Queen’s Speech

Lord Hunt of Wirral Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter. I looked with horror as she spoke about the debate that is taking place tomorrow. She is, of course, absolutely entitled to do that but I will not respond to her points today. I also join noble Lords in paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Bourne. Fulsome tributes have been paid to him today. He succeeded me at MHCLG—boy, did he succeed. I was recently at a service to mark National Hate Crime Awareness Week when someone came up to me and asked, a bit put out: “Where is Lord Bourne?” When I said that he was no longer a Minister they were quite disappointed. They waxed lyrical about how wonderful he was and how he will be missed. I will be among others who will miss him.

I will start with my favourite subject, devolution, which was the subject of the first Bill that I brought in as a Minister and which, as my noble friend Lord Heseltine said, is about everything that has been talked about this evening. It is about effective local communities and skills. When I was in local government, and when my noble friend and I went round the country, I found out how important local leadership was in the prospects for devolution. It was no surprise to me that Greater Manchester got the first devolution deal. It knew exactly where it was going and what it needed to achieve. The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, asked what the northern powerhouse means and whether we need legislation for it. To me, the northern powerhouse was all about the Government’s articulation of growing the areas outside London to allow them to play their economic part.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

A better balance.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Exactly—balancing the economy outside London and the south-east. I have the platform and can now unburden. When people say that we need regional rail more than we need HS2, or vice versa, I say that we need it all in the north. It is about time that we started to connect people to jobs more easily. My noble friend Lord Heseltine asks how we can differentiate rural and urban: actually, we all need to access skills and education and bring places of work nearer to us.