Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, the basic premise of this legislation is that elected mayors would be a better way to run our great cities or combined authorities. Coming as I do from the world of local government, I question the proof of that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, has just done.

It could be said that the Chancellor does not want to deal with a local democratic structure. It has been said that the aim of region-wide elected mayors is that one person, with a high public profile, will have the final say and “carry the can” when things go wrong. Devolution is a good idea, but the Chancellor is apparently averse to lavishing large-scale devolution on local authority committees. Greater Manchester, for one, appears to have put aside local rivalries and has therefore got a £l billion devolution package, plus control of the region’s £6 billion health and social care budget. There is clearly a view that the ends justify the means. In other words: go for elected mayors, which is not necessarily a bad idea, and then you get the loot.

That is not a new concept. Coming from local government, I remember when local authorities’ diminishing housing stock was falling apart—bad windows, bad doors, bad everything, ceilings falling down and leaking water—but there was an answer. With the decent homes standard, the Government would lavish millions of pounds on those local authorities. That was very good but you had to pay the price, and the price was forming an ALMO, an arm’s-length management organisation. Many local authorities such as mine in the London Borough of Barnet did this and I became a director of Barnet Homes, an arm’s-length management organisation, because that was the only way in which we could get the loot to make the homes decent. However, it was a structure—just as this Bill is suggesting with elected mayors—in order to get the money. The money could have been given to local authorities by central government, and could have been ring-fenced if necessary, so that the local authorities could make the necessary repairs. There was no need to set up those arm’s-length management organisations, which became an industry in themselves.

In deciding whether elected mayors work, I ask colleagues to look at past results. In London we have had Ken Livingstone followed by Boris Johnson, both mayors with a high personal profile—perhaps I should correct that to a very, very high personal profile. There have been some successes but they have not in any way solved London’s housing crisis, and in fact I think that it has got worse. They have continued to preside over a gridlocked city. I was caught in a gridlock on the embankment only the other day—this is the result of what has happened. However, it must be said that the mayors have improved the bus service and Underground train service, as well as introducing, for better or for worse, congestion charges, but we still have too many vehicles challenging our environment. There is also the Oyster card. It is a good thing and I highly recommend it to any of the new conurbations, although little things are wrong, such as that visitors to our wonderful capital city cannot pay with money on buses and are currently confused by the fact that they have to go off and find something to do with shellfish. On the environment, how has London benefited? Are green spaces protected? I shall leave noble Lords to answer that. Are noxious fumes being better controlled? Here is an easy one: are our borough libraries drastically threatened? Yes, they are. One could say that cycling—one apparent positive note—has become more popular.

What I bring to the Second Reading is a London-concentric view. I know from contact with the City of London Corporation and some London boroughs that they support, as I do, the principle of devolution from Whitehall. However, this does not necessarily mean that elected mayors are the answer. London, in the form of the Greater London Authority already has such arrangements in place—as a previous speaker said, London is sorted. But in fact it must be remembered that the GLA was conceived as a strategic body and not a service deliverer. As we consider this Bill, we should not forget the principle that devolution should be made to the lowest possible level. In London, in most cases, this is the 32 London boroughs plus the City of London. Many people with long memories, like me and the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, will know that the London boroughs are amalgamations of previous boroughs. Many, like me, look back to those halcyon days when, in the borough of Hendon, we controlled our affairs, rather than now, in the London borough of Barnet, the second largest borough in London with 320,000 people, where most services are contracted out to Capita and other companies. That is what has happened by giving powers to that particular borough.

To my mind, this is a long way from elected, all-powerful mayors for places such as Greater Manchester, which seems to be working, and other amalgamations. As a mere Londoner, it somewhat baffles me when I am shown that there is going to be a conurbation and authority with an elected mayor for the “homogenous” area of Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield, or for Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle, North Tyneside, Northumberland, South Tyneside and Sunderland, and the other areas that are listed in the papers and with which I will not bore noble Lords. I trust that, when the Minister replies, we shall hear how the currently democratically elected authorities in these groupings can restrain their rivalries, different local desires and needs when accepting control by one person, the new elected mayor.

In the further consideration of this Bill, I trust that we will examine the way in which powers might also be devolved to the city or town and another borough, or group of boroughs, as exercised through joint arrangements, not necessarily an elected mayor. I trust that we will be advised by the Minister whether or not that is something that could benefit from additional legislative provision or can be achieved using existing powers, through joint committees or other collaborative arrangements. Can we reflect on this as the Bill goes to Committee?

London is a capital city. Manchester and Birmingham are pretty large, but I do not know whether these groupings of local authorities have the same logic for an elected mayor as in London. It worries me that the fact that London has seen some success—in some people’s minds—means that other groups of towns and cities, all with great respect and pride in themselves, can be under one elected mayor.

To end on a positive note, I see a great opportunity for entrepreneurial mayors to act as ambassadors, bringing and encouraging business and enterprise to their area. That is a role that an elected mayor or leader—however one describes that person—can do. There is a need for that. But that sort of person needs extra-special skills and I am not convinced that the election of a mayor or mayors in these places would find the people who have those special skills to be ambassadors for the business world.