Devolution: English Cities

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Brougham and Vaux]

Please continue, Lord Shipley.

[Lord Shipley]

I was talking about the decentralisation of Whitehall departments. A few years ago, I called for the Department for Transport to move out of London in its entirety, other than a small head office. I want to repeat that call because there is no need for the Department for Transport to be located in London when Transport for London is here. Indeed, if Channel 4 can move out of London, so can the Department for Transport, and so might other departments.

We have to allow localities to merge budgets from Whitehall to effect savings and, as a consequence, to deliver better services. If Whitehall is not joined up—and it is not—it can be joined up only at a local level. It is very important that infrastructure funding is transformational in its allocation. It is important for the Treasury to invest its infrastructure moneys in places which may not give as fast a return as places which are already better off.

I have been in the past, and still am, a supporter of the mayoral structure. I campaigned for a mayor for the city of Newcastle during the referendum. My reasons were that the powers of the leader were altered in the period just before 2010 so that a council leader had broadly similar powers to a mayor. I felt that council leaders should derive their power from all residents and electors, not just a party group.

Finally, I support very strongly what the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, said about the role of the private sector. I was very pleased to hear his words about the Government working with the private sector to identify companies that can expand in those places where we want greater private sector expansion.

Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th February 2017 Grand Committee

Relevant document: 15th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux)]

Good afternoon, my Lords, and welcome to the third day of the Grand Committee on the Neighbourhood Planning Bill. I apologise for the Clock, but the mini-clock that shows the length of speeches is correct. Do not worry about that. There may be a Division in the Chamber. If there is and the Bell rings, we will adjourn and resume after 10 minutes.

Clause 12: Restrictions on power to impose planning conditions

Amendment 28

Moved by

Wales Bill

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I shall beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but at the same time I want to—

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

Are you withdrawing the amendment, or do you want to speak to it?

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

With the leave of the House, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Contents 222; Not-Contents 222.

[The Deputy Speaker]

My Lords, there being an equality of votes, in accordance with Standing Order 56, which provides that no proposal to amend a Bill in the form in which it is before the House shall be agreed to unless there is a majority in favour of such amendment, I declare the amendment disagreed to.

Feed-in Tariffs (Amendment) (No. 3) Order 2015

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

I am sure that all of us in this House want nothing other than that our renewables industry should be successful. That can be delivered if the Government were willing to make further changes to lessen the rate and degree of subsidy reduction and loosen the generation capacity cap. I will listen carefully to all the contributions in this debate and to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

My Lords, I should inform the House that if this Motion is agreed to, I cannot call the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, due to pre-emption.

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

My Lords, the statutory instrument before your Lordships’ House today is the latest in the recurring string of announcements from the Government that severely limit the UK’s renewables industry, the mishandling of which severely damages confidence among all investors in the sector. This SI contains massive restrictions in the deployment of small-scale renewables, including a 65% cut to the rate of feed-in tariffs available for small-scale solar, from 12p to 4.39p. It also contains a system of deployment caps and degressions that shackle the growth potential of what should be a flourishing new industry. The Government’s impact assessment puts the number of jobs lost at 18,700, which is half the number of jobs in the sector. This Feed-in Tariffs (Amendment) (No. 3) Order introduces quarterly deployment caps which, once capacity is filled, participants transfer to the next available quarter, with a 10% degression rate. Will the Minister explain to the House how this deployment cap will operate transparently for participants?

This is a terrible scheme. In the wake of the Paris agreement on climate change, everyone should be working together to bring forward investment in low-carbon and zero-carbon power. This sudden and severe change in policy with built-in cliff edges risks cutting the industry off at the knees rather than supporting it to get up and running on its own feet and guiding its graduation towards being subsidy-free. Your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee drew attention to the high levels of opposition to these changes in responses to the consultation. Participants found it hard to be convinced on future deployment levels when the department was unable to substantiate its claims. Industry is losing faith with the Government on the way it is being treated.

The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, proposed from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench that the order be annulled. This is opportunistic posturing. Liberal Democrats can have short memories. They were willing participants in the coalition Government with the Conservatives. They had a Lib Dem Secretary of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change who brought in the first alterations and cuts to the FIT scheme. In 2012, the then Lib Dem Secretary of State introduced changes with the following perverse logic and curious soundbite:

“By lowering the tariff we can extend it to more people—making clean, green, renewable energy available to the many not the few”.

They did not set a long-term policy outcome. They did not base the policy on the best outcome for the UK to bring forward industry in partnership.

Our Motion clearly puts on record our serious concerns about the Government’s feed-in tariff policy. Nobody can be in any doubt about that. Labour in this House seek to take on issues where we believe progress can be made within the constitutional limitations we have as an unelected revising Chamber. Furthermore, this House has agreed that it should only rarely threaten to defeat statutory instruments, as to do so would be an effective veto on the Executive Government. The Motion moved today by the noble Baroness is at least the fourth on an SI from the Lib Dem Benches this Session, and there is a fifth fatal Motion to come. If they had all been Government defeats, there would have been as many fatal SI defeats as there have been since World War II, but let us not allow that to deflect the House from the tactics of the Conservatives. At least they have been consistent in bringing forward vague manifesto commitments by putting them in Bills—for example, cuts to onshore wind in the Energy Bill presently in the other place—in contrast to the unannounced policy changes being brought forward in the negative statutory instrument we have before us today. I understand the concern expressed that this is incompatible with the recognised conventions.

When the Minister replies, will he clarify why changes to the onshore wind regime merit a few clauses in the Energy Bill with grace periods and provisions that can be amended, whereas this order on solar energy generation and the solar RO changes to come in another SI are negative instruments that cannot be amended? What are the substantial differences that merit these different approaches? I recognise that the parent Acts may allow this, but to a wider audience they are inconsistent. In view of the strength of argument against the order, will the Minister withdraw it for future reflection?

Empowerment and Responsibility: Financial Powers to Strengthen Wales

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Wales Office (Baroness Randerson)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for proposing this debate, which has provided an opportunity to consider the recommendations of the Commission for Devolution in Wales—the Silk commission—on fiscal devolution and financial accountability. The noble Lord has rightly taken a keen interest in the Silk commission’s recommendations since they were published on 19 November and clearly recognises the importance of the report for Welsh devolution and for improving the financial accountability of the Assembly and the Welsh Government. I agree wholeheartedly with his comments in this regard.

The Government gave a clear commitment, in our programme for government, to set up a Calman-like process for the Welsh Assembly, depending on the outcome of the referendum on law-making powers for the Assembly last year. Following that vote in the referendum on Assembly powers, there was a clear need to examine Welsh devolution in a methodical way and to ensure there was no repeat of the case-by-case, drip-by-drip approach to devolution that typified changes to the Welsh settlement during the “LCO years”, as I call them. Our commitment to a Calman-like process for Wales did just what was needed.

The Secretary of State set up the Silk commission in October 2011, with, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has emphasised, cross-party support. That support was reflected in the commission’s membership, which included representation from all four parties in the Assembly. Since then, the commission has gathered evidence and criss-crossed Wales to hold public meetings to inform its work on improving the financial accountability of the devolved institutions in Wales. The fruits of that labour, in the form of a nearly 200-page report, were published three weeks ago.

I take issue with the idea put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, that in some way three weeks is too long to spend analysing a complex package and a complex set of tax proposals, with 33 recommendations. I believe that noble Lords would expect the Government to take that seriously, as we are. Discussions on this are already well under way between Cabinet colleagues and between the Welsh Government and the Treasury. I assure noble Lords that we are taking it so seriously that there will be a response, we hope, in the spring, which I believe is timely for a report of this importance.

There is no doubt that the report is detailed and thorough. It relates to the financial accountability of the Welsh Government and the National Assembly, and how that can be improved through the devolution of tax and borrowing powers. I pay tribute to the commissioners for their hard work.

First, the commissioners recommend that the Assembly should be able to take tax decisions in order to better empower it to deliver policy objectives in devolved areas. To achieve this, the commission’s proposals include the devolution of smaller-yielding taxes, as set out here today.

Secondly, they suggest that to improve financial accountability, the Welsh Government should be responsible for funding a material amount of the money they spend. The commission recommends that responsibility for income tax should be shared between Cardiff Bay and Westminster, and that the Welsh Government should be able to set income tax rates within the UK income tax structure. The commission recommends that income tax devolution should be subject to a referendum, which the noble Baroness has indicated she supports.

Thirdly, it suggests that the Welsh Government should be granted borrowing powers; an issue that was raised very powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and others. That recommendation fits well with the announcement, already made before the publication of the report on 24 October, in which we agreed the principle of borrowing powers for the Welsh Government to fund infrastructure investment, subject to an appropriate independent revenue stream being put in place. In answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Rowlands, in general terms the minor taxes that are suggested would be considered to be a sufficient income stream to support borrowing, along the precedent set for the Scottish Government. Indeed, the UK Government have indicated that they will be prepared to anticipate the establishment and devolution of those taxes in order to enable more rapid progress to be made on infrastructure development in Wales.

Taken together, the package of measures recommended by the commission would make the Welsh Government responsible for raising about a quarter of their revenue. That is a significant change, and both the Government and Parliament need to scrutinise the implications in detail. In response to the noble Baroness, I say that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales has indicated his willingness and keenness to have a debate as soon as possible in the other place. Of course, there will be further opportunities when the Government officially respond to the Silk report.

That brings me on to where we go from here. As I have said, these recommendations would represent a fundamental change in Welsh devolution—perhaps the most fundamental change since it was established in 1999. That requires careful examination. As we announced in last week’s Autumn Statement, the Government plan to publish an initial response in the spring. It is a clear demonstration of our commitment to progress this work seriously, but in a timely manner. There is a significant amount of work to assess. Clearly, the Scotland Act sets a precedent for fiscal devolution, but we need to consider the Silk commission’s package for Wales on its own merits. As I have already said, discussions have already started.

The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, talked about the importance of economic regeneration. I feel that the Silk report neatly linked the policy objective of economic regeneration with its recommendations on specific taxes. The noble Lord also raised the issue of corporation tax. Of course, corporation tax is a very specific area for Northern Ireland in particular, because Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland, where the rate of corporation tax is particularly low. Corporation tax is a particularly tricky issue if you are to avoid a “race to the bottom”. It is important to bear in mind that if you are on the wrong side of that border in that race to the bottom, you get the flight of businesses over the border. That is a difficult issue to be considered. The Silk commission certainly did not have a clear recommendation on that at all.

The proposed timetable is very tight, but I understand the issue. The Silk commission put forward a package of measures. Fair funding is also a package of measures, and there are ongoing discussions between the Welsh Government and the Treasury, with the agreement announced on 24 October that there would be discussions at the start of every spending review period. It would take into account whether there was likely to be convergence within that period.

The noble Lord, Lord Morgan, raised the interesting concept of representation without taxation. I felt that that was a neat way of referring to the problems that the Welsh Assembly has experienced. He drew attention to the weakness of the devolution settlement. He also spoke about the ability to vary the rate of income tax, and rightly says that Silk is more radical than Calman on this issue. He also rightly said that Silk affects the whole of the UK. However, I point out to several noble Lords who referred to the unfairness of the Barnett formula that it is a pretty blunt instrument because it does not take into account need, but it is also important to place on record that the discussions between the Welsh and UK Governments have led to an agreement that there is no longer convergence occurring. Indeed, in the past couple of years there has been divergence. In other words, Wales is doing rather better than it was a couple of years ago in terms of the Barnett formula. Indeed the figures show—and these are figures agreed between the Welsh and UK Governments—that we are within the rough area that the Holtham commission stated in its report was the fair level of funding for Wales. It is important to bear in mind that there has been that agreement.

Finally, I will, of course, review the record and will take the opportunity, with their permission, to write to noble Lords about any issues of substance that have been raised that I have not been able to address in my response.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux)]

My Lords, that completes the business in Grand Committee this afternoon.

Committee adjourned at 5.50 pm.

Scotland Bill

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I shall try to be brief. The issue is covered by a number of other amendments grouped with this one. I was absolutely astonished when I reached page 2 of the Scottish edition of the Sunday Times this week. There was an article by Jason Allardyce which informed me that the First Minister, as a result of negotiation, had been able to get extra powers to raise income tax in Scotland and arrange extra borrowing. No mention was made of this orphan Bill and the fact that this is the product of the Calman commission. So far as I know we have still not had a formal response so we have not heard from the Scottish Parliament whether it is prepared to give legislative consent to it. That tells you everything you need to know about the gymnastic qualities and abilities of our glorious First Minister.

One of the things that is sad about this sad little Bill is that it is actually hugely radical in what it proposes. It will give enormous powers to the Scottish Parliament. It is devo-max, and as we have had reason to discover in our debates earlier today, it is devo-max on issues such as speed limits and so on to the point of absurdity. In this part we are dealing with the heart of huge changes that are being made, but which do not seem to be part of the debate in Scotland. Indeed, we are in an absurd position where the debate is about what further policies could be added when this Bill provides for them. Picking up on a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, in one of his interesting newsletter blogs to his civil servant colleagues, I think that the Permanent Secretary in the Scottish Government described it as,

“lost in the mists of time”,

and no longer of relevance.

I have to apologise to my noble and learned friend. As always I had fantastic help from the Public Bill Office, but I do not think these amendments are brilliantly drafted. What I want to do is in effect get rid of the provisions that give the Scottish Parliament the ability to invent completely new taxes. Not only are we going to have a Scottish income tax, but completely new taxes can also be invented. They can invent a window tax and they can have a local income tax. My noble friend Lord Sassoon is shaking his head; I will happily give way as it might save some time if he is going to tell me that that is wrong. The only thing that stands in the way of those taxes being implemented is an Order in Council which has to be approved by both Houses of Parliament.

I am not going to start on another history lesson, but I thought that the whole point of this place—perhaps not this House but certainly the other place; and this place until 1911—is that it is not possible to raise taxes without the consent of Parliament. This provision in the Bill muddles that principle by allowing the Scottish Parliament to decide on a new tax—let us call it a local income tax, a window tax or something of that kind— and all it would require is the agreement of the Executive in London, which then has to put the proposals to both Houses of Parliament.

When it comes to the politics of this, is that really a proper check and balance on the ability to raise taxes on the people? It seems it would be politically extremely difficult in circumstances where, say, an SNP Administration decided to introduce a local income tax for either House to be able to oppose that with any political credibility. It is one thing to say, as those who argue for devo-max do, that the Scottish Parliament should be able to get all the revenues raised in Scotland and be responsible for expenditure; but it is quite another to provide for the invention of new taxes and for the only control on them to be an Order in Council, which is then subject to a resolution by both Houses.

In short, I do not believe that this clause should be in the Bill. I am very interested as to what new taxes the Government have in mind might be introduced by the Scottish Parliament, which it would fall upon the people of Scotland to pay. I am told that if you do an opinion poll in Scotland, there is great support for new powers—if you ask the people, “Would you like the Scottish Parliament to have new powers”, you will find there is a lot of support for that. However, if you ask the people of Scotland, “Would you like the Scottish Parliament to be able to invent new taxes, which would fall upon you?”, I wonder whether there would be the same level of support. If you asked them, “Would you like the Scottish Parliament to be able to invent and implement new taxes which you do not know about and which have not been discussed?”, I am not sure that that would command support. I find it extraordinary that this hugely radical change in the powers of the Scottish Parliament has not even been discussed in the Scottish media. I would wager that only a handful of people in Scotland are aware of it and of the implications.

This whole clause is not only unnecessary, it is constitutionally improper and I cannot for the life of me think why it should be there. I look forward to my noble friend telling me what problem this clause is meant to remedy and why it should be here. My amendment would simply prevent this happening without proper accountability. I think this is one of the most radical parts of the Bill and seems to be completely undesirable. I do not know whether Calman recommended it or not but I would be very surprised if such an open-ended provision was recommended, given that the Calman commission was so careful in its analysis. I will just forewarn my noble and learned friend of one thing. I am sure that in his briefing he will have lots of sentences that say, “This fulfils our manifesto commitment to implement the Calman proposal”. Well, there are other recommendations in Calman that are not in the Bill and which the Government have set their face against. So I would be careful about using that particular argument. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux)]

I advise the Committee that if Amendment 51A in this group is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 51B due to pre-emption

[Lord Sewel]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 51A, which is in my name. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, is absolutely right when he draws our attention to the central constitutional importance of the clause. We are dealing with a fundamental constitutional issue—the power to create taxes, which is a defining characteristic of a sovereign parliament. At the moment, the new Section 80B proposed for the 1998 Act reads:

“Her Majesty may by Order in Council amend this Part so as to … specify, as an additional devolved tax, a tax of any description”.

Through this amendment, I want to ensure that any change in the tax powers of the Scottish Parliament will be subject to the scrutiny that you have with the primary legislative process rather than that which applies to secondary legislation. The Order in Council route is totally inadequate to secure the degree of political scrutiny that is appropriate and necessary. The granting of a power to enhance the taxing powers of a devolved parliament is not something that should be done lightly, casually or trivially. It should be done only through the process of primary legislation to ensure the absolute, measured, considered and examined scrutiny of any proposal. The order route is inadequate because we do not amend Orders in Council—this House is, rightly, reluctant to vote down orders and they see a very abbreviated form of parliamentary scrutiny.

Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc. Bill [HL]

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Wednesday 6th October 2010 Lords Chamber

Amendment 1 agreed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux)]

Before I call Amendment 2, I should inform the Committee that if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 3 due to pre-emption.

Amendment 2

Moved by