West of England Combined Authority Order 2017

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Cope of Berkeley

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cope of Berkeley (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord said just now, this new authority covers most of the area of the former county of Avon. As it turned out, my time in another place neatly bracketed the existence of the county of Avon. It came into being under earlier Conservative legislation in April 1974, a month after I was first elected, and it was abolished in 1996, a few months before I left the House of Commons —involuntarily, I may say.

The county of Avon always made administrative sense in governing the area that it did, but it was much disliked from start to finish, and unlamented when abolished. That legacy lingers and was reflected in the consultation responses. Governments muck about with traditional loyalties at their peril. I do not think that this change runs the same dangers to the same extent, but it will require first-class leadership—and it will flourish only if the constituent councils co-operate. It could provide vision and the potential to pull together forces, both public and private, for the good of our area and to help it to continue to flourish—which, as the noble Lord from the Liberal Benches said, it is doing at the present time. I wish it every success.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a few questions for the Minister on this new authority. I support the concept of a combined authority, certainly in transport terms, for the whole area around Bristol and Bath. It is a great shame, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, that North Somerset is not there.

I start off with a basic question, as I live in Cornwall. Why is it called the West of England Combined Authority? What about the poor people of Cornwall, Plymouth, Devon, Torbay and the other bits of Somerset? Have they fallen off the edge of the map? The reason that I ask this question is that, as the Minister knows—because he kindly met us after this event that I am about to describe—his Secretary of State spoke at a conference of business people in Exeter in the autumn, and made it more than 100% clear that if any authority wanted extra money, it would have to have a mayor. The size of the authority did not seem to matter very much, so he was quizzed as to whether that could have been one region—I could almost call it a region if it included some of Somerset, all of Devon, Torbay, Plymouth, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly—at one end of the spectrum, leaving aside whether it would ever be possible to elect a mayor for such an area, or the Isles of Scilly with a population of 2,500 on the other. The Secretary of State, however, was absolutely clear: if you want the money—and my noble friend Lord Beecham has made it clear that there is not very much money compared to what is needed, but it is still the same principle—you have to have a mayor. So, now that we have bits of the west of England going into a combined authority, perhaps the Minister could explain whether his version of the settlement that he kindly explained at the meeting—that you do not really need to have a mayor to get more money; you just have to be properly organised as a council—is the Government’s policy, or whether, somehow, the rest of the west of England, if it has not fallen off the edge, has to create one or more mayors.

My second question relates to transport. The Minister said in his opening remarks that there is money for transport. That is certainly necessary, because the area around Bristol and Bath has suffered from having several different authorities arguing—in my perception, slightly from the outside—about what should be done to whom and how. This is a major step forward in that direction, if they get the money. But who chooses which bit of transport gets the money and where? Is it just the mayor, is there any discussion about it or how does the process work? I notice in Article 8(2) that the combined authority or the mayor does not get the penalties for bus lane contraventions, so presumably they will not be enforced and we will continue to see the traffic jams that happen so frequently in Bristol and other parts.

I rather like the new Part 1, covering what can be done by this combined authority: “surface rail”, “bus ways”, “rapid transit”, “public highway infrastructure”, “bridges” and “flood defences”. That is an enormous list, especially as there have been floods in the next-door county of the rest of Somerset for several recent years. Is this just pie in the sky, or is there going to be some really serious money available to help fund these very important developments?