Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Woolmer of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments seems to cover two different areas: first, whether there is a need for oversight of a democratically elected mayor; and secondly, the proposed way of dealing with that. This will clearly vary depending on the part of the country we are in. In my view, the way in which an elected mayor, if there is one in a combined authority, will be held to account is by the constituent local authorities, their elected representatives and the leaders of those authorities. The idea that you need another elected body to hold those people to account seems crazy to me. I think of myself many years ago as leader of Leeds and of West Yorkshire. The idea that there would be another elected body that would hold this mayor to account and that I took no part in it is simply not credible. It simply would not work. Indeed, it would not be effective at all; there would be a great deal of conflict.

So, first, such an arrangement is not necessary to hold an elected mayor to account, should there be an elected mayor. For the record and as I said at Second Reading—despite my earlier remarks, which may be misunderstood—I can understand that a combined authority may occasionally wish to have a mayor. Many will not, but some will. Secondly, the particular arrangement proposed could lead to very odd results. Take my area of West Yorkshire. The local enterprise partnership includes four of the five metropolitan districts of West Yorkshire, plus three shire districts outside that include Skipton, Harrogate and Selby, plus North Yorkshire. Having five elected persons per district would give the area containing Selby an equal number to Leeds. I suggest that that would not be democratic and it would not be understood. I do not care what the system of election would be; it would be very undemocratic and unbalanced.

Trying to find an arrangement that leads to an elected process in addition to having leaders of strong and powerful local authorities—taking the amendments as they are—does not stand up. First, they are not necessary, and secondly the proposal as made in detail is not workable. I therefore oppose the amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I want to clarify that the point I made was that we in Greater Manchester—not me and the noble Lord, Lord Smith, but we as elected members, as I was—did not want additional layers of bureaucracy or tiers of government.

[Lord Teverson]

Perhaps I could intervene on that to say: but of course not. The people who tend to be involved do not like the boat being rocked, which is part of the problem. The establishment of a political area are the last people who would want greater accountability through another body. Regrettably, that is the way in which politics works: we are defensive about our own seats of power, and that is the danger of this proposal. I apologise to my noble friend Lord Tyler.

[Lord Tyler]

I am very grateful to my noble friend. He makes his point very well.

I say to the Minister that I think she was probably not involved in any discussions about the Greater London Authority Bill, when these sorts of arguments were also advanced by the leaders of Labour councils in the boroughs of London. They were fearful that the electorate might have other views about priorities. I also suspect that the Mayor of London would be only too pleased to have a scrutiny committee that had no democratic mandate, as it is in the Bill. The next Mayor of London may or may not have a view on that, too. I simply make the point that, if it was good enough for London, we should at least seriously examine whether these new combined authorities are going to have a sufficiently effective mechanism for holding the mayor to account. I do not believe that the Bill provides that at the moment.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and others think that we can develop that proposal and it may be that by the time the Bill has finished its passage through your Lordships’ House, we have somehow managed to give the scrutiny committees that sort of role. I have to say that, as things stand, the Bill does not provide for that. I was disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, was not along with me on this because he had a serious point, and I suspect that we may have some discussions and come to an agreement about how to provide this by some means. However, what really worried me was when the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, said that the combined authority would have an executive meeting function. Not so: in my mind, the mayor is the executive. If the leaders are simply there to back up the mayor, who may well be of the same persuasion politically, that will be no scrutiny. It will not be accountable.