Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Leigh (Lab)]

My Lords, we come to the tricky issue of what an elected mayor is worth. We know what the public perception is about politicians being paid and what they are worth. Local authority members are currently controlled by the Local Authorities (Members’ Allowances) (England) Regulations 2003, which require each local authority to establish a scheme which involves setting up an independent panel to determine members’ remuneration. A panel would normally consist of a small number of individuals who can come from different parts of a local community—business, the third sector and so on—or have wide experience of local government. All this simple amendment does is provide for the same process for an elected mayor where one is chosen.

It would be wrong to be too prescriptive about the criteria. If the panel is to live up to its name and be independent then it needs to set its own criteria, but I am sure that it would take into account the size of the area, the level of functions being devolved and the pay levels within local authorities. The public at large has little faith where politicians determine their own allowances and expenses, so this amendment proposes that we get an independent panel to do that and show that it can be done in an independent manner and be made more publicly acceptable. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, we have tabled Amendment 13, which would short-circuit the need for an independent remuneration panel by setting the sum of pay and compensation of the mayor of a combined authority to be no larger than that of the leader of a constituent council with the highest total pay and compensation package. That is the conclusion that we reached.

I am not convinced that simply adding another independent remuneration panel will necessarily produce the right answer. I have grave doubts about the way in which independent remuneration panels do their work. That is not to say that individually they do not do a good job. The difficulty is that they come out with very different answers depending on the authority they are in. There are a number of occasions when one cannot satisfactorily explain why they have arrived at their conclusions. Nor do I like the fact that councillors are then required to vote for their own remuneration, because they have to agree to the recommendation of the independent remuneration panel. Presumably, the members of the combined authority would have to agree with the conclusions of an independent remuneration panel established under Amendment 8.

I am for a simple solution here, but I am perfectly happy to enter into further discussions about it. Simply adding an 11th independent remuneration panel in Greater Manchester does not seem to me to provide a helpful solution. If speed is of the essence, one simple solution is to tie the pay of the elected mayor to that of the highest-paid council leader. We can look further at that as we move towards Report but at this point I prefer the conclusion that we have reached in Amendment 13.

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[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord has mentioned my name and has therefore implied that I support his amendment, perhaps I may put him right. My main concern is to ensure scrutiny, and there are many ways of skinning the cat. I think that we can look forward to more detail at some stage about how the scrutiny committees can do their work. I am not convinced in London that an elected assembly does the job, and I am certainly concerned about there being a new layer of government, which I think will complicate everything. Although I share the noble Lord’s view about transparency and scrutiny, I cannot support his amendment.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I should like to speak briefly to this group of amendments, to two more of which, Amendments 25 and 26, I have attached my name. I do not want to repeat what my noble friend Lord Tyler has said in relation to Amendments 14 and 17, other than that I agree entirely with him. This really matters because it will bring a fuller elected element into the creation of the mayoral combined authority. At present, the direct connection between the ballot box and the mayoral combined authority is only the mayor, a single person with a direct mandate. For the combined authority to succeed, it needs greater legitimacy. Our Amendment 14 suggests five directly elected members to the combined authority from each of the constituent councils, and we propose election by single transferable vote because, without it, you will not get the multiparty representation that we need to prevent a one-party state arising. Taken together, this set of amendments would prevent the one-party state, which is what we have been talking about today. No doubt we shall look at this further on Report, along with Amendment 17, which explains some of the detail behind Amendment 14.

Let me briefly mention Amendments 25 and 26. I well remember the Bill to establish police and crime commissioners going through your Lordships’ House a few years ago. It was then seen to be a full-time position. Here:

“The Secretary of State may by order provide for the mayor … to exercise functions of a police and crime commissioner”,

along with all the other things that the mayor will undertake. There is a question of workload. Our discussion on this has been inadequate to date—at least on the evidence provided by the Government on the ability of a single person to undertake the functions of a mayor and a police and crime commissioner, handling social care and health, transport, economic development, regeneration, skills, housing and strategic planning. Putting all that in the hands of one person, even with delegation to a deputy mayor and perhaps to other members of the combined authority, seems an enormous, indeed impossible, workload. Our proposal would mean a slightly larger combined authority—and directly elected—and seems a better way to proceed.

I support the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and support Amendments 14, 17, 25 and 26.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, it is often said, as the noble Lord opposite did, that it is not good to have another level of government and that people in this country think that there are enough levels of political classes, so we should avoid having more. I agree with that to a degree, but by having an elected mayor we already have that extra level of government. If we are to have it, and this Bill lays out that additional level of government, we should have one that is accountable and is of a good and proper quality to bring that level of government to account.

This amendment would do exactly that. If we are to have this extra level of government, which appears to be right at this time, and to make combined authorities work for the benefit of their larger regions, we should indeed have much greater accountability. That accountability—multiparty, and independents as well as parties within the process—is exactly as the amendments lay down. It is absolutely critical for good and credible government. More important perhaps is that we do not come back in five years to correct a mistake that we may have got into by having local authorities that are completely inward looking, self serving, uncritical and that lose the confidence of their populations. That would mean that this important experiment of devolution had failed.