process.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, neither an identity card nor any other form of identification takes away the problem that there is no data collected on the extent of multiple registration. In the absence of such data, it cannot be monitored. Moreover, the figures given for whether there was a high or a low poll do not make any sense at all, because in a constituency with a large number of people who are registered elsewhere, it would be quite impossible to gain the 80% or 85% poll that I had when I was first elected to Parliament.

Inclusive Society

Lord Beith Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, this debate has rightly covered the range of inequalities, deprivations and disparities that have contributed to the vulnerabilities that Covid-19 has shown up. We have to address them, but we also have to recognise that an inclusive society must be an inclusive democracy in which people feel a sense of involvement and ownership in the decisions which affect their lives. Despite the emergency, freedom and civil rights should not disappear or be diminished. Their absence will make our society a more exclusive one—one that is enjoyed only by those who prosper when arbitrary power and centralised authority operate; that is something they will welcome.

In the time available I can mention only a few of the issues and dangers which this analysis raises. We need to remember that emergencies can take a lot longer than we expect—that has certainly happened in this case—and that there will be plenty more of them. Climate change may bring us floods, droughts or mass migration. Any of these would call for some kind of urgent action. So we need to review how we legislate for emergencies so that we learn from the mistakes of this episode. If we want our democracy to be genuinely inclusive, there are things we will have to curb.

One is lawmaking by ministerial decree without proper parliamentary scrutiny—a totally exclusive process. Another is confusion between what is law and what is advice, with the unacceptable pressure on police officers to enforce what is not law. Then there is government purchasing and contracting excluding those who do not have privileged access or the right contacts or email addresses; and treating local democratic institutions —local government—as an afterthought rather than involving them from the beginning.

There are the dangers that would emerge from a Covid passport if it became a document on which freedom depended in many circumstances, thus excluding a lot of people. There is also the inadequate legislative framework. It is interesting that in this crisis the Government did not use our emergency legislation—the Civil Contingencies Act—or even make much use of the Coronavirus Act, reverting instead to the Public Health Act 1984.

We all know some of the weaknesses that our democracy has. We should start now to prepare a legislative structure and general approach equal to the needs of an emergency on a basis that is inclusive, not exclusive, and recognises that freedom, constrained though it is when there is a risk of harm to others on a sound John Stuart Mill principle, remains the right of all our citizens.

North of England: Investment

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we recognise the importance of direct government investment, but we must also ensure that the £4 billion of the levelling-up fund leverages in private sector investment. It is those two working in harness that provides the solution.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

Attracting private investment to the north requires a functioning transport system. Why are Ministers declining to listen to the Northern Powerhouse Rail business case for substantial investment across the north before they produce their own integrated transport plan? What hope is there of the level of improvement to the transport system—for example, the east coast main line, which requires expanded capacity both south and north of Newcastle essential to expanding the passenger and freight capacity of that line?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I recognise the importance of transport in driving progress and investment in the north of England. That is why there has been £13 billion of investment—the largest of any Government in history—between 2015-16 and 2020-21, and there is now also a five-year intra-city transport settlement to ensure the north gets the transport infrastructure it needs.