Elected Mayors
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Helen JonesWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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Helen Jones
No. I am sorry; I do not have time.
I also want to comment on the deal that the Government are offering us if we have an elected mayor. Much of the deal is about things that are going to happen anyway, much of it retains powers for the Secretary of State and some of it diverts money away from Warrington to other parts of Cheshire. To take transport as an example, we are told that we would get a Warrington rail hub linking High Speed 2 and High Speed 3 or the west coast main line. That is great, but first of all, we do not even have a route for HS2.
Helen Jones
No. I have said that I will not give way, owing to a lack of time. The hon. Gentleman must forgive me.
We do not have an HS2 route yet. HS3, which in my view would benefit the north much more, is still a distant dream, and does anyone really believe that no rail hub would be needed to link the two lines, whether or not we have a combined authority and a mayor? We are told that we will get free passage over the Mersey bridges instead of paying tolls, but we were promised that in the general election. Will the Government go back on that if we do not have a combined authority?
Then there are the areas where the Secretary of State retains powers, such as the housing programme. The combined authority would have flexibility over only 15% of the housing programme, which could—the word is “could”—include some rented property. When high-value properties are sold, a proportion of the sale will be given to the combined authority, but the proportion is decided by the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of State must approve the housing programme.
None of that gives Warrington the powers it needs to build the kinds of homes that our communities need. Yes, we need starter homes for young couples, but we are also in great need of social rented housing. I suspect that all of us have seen people crying in our surgeries because they cannot get houses. Keeping power with the Secretary of State is not devolution. We are told that, under the employment and housing programme, 50% of the uplift on Homes and Communities Agency land—that is, new town land—will be ring-fenced for Warrington, but 50% of it will go to the combined authority. That is a transfer, to the rest of Cheshire, of money that should remain in my local authority. I do not see that as a good deal.
We are told that the combined authority can keep 100% of the growth in business rates over target, but who sets the target? The Government do. That is the first problem: there may be no growth at all. The second problem is that as business rates increase, grant will be lost. There is no extra money. The third problem is where that growth will come from. It will come from places such as Warrington, Ellesmere Port and Chester, not from the largely agricultural communities around the rest of Cheshire. In other words, it is another proposal to transfer money from poorer communities to better-off communities, and it is a con. It is a Tory proposal to ensure that the Labour-voting areas of Chester have permanent Tory Government. That is what this is all about. It is not about devolution to communities—[Interruption.] Yes, that is right. That is why my council has rejected it, and rightly so.