North Yorkshire (Structural Changes) Order 2022

Debate between Lord Newby and Lord Jopling

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, following earlier discussions about errors in statutory instruments, when I worked for Customs and Excise, there was a VAT instrument in which I had a passing interest which had one word wrong. The view was taken that the Under-Secretary whose responsibility it was would never be promoted again as a result. Sadly, he never was, although there may have been more fundamental reasons for that. I am sure that will not be the fate of the Minister.

My interest in this is that I am a resident of Ripon, which is affected by this change. From looking at the two orders we have so far discussed, the similarities and the differences strike me. North Yorkshire is bigger than Cumbria in every way. Cumbria has a population of 498,000; North Yorkshire’s population is 602,000. Cumbria is 60 miles long from north to south; Scarborough to Bentham is 108 miles or three hours’ drive. This is a big place and even some of the wards are huge. I draw the Minister’s attention to Upper Dales, which has Hawes, High Abbotside, Upper Swaledale, Lower Swaledale and Arkengarthdale, and is 20 miles long. It would take you at least 40 minutes to drive from one end to the other and for a fair bit of winter it is impassable, because you have to go over from Wensleydale to Swaledale. This is a very different type of country, as is Cumbria, to much of the rest of England and the rest of the United Kingdom.

As the noble Lord will be aware, whether this is the best proposal was the subject of a massive amount of in-fighting in his party, and a lack of consensus in my party and every other party, about which is the best way forward, because getting it right is extremely complex. I shall not argue the toss about whether there should be a division down the A1, which was highly supported in some places. There was also no effective consultation. People may have responded to an online petition but, having done some canvassing in Ripon, I know that nobody knows it is happening, and far less have they expressed a view.

Although this is nominally the creation of a unitary authority, it will work only if there are two tiers of local government, and the second tier is different from the district. It will be the local. At the moment, Ripon is part of Harrogate district and North Yorkshire county, and there is huge resentment to being part of Harrogate. I knocked on a door and a man answered who was not a natural Liberal Democrat. He made that clear by ripping up the leaflet that I was attempting to give him. I asked him who he was supporting and he said, “I am supporting UKIP because, if UKIP were in here, we would have had our independence from Harrogate by now.” This sort of parochialism is rampant in far-flung parts of North Yorkshire.

Unless there is an effective form of very local government, that feeling of distance will inevitably grow because of the increasing distance. Harrogate is just down the road compared with Northallerton if you live in Ripon, so that man and people generally who live in Ripon, who are fed up with what they see as their subordinate position to Harrogate, will be looking for Ripon, which already has a city council having a cathedral which celebrates its 1,350th anniversary this year, to take on more responsibilities, and that poses major problems.

At the moment, Ripon City Council is a modest affair when it comes to doing things. It is very good when it comes to appearing in the cathedral wearing gowns and being proceeded by the macebearer, but the issue which occupies more of the time of that city council at the moment is the provision of Christmas lights. This will not do in future. There needs to be much more devolution of small powers down to Ripon City Council so that the people of Ripon feel that they can have a real say about small things that matter a lot to them.

North Yorkshire has submitted to Ripon and more generally a list of 27 areas of responsibility, which it says it is prepared to discuss in principle with parish councils and town councils, with a view to devolving. They go from running car parks to providing dog wardens and library services and a whole raft of those sorts of minor things. I know there is an appetite in Ripon for those powers to be taken back, but there is no capacity to do it at the moment. The town hall is a wonderful building but there is no space to do it. The people who work for the city council are estimable, but they do not have the scope to take on many of these powers. I cite Knaresborough Council, which has taken the majority of powers that it can exercise under the current arrangements, as an example of already doing this well. It has a very detailed plan about how it can slowly take on more powers and reckons it will take over a decade to build up the capacity to take on all 27 powers that it could conceivably have. I think, having looked at it and talked to the council, that it is probably right.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, if a parish or town council is taking on a power with expenditure attached, can the Government give an assurance that the resources that come with that new devolved power will not be cut and will be the same as they are currently? Secondly, and more importantly, how do the Government plan to empower local parish and town councils to take on the responsibilities that will be essential if this scheme is going to retain public support?

At the moment, there is not the funding for staff, offices and expertise. It seems to me that this is a very big gap. North Yorkshire says positive things about undertaking this process of devolving things down but, in an area the size of North Yorkshire, you will need a lot of new organisations at very local level and even more resources put into existing ones to turn them from worthy but very limited bodies to ones that exercise real authority and responsibility for delivering the majority of those local services. Northallerton, 50 miles east or west, and the people who work in Northallerton are not going to be the best people to manage those 27 local responsibilities that I have discussed.

This is a challenge to everybody involved in politics in North Yorkshire and a real challenge to the Government because, unless they help, we simply will not get the kind of further devolution away from Northallerton that is essential if this new arrangement is to command popular support over the longer term.

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, I was intrigued to listen to the noble Lord’s stories about Ripon in his speech. I was born in Ripon and have lived within 10 miles of it my entire life, so am familiar with many of the points that he raised. However, as I said in the previous debate about Cumbria, I have always been an enthusiast for the unitary arrangement and I say that in spite of being a former member of a rural district council at Thirsk.

I was lobbied some months back by Harrogate Borough Council, which asked me to support the east/west arrangement. I tried to look into it and make my own mind up. I came to the conclusion that the unitary body for the whole of North Yorkshire was the best way out, and that, in spite of the reservations of Harrogate and others, I would support what we are considering this evening.

It is a wide area—noble Lords only have to look at a map—but there is a difference between North Yorkshire and Cumbria. Largely it is with regard to the administrative centre. I have heard few, but not very many, complaints about the accessibility from Skipton to Northallerton, but that is in no way as difficult as the problems of travelling from Barrow-in-Furness to Carlisle, which is a much more serious problem of remoteness. Whereas I have heard a good many complaints about remoteness over my days in Cumbria, particularly by people who live on the Furness peninsula, I have heard few similar ones in North Yorkshire.

Now that this proposition has been made by the Government through the Minister, I am told that those early differences that I talked about have now largely been resolved and that all of North Yorkshire’s Members of Parliament support the scheme we are discussing. I am told that the preparations are going well. I have been talking to members of the county council about this, and have asked them particularly about how well it is going. I am told that it is going well, especially with regard to the staff who serve the various local authorities, some of whom are going and others of whom will be expanded.

I am particularly pleased that there will be area constituency committees based on parliamentary constituency boundaries. That seems a sensible and constructive idea. I hope this will remove accusations of remoteness and demonstrate that local concerns and problems are being heard and dealt with. I certainly welcome the way in which the various councils at the two levels are co-operating to create the new level. As I ended my remarks on the Cumbria discussion, I wish it well.