Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, these are very important issues. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Bradley and Lord Warner, for all the points they have made, which I hope the Minister will take as constructive criticism. I anticipate that we will have a significant debate—or at least I hope we will—when we reach Amendment 44D on Monday. I simply want to say that Amendments 36D and 36E both have our support. They raise some very important issues and are a practical example of some of the issues we were discussing earlier today such as the NHS and social care, and how that works in practice in an area. This is an example of clarifying what is within scope for devolution to a combined authority and which Ministers have what powers with regard to the devolution of both resources and responsibilities. I will not detain the House any longer on this matter, but I expect that we will return to it when we debate Amendment 44D on Monday.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, although my political interest in social services goes back more than 40 years to the days when I was chairman of the social services committee in Newcastle—the four most productive years in my fairly long political life, which is rather a sad comment on the rest of it—I will confine myself to only one question. I have been a member of the health scrutiny committee in Newcastle since its inception, and I am not clear about the role, which is a statutory role, of the health scrutiny committee in the context of devolution. We will be debating later the question of overview and scrutiny within the combined authority, but I wonder how that will fit alongside what I take will be the continuing statutory responsibility of social services authorities at any rate to have an overview and scrutiny committee to deal specifically with health, well-being and social care.

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[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the amendments in this group relate to the overview and scrutiny committees of the combined authorities and concentrate on what can only be described as the extraordinary powers the Bill confers on the Secretary of State to prescribe, and indeed circumscribe, the way in which they may operate. The provisions are contained in Schedule 3 to the Bill.

Amendments 36H and 37B would establish that the committee may consider not only decisions made or action taken, which is the limit of the powers conferred by the Bill as it stands, but such matters as may be under consideration—echoing the current practice in local authorities, which can look forward as well as back. Amendment 37B applies this principle to mayoral combined authorities.

Amendment 39AA would require the guidance by the Secretary of State, which again is provided for in the Bill, on the functions of overview and scrutiny committees to be approved by the affirmative procedure.

Amendment 39C is a probing amendment to seek an explanation of the Secretary of State’s extraordinary assumption of the role of determining who may or may not chair an overview and scrutiny committee or be a scrutiny officer. It is remarkable that, in an allegedly devolutionary Bill, the Secretary of State should arrogate such a power as to prescribe who might or might not perform those functions.

Amendment 40A probes the Secretary of State’s power to make orders as to the publication of reports, recommendations and disclosure of information to the overview and scrutiny committee. Given that the Local Government Act 1972 already allows councils to go into private session if this should be required, subject to advance notice and public challenge, why do the Government not simply extend those provisions of the 1972 Act to overview and scrutiny committees?

Amendment 40B would require the affirmative procedure to be applied to orders relating to the membership and structure of overview and scrutiny committees, thereby ensuring continuing parliamentary scrutiny over the process. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, we have tabled Amendments 41 and 42. I will not add to what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has said, but I subscribe to the views he has expressed.

Our amendments in this group relate to the membership of the overview and scrutiny committee. We said in the first day of Committee that we did not want to create one-party states, so we have been seeking ways in which we can propose amendments that will deliver that outcome. This is to take the proportion of votes cast for each political party at the most recent local government election for the combined authority’s constituent councils.

The reason why this matters is that, if you take seats only won under the first-past-the-post system, one particular party in most of the areas currently subject to or considering combined authorities would absolutely dominate the overview and scrutiny committee—indeed, the Conservative Party has very few seats in northern cities—so this would not be good for the democratic process. I think that the overview and scrutiny committees ought to have a significant number of opposition members and that that should be calculated on the basis of votes cast in the last election, rather than on the number of seats that they win under first past the post.

In terms of the chair, there are a number of examples in local government where scrutiny committees are chaired by a councillor who is a member of the opposition. That principle should extend to the combined authority. Amendment 42 says that the chair of such a committee must be a member of a political party other than the party of the mayor of the combined authority.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the issue of effective scrutiny has come up a lot during the course of the Bill. As I said during the debate on the previous group of amendments, I am ready to have discussions with noble Lords across the House about their ideas for strengthening scrutiny.

Amendment 39C would remove the power for the Secretary of State to make provision about the chair of an overview and scrutiny committee and about the appointment of a scrutiny officer. I am not sure that removing the ability of the Secretary of State to ensure, if it were deemed appropriate, that all overview and scrutiny committees have a scrutiny officer, or to make provisions about the chair, would achieve our joint aim of strengthening scrutiny and safeguarding against a one-party state.

Nor am I clear that Amendment 40A would strengthen overview and scrutiny. The amendment would remove from the scope of the order-making provision on overview and scrutiny issues the publication of reports et cetera and the information which must or must not be disclosed to an overview and scrutiny committee. I am clear that strong scrutiny needs the overview and scrutiny committees to have access to all the information that they consider necessary to pursue their work. Equally, it is important that their reports and recommendations are public, transparent and properly taken into account by those making decisions. The following amendments essentially set out some of the ideas that may achieve these aims and the substance of which we will wish to consider carefully.

Amendments 36H and 37B seek to expand the scope of overview and scrutiny so that it includes the possibility of an overview and scrutiny committee examining not only decisions made or actions taken, but decisions made or actions “under consideration”.

Amendment 41 would require that any order made by the Secretary of State about the membership of an overview and scrutiny committee must ensure that such membership reflects the proportion of votes that each political party received at the most recent local government election for the constituent councils. Amendment 42 would require that any order made by the Secretary of State about the chair of the overview and scrutiny committee or committees must include provision that the chair is to be a representative of a different political party from the party of the mayor of the combined authority. Amendment 49 provides the definition of “party” for these two amendments. While I believe that there are some practical issues with Amendment 41, given that not all parties who receive votes at an election may have an elected member, I understand the concern that underpins the amendments.

Finally, Amendments 39AA and 40B seek to introduce the affirmative procedure for orders and guidance about overview and scrutiny. Given the importance that we attach to overview and scrutiny, I have some sympathy with the aims of these amendments, and, indeed, in our wider consideration of how best to strengthen overview and scrutiny. We may consider that some matters might be better dealt with on the face of the Bill, rather than through secondary legislation. In our previous short debate I highlighted some of the important issues that we will wish to consider when looking at how to make scrutiny strong and effective in all areas. This, most importantly, includes those areas where the members of the combined authority come from one party.

Given this commitment, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Beecham]

That is welcome, and I am certainly prepared to withdraw my amendment. I have to say that I am not overimpressed with at least one of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, relating to the percentage vote of parties that may well achieve no membership at all of the local authorities they have contested but will somehow appear on the combined authority. Of course, that general view is consistent with the proposals that the Liberal Democrats made for the composition of your Lordships’ House, about which I suspect we will hear very little for the next few years.

[Lord Shipley]

You could actually have a minimum threshold of, say, 5% of the vote, which would remove some of the objections that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has.

[Lord Beecham]

It would not, because 5% of the vote across an area may produce absolutely no councillors elected to those authorities at all; their only role in local government would then be to be appointed to the combined authority. That seems a ludicrous outcome. However, the noble Lord and I have been on good terms for virtually the whole evening and I would not like him to go away feeling too disappointed.

We will see what happens on Report, but I look forward to the discussions with the Minister on those matters which she has indicated are subject to further consideration. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, Amendment 37A is ultimately of some importance. It seeks to establish an audit committee for authorities created under the provisions of the Bill. I cannot claim to be as well qualified in respect of matters of audit as my noble friend Lord McKenzie, a former partner in PwC and a former leader of Luton Council, in which latter capacity he was presumably an auditee rather than an auditor, but I have served for a number of years as a member of Newcastle’s audit committee, which is politically balanced, with an independent chairman who is not a member of the council and two other independent members.

Given the potential role of the combined authorities, part of whose raison d’être will of course be to achieve economies of scale and ensure the most effective use of resources devolved by government departments and public bodies, something akin to a local version of the Public Accounts Committee would be a highly desirable addition to the role of overview and scrutiny, especially if independently chaired. The amendment sets out a job description which should facilitate proper oversight of the combined authorities’ management and governance. It is not unduly prescriptive and I would personally welcome the inclusion of additional independent members who might be drawn from business, academia or the third sector.

Again without going so far as to lay down a requirement, I hope that the combined authorities would eventually adopt a process of peer review across their whole field of operations. This has proved its worth in the local government world and would usefully augment whatever procedures are adopted in relation to this amendment.

It would be interesting to learn what the Government have in mind for assessing their own relationships with combined authorities and the workings of the partnerships between government, public bodies and the combined authorities collectively. In any event, I urge the Minister to consider sympathetically the proposal for an audit committee, preferably one that is independently chaired, because the role is not quite the same as that of an overview and scrutiny committee. I serve on both types of body in my own authority. They have different roles and I think it is critical, given the importance of the subject matter and the amount of money that will be spent, that there should be that function embedded in the new system. I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, in broad terms I very strongly support Amendment 37A. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, talked in terms of the Public Accounts Committee, which is slightly different from a committee that will simply review and scrutinise the authority’s financial affairs. It is actually about the efficient and effective use of public money, and one of the objectives of devolution is to ensure that local areas spend money more appropriately so that the spending is more effective in the outcomes it achieves. That has to be audited in some way. The only way that that can be done is in something like a public accounts committee for the area of the combined authority. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will look at that suggestion as I think that it would help enormously, first, in ensuring that the Government’s objectives are being delivered but, secondly, in giving the public confidence in the expenditure of the money that they are paying for through taxation.