Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Heseltine Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I oppose this amendment, but in doing so I must apologise to the House because I was slightly delayed at the start. We went through the previous grouping very quickly and, with the permission of the House, I would like to intervene at this point.

I opposed this move the last time that it was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on the then Wales Bill. Immediately I learned that moves of this kind were in the Labour manifesto I sought to speak with Labour’s representative on youth. I feel very concerned about this matter although it is encouraging to hear what the noble Lord says about the experience in Scotland, and I look forward to studying the outcome. The aims are utterly laudable considering that young people in this country more and more will be carrying the burden of our pensions and of healthcare of the elderly. Listening to their voices is very important indeed, and of course we should always seek as far as possible to listen to the feelings and wishes of young people. The trouble is that, with respect, I do not think this is the right way to do it.

I am very interested in adolescents. I have worked with them and much of my life has been spent thinking about the issue of adolescence, speaking with professionals and reading the theoretical material around it. It is really important to think about adolescence in this context. “Adolescence” comes from the Latin root “to grow up”. It is a huge change in young people’s lives. One looks, for instance, at Anna Freud and her work in the 1960s on adolescence. She of course set up the Hampstead nurseries at the end of the Second World War to provide for children separated from their parents, and the Anna Freud Centre is named after her. She was a great expert in this area. She highlighted the fact that huge physical changes take place in adolescence, that huge sexual changes take place, and that issues around aggression and how young people manage aggression manifest themselves. It really seems unfair to ask so much of young people when they are going through all these changes. She also highlighted the way that one week they will be studious, perhaps—thoughtful, intellectual—and then the next week can go to the other extreme, to the opposite sort of behaviour. They of course also very much reject their parents as they go through adolescence and often take extremely opposite views from those of their parents.

These young people are going through a very interesting time, and of course they are rather suggestible, particularly with the use of the internet now. It is easy to access them, so politicians who wish to and are unscrupulous can quite easily manipulate these young people. We have seen the ease of manipulating such young people through the process of grooming young people for sexual exploitation and by Islamic State. These young people may manifest themselves as quite intellectual at times, but they change very suddenly to a different point of view. They are not very stable because of their growing period.

I feel very concerned about this, and I hope your Lordships will reject this amendment. I look forward to the House’s response.

[Lord Heseltine (Con)]

My Lords, this is a highly controversial subject. There are many opinions on both sides of the House, and I have no doubt that the issue will be returned to time and again. Perhaps, however, your Lordships will agree with me that this Bill is the implementation of a manifesto commitment by the elected Government to devolve power from the Whitehall departments to combinations of local authorities. It is not about changing the electoral system. There was no reference in the manifesto associated with this commitment to changing the electoral system. Although as a Member of another place I was probably guilty on many occasions of abusing the full interpretation of the law in order to advocate petty or personal views that I held, I cannot believe that your Lordships are going to agree to add little bits—like trinkets on a Christmas tree—that suit our own particular ambitions but actually are not the intention of the Bill.

If the noble Lord were to talk about the need to change this, there is a proper place for that to happen, and that is for the Government to launch a wide basis of consultation. I think it would be appropriate for that to start in another place, which after all reflects the elected democracy of this country, and it would not be appropriate for this House to try to impose on another place a suggestion of that sort. I do not enter into the merits of the case. I merely suggest to your Lordships that we are here with a very specific task: the implementation of a manifesto commitment, which we should execute with dispatch.

On that basis, having heard all the eloquence that the noble Lord brings to this cause and to many others, I hope very much that he will feel he has served the purpose that he had in mind and not seek to change the electoral arrangements under the guise of devolving power to local authorities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Heseltine]

My Lords, we touched on this subject in Committee. I hope very much that your Lordships will reject this proposal. In this House, it is universally agreed that we are shifting power on a massive scale to local authorities in whatever form they decide to combine. It is important, urgent and economically of great significance. The idea that we should be trying to reintroduce a system whereby the moment someone becomes unpopular as a mayor, the whole focus of attention in the city or conurbation over which they have been elected should be subject to people going around with petitions saying, “Can we have a new system of government?”, is about the most undermining thing one could do to the strength of the authorities that we are trying to create.

One could expand on the arguments but the House has been sitting for a considerable time. The simple argument is that we want to devolve serious power to elected people who have the certainty of a period in power in which to carry out their responsibilities. I have never seen a Government take the difficult decisions that have to be taken, often in circumstances not of their making—there could be an economic downturn or whatever—without the elected leaders, Government or council not being at some stage very unpopular. That does not mean that they are wrong; it means that they are sometimes doing a difficult job that is often long overdue. To accept this amendment would be to create a degree of instability and uncertainty, which is precisely the sort of thing that we are trying, in this legislation, to get rid of. I hope your Lordships will reject the amendment

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, was part of a Government which did not merely effect a change in personnel; they abolished a whole range of councils without any local choice in the matter at all. I am afraid that one must take his criticisms of this amendment with that background in mind. The Government’s current proposals effectively impose, as it were, a life sentence on the form of governance of combined authorities. That does not apply to the mayoralty in other authorities.

Your Lordships will recall that several councils whose people chose to have an elected mayor have, in light of the experience, changed their minds and, perfectly properly and democratically, decided that that should no longer be the case. It seems quite invidious that when councils were compelled to have a referendum—not by local demand but by the Government—they are stuck with that choice for evermore. The noble Baroness has adduced a perfectly consistent, logical argument and we on these Benches will support her should she choose to divide the House.