Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield Combined Authority (Functions and Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Friday 24th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and I will stand for the north of England together, but I think we might disagree about how to do it. I speak as a Liberal Democrat and many members of the party will support what I am going to say. This order is one relatively minor part of the Conservative Government’s intentions to drastically reorganise local government throughout England; to do so at ridiculous speed and with little regard for the wishes of people in communities and local areas; and to effectively abolish local democracy in vast areas of England, notably in the shires but in a lot of other places, too. I remind the House of my interest as a district councillor, not in Yorkshire but within spitting distance, just over the border in Pendle.

The Government are embarking on this ludicrous and disgraceful ambition in the middle of by far the biggest crisis that this country and its local councils have seen since the Second World War—one in which every sinew and every effort needs to be focused on clearing out Covid and rebuilding our economy, our society and our services, so many of which require the total attention of our elected local councils and councillors. Instead, we shall see the waste of many millions of pounds—every reorganisation costs millions and we are threatened with a large pile of them—the diversion of the time and energy of council staff and councillors, and enormous losses of skills and local and historical knowledge as people retire at the very time when they are desperately needed. But, of course, the people in Whitehall and Westminster always know best, as we have seen from the enormous success of the centralised, top-down schemes to tackle local Covid-19 outbreaks, while the local people with those skills and knowledge have repeatedly complained of being sidelined or ignored. For the benefit of Hansard, let me say that that sentence should carry an ironic emoticon. Why do the very clever but often ignorant people at the top never learn?

In spite of my origins in Yorkshire, I do not want to interfere in an internal Yorkshire dispute between One Yorkshire and this distinctly less ambitious proposal, except that I see no dispute. There is almost unanimity in support of One Yorkshire, except in the Government. Is this because One Yorkshire could be the start of genuine regional devolution in England, instead of this rather shoddy plan? This will not be devolution at all. The powers that are to be shared with local authorities will inevitably be gathered up by the combined authority from the councils. Proposals that will be concurrent—a sinister, bureaucratic word, in my view—with central government will inevitably be met by that Government with something like, “We hear what you say, and thank you for your ideas, but if you want the brass, this is what you will do.” We have seen this far too often.

We hear that they are coming next for Lancashire, in the near future. Let me warn them: in some areas of the country at least, if they press on with the destruction of local democracy, it will be nothing but pain for the Conservative Party in some of the very towns that have given it its majority in this Parliament. There will be battles ahead all over the country—all over England—and the Government must not think that they will easily win all of them.