Constitutional Commission

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I must declare an interest as I had a memo published in the Kilbrandon commission’s report; one can find it in the second half of volume 10. That shows my age.

It is a huge disappointment to us all that the commitment in the 2019 Conservative manifesto to hold a commission on the constitution is one of the many promises that our Prime Minister has broken. We need one; there is general agreement here that we need one. It is a huge disappointment that we have such a London-based Government. The resentment against them is not only in Scotland, Wales and parts of Northern Ireland; we are increasingly seeing it in the north and south-west of England.

It is a puzzle for many of us that the most devolved part of England is London itself. It has more powers than the regions and allows two levels of representative government, whereas we in Yorkshire are told that we all must have only one level. The new model for this absurd, single-tier government that has just been imposed on North Yorkshire was very reluctantly accepted by the people there.

The assertive, aggressive unionism that this Government respect is as disastrous as the unionism represented in the 1880s and 1890s. The extent to which AV Dicey, the authority on Westminster sovereignty, was quoted to me last year by a government Minister as defining our approach to sovereignty, governing this Government’s assumption that they are allowed to tell everyone what to do, is part of what is wrong. Remember that AV Dicey wrote what he wrote because he was avowedly against Irish home rule and aggressively unionist. What did it lead to? The division of Ireland and nearly a civil war.

That is where we are. I recognise that Boris Johnson is very much part of the problem. Last weekend, I was talking on the phone to one of my Scottish relations, who I know voted Liberal Democrat in the local elections in Edinburgh. He said to me, “If he’s still there in three or four years’ time, I know which way I’ll vote in another referendum”. That is there—the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, knows it—in the way a lot of people in Scotland think. I am going up to Scotland tonight; I have no doubt that, tomorrow, lots of people will tell me much the same thing. We need to address this. We cannot ignore the problem.

I merely wish to add that resentment in the regions of England about what is going on is also rising. If you saw the Yorkshire media’s response to the integrated rail strategy provisions, you will have seen the extent to which the assumption is that everything is done for London: “You don’t begin to understand what happens in the north and you’ve cut down the degree of autonomy that we thought we had, even in local government”. We need a constitutional commission. We need to consult as widely as possible, using citizens’ consultations, if we are to hold this country together. We should not ignore the real possibility that the United Kingdom could disintegrate.

UK Community Renewal Fund

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

No, it is not—absolutely not. A clear methodology has been set out. It will benefit all the regions of the UK pretty much in equal part.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell me how many different pots there are for levelling up for councils to bid for? I was told that there are now over 100. If so, do councils have to spend money trying to fulfil different sets of criteria for each one?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I have some sympathy with the noble Lord’s first question: there are probably too many funding pots. We are doing our best to narrow those down as we move towards the levelling-up fund for capital and the UK shared prosperity fund. We do not want local authorities to become grant farmers. We want them to focus on the vision for their place and then to apply for a limited number of pots. It is appropriate to have deals as well, on the other side, but, in terms of central pots, we are broadly going down to two main ones.

Public Services

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review (1) the comparative costs, and (2) the effectiveness, of the provision of public services in England by (a) local authorities, and (b) private contractors.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

Local authorities are required to support continuous improvement through the delivery of their functions under the Local Government Act 1999. They decide how to run services. Services can be outsourced, or delivered jointly with another authority, provided that quality and value for money are maintained. As public bodies, they are subject to the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. Central government provides funding, improvement support and overall oversight. There are no current plans for a central review.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this Question was prompted by the Government’s choice on test and trace to turn to multinational companies and expensive consultancy firms instead of making use of the expertise of local government and local public health officers. But it applies more widely: after 50 years of outsourcing, and having acquired experience on outsourcing local transport, probation services and others, will the Government not consider that the time has come to conduct an independent inquiry—or would they prefer an inquiry to be undertaken by an ad hoc Lords committee, for example?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I think the specific question relates to test and trace; I am sure that is part of the review of our response to the pandemic. But as a former local authority leader, I agree with the noble Lord’s comments about the experience that local government has in the competitive tendering of services.

Inequalities of Region and Place

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I have lived between London and West Yorkshire for 40 years, balancing two careers, family obligations and politics, and I have watched the inequalities between the south-east of England and the north widen. I have seen how the distribution of taxation and spending, under Labour as well as Conservative and coalition Governments, has reinforced the advantages of the south-east. For several years, we have paid significantly higher council tax on our house in Bradford than in Wandsworth, in spite of the sharp differences in income and wealth between these two local authorities.

This Government refuse to recognise that reducing regional inequalities cannot be achieved through central direction. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, and others said, local leadership has to be a central part—both political and business leadership. Powers and finance have to be returned to local government; local democracy must not be squeezed further or required to bid against others for limited pots of funding. I have to say to the Minister that Conservatives look to be hostile to local democracy.

Local enterprise and local business leadership are also important. That does not fit with the financial free-for-all in which successful local enterprises are taken over by distant private equity companies. Twenty-five years ago, Saltaire had two promising young electronics companies working out of the old textile mill; both were taken over by US multinationals. Their role in the local community shrank, as did the number of their employees. The innovation they created is now enriching California and Florida, rather than Yorkshire.

The largest enterprise based in Bradford, and in many ways the most socially responsible corporate actor in Bradford, has been Morrisons. Will its new owners care about contributing to the prosperity of West Yorkshire or providing local economic leadership? How will the Government nurture the growth and financial sustainability of locally owned enterprises across our country’s regions, since banks and private equity seem committed to taking their short-term profits and selling them to others abroad? That does not fit very well with the Government’s insistence that they represent national sovereignty and patriotism, and the liberal elite, whom they attack, does not.

My wife, alongside the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, sits on the advisory board of a Bradford academy trust. She sees the dedication of teachers and the challenges they face with pupils from some of Bradford’s poorest estates and with the children of first-generation immigrants and refugees. Long-term investment in education spending, on the scale recently proposed to but rejected by the Government, is an essential part of any coherent strategy to reduce regional inequalities. That has to include the transformation of the funding and status of further education colleges to provide the technical skills and apprenticeship training that Michael Gove and others say they care about but have neglected so far.

Others have talked about the gap in the funding and provision of transport infrastructure. Across much of the north, the buses are infrequent and expensive and the trains old and crowded—where they exist. If you cannot get to work, you cannot work. There are too many industrial communities across the north without much local employment and without transport links to where there is employment.

We also need to pull the cities of the north closer together. HS3, the proposed new line for Leeds and Manchester via Bradford, would transform the region, bringing the trans-Pennine area together in the same way that London transport brings Greater London together. It would also provide, incidentally, extra freight possibilities, which would reduce the enormous number of trucks that drive between Liverpool and Hull across the M62. We are desperately short of freight paths in the north. The eastern leg of HS2, which is also essential, would link Sheffield. It takes one hour to get from Sheffield to Leeds in this network.

I hope the Minister recognises how much cynicism there is in the north about the Government’s promises of levelling up. We were sold the northern powerhouse, which did not seem to extend very far beyond Manchester. We have listened to Ministers rattle on about northern powerhouse rail, while giving the Oxford to Cambridge line much higher priority. We hear the Prime Minister make jokey speeches with catchy slogans, promising that he will work wonders and bring prosperity to everybody. But nothing much will change unless power and finance are returned from London to our regions, cities and towns, and the Government commit to sustained investment in education and training, and in public transport outside the south-east.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is taking part remotely. I invite him to speak.

England: Historic Counties

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I recognise that we need stability and point out that many areas have not seen significant change. The last reorganisation in London, where I was a local councillor, was in 1965 which, I have to say, was before I was born. I recognise that we need stability in our administrative structures.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, all surveys suggest that Yorkshire has one of the strongest senses of common identity of any region or county in England, historically as a single county but occasionally divided into three. The Government, nevertheless, seem determined to divide it into four, each with its own elected mayor, and have just forced a reorganisation on to North Yorkshire. Why have the Government insisted on disregarding very strong representations from almost all councils in Yorkshire, in the way they have pushed their version of “devolved” government?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I point out that Greenhalgh is a Lancastrian name, so I dispute Lancashire being second to Yorkshire, but that is a matter for debate. Devolution has required a degree of local consultation and decision-making. We are seeking to reflect functional and economic areas in our devolution programme, so it is important that it continues to be locally led.

Levelling Up

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that England is the most centralised democratic country, and that the greater the centralisation that a country has, the greater the regional inequality. Here we have competitive funding decided by Ministers in London as the answer to devolution. Can the Minister tell us what he understands by the word “devolution”? Can you have devolution without transferring real power and long-term finance to local and regional governments?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I fear that this is a mixing up of issues. We need to see that the levelling-up agenda is around the duty of a national Government helping to level up all areas of the United Kingdom, while devolution of funding is also occurring, as I have already mentioned.

West Yorkshire Combined Authority (Election of Mayor and Functions) Order 2021

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I would add, on the railway system, that the new trans-Pennine link is as important as the eastern leg of HS2 and is particularly important for Bradford. I remind everyone that Leeds is now the biggest conurbation in Europe lacking a mass transit link.

I welcome the conclusion of this deal, but with qualifications. It provides West Yorkshire with some of the additional funds it needs. It builds on the constructive co-operation of the councils over the past 15 years. It provides for a spokesman for the region, in the shape of an elected mayor, but it does not fulfil the promise of the 2019 Conservative manifesto, which set out the aim of

“full devolution across England … so that every part of our country has the power to shape its own destiny”.

The funds this deal provides are conditional, and in a number of separate packages, subject to continuing central oversight and partisan ministerial interference—slush funds, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said. The mayor will join other city mayors across England without any institutionalised structure for representing their concerns to Whitehall, as we have seen in ministerial resistance to intervention from existing mayors over recent months. I understand that some Conservative MPs are now opposed to devolution as such, and that a few may even oppose this order in the Commons tomorrow. In today’s Yorkshire Post, Philip Rycroft, formerly a senior official concerned with constitutional issues, called what the Government are proposing “a mess”.

We should have had a devolution White Paper by now, setting out the Government’s plans for the whole of England, as others have mentioned. Instead, we have had plans to parcel up bits of Whitehall departments and scatter them across the country, taking directions still from Whitehall. The commission on democracy that the manifesto promised has disappeared. This deal is not what councils in Yorkshire asked for. They wanted a Yorkshire regional authority. The Government are forcing city mayors on unwilling communities. A Populus poll last year showed 27% of voters in Yorkshire supported a full rollout of city mayors, while 31% preferred the established collective council model and 30% were not sure. That is hardly a vote of confidence.

Throughout this year, we watched the Government bypass local councils, giving generous contracts to consultancies and outsourcing companies to set up test and trace schemes while ignoring the local expertise and experience that councils possess. People in Yorkshire have noticed UK Ministers consulting the three devolved Administrations in detail while failing even to inform existing mayors and local councils of shifting plans for lockdowns for schools. There is, and the Minister must realise this, a growing consensus across England that we would be better governed if there were real devolution within England rather than detailed central control, with favoured deals for Conservative target seats from Cabinet Ministers.

So, I welcome this only as an interim arrangement. It transfers funds to West Yorkshire to improve transport, manage flood risk, support local business and improve adult education, but it is not enough. If this Conservative Government are to fulfil their promise to level up this country, as the Prime Minister regularly repeats, the centre will have to transfer substantial powers and financial autonomy to cities and regions outside the south-east. The Prime Minister waffles on about promoting the Anglo-Saxon model of democracy across the world, yet, around us, this country is moving towards a constitutional crisis. Our voters are increasingly disillusioned with all parties. Ministers are attempting to bully the Electoral Commission and to raise sharply the limit for campaign spending. The Prime Minister has misused the royal prerogative against Parliament and overridden the House of Lords Appointments Commission. Scotland and Northern Ireland are beginning to move away from the union. Against that challenge, this modest improvement in funds transferred to West Yorkshire, with a mayor whose voice is likely to count for little at the centre, deserves, at best, a lukewarm welcome.

Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) (No. 2) Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 18th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the return of the Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill and hope that it will now rapidly complete its passage into law after the delays that it has suffered since its introduction. I declare a strong local interest, in that Saltaire is a village that is also a world heritage site, attracting hundreds of visitors—most often schoolchildren or retired people, both of which groups naturally ask where the toilets are as they get off the bus.

Bradford Council, faced with continuing cuts in its transfers from central government, closed most of its public toilets three years ago, including those in its three tourist destinations—Haworth, with the Brontë parsonage, Ilkley and Saltaire. I do not blame the council, which has found itself up against extremely painful choices in trying to sustain essential services. It has attempted to transfer the costs of providing these basic facilities on to the local communities, which in turn raises the question of how local councils can raise sufficient funds for services such as this when principal councils have found themselves unable to do so.

The history of local government in England is intimately connected with public health, public and private toilets and the prevention of disease. The history of Bradford and the building of Saltaire were shaped by public health concerns. Typhoid and typhus were rife in Bradford in the early 19th century, as a result of overcrowding and the contamination of water supplies. Titus Salt therefore decided to move his entire works and workers out to the countryside, specifically building clean water and the regular emptying of privies into the design of the village. But Titus Salt did not regard such provision as purely a private affair; he was also a local councillor and twice mayor of Bradford, and he raised local rates to pay for public improvements in water supply and sewage disposal.

It is a sad indication of the peculiar mix of anarchic libertarianism and authoritarianism with which the Conservative Party has now become infected that some have questioned whether the provision of toilets is a public duty. We have heard suggestions that visitors can use local shops instead for toilet breaks—not an easy option in a Victorian village such as Saltaire, where toilets were originally in back yards and are now either in basements or upstairs, meaning no access for the elderly or disabled. At a time when our country is gripped by a pandemic, with the Prime Minister regularly reminding us all to wash our hands as often as we can, the suggestion that people away from home should not have easy access to toilets and washing facilities takes the idea of the privatisation of public services to a dangerous extreme.

There are wider issues here about the future of local government finance—and the future of local government and local democracy as a whole. We have all witnessed the bias against local government that the Conservative Government display, painfully evident in the way that they turned to multinational outsourcing companies to set up the test and trace scheme for Covid-19 last spring, rather than turning to local authorities and their public health officers, who would have known how to do it. Government plans to parcel up bits of Whitehall to dispatch outside London, rather than devolving decision-making power to regional and local government, demonstrate a similar engrained authoritarian centralism.

The Prime Minister’s pledge to level up the neglected communities and regions of this country will not begin to make a difference unless the funding, and the powers, of local authorities in these regions are transformed. The Treasury is now undertaking a fundamental review of business rates, as the Minister noted in his opening speech. But questions of the relationship between local and central government in England, including the fiscal and redistributive aspects of that relationship, go much wider than those of business rates alone, of which the provision and financing of public toilets is itself only a small part. The Government have promised us a devolution White Paper. I look forward to the publication of that, and I hope that Ministers will be open to a wide debate on the future of England’s local and regional government when at last it appears.

Devolution in England

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I do not recognise that policy paper. There was a firm commitment in the Queen’s Speech to full devolution in England but, as I said, looking to do this in a way that works with local communities.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I understand devolution to mean the transfer of powers, competences and finance. Decentralisation of tasks under central direction with conditional funding seems to me to be what this Government propose, together with bits of Whitehall departments being sent out to the provinces but still entirely controlled by Cabinet Ministers in London. Can the Minister tell us the Government’s definition of devolution for England?

Yorkshire: Devolution

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the city region model simply does not fit North Yorkshire? When I asked the last Minister responsible for this how he defined a city region for North Yorkshire, he said it is a rural region that will have a virtual city. The extent to which one model is being pushed on various parts of England seems not only undemocratic but illogical.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I point out to the noble Lord that, as I said, this is driven by those in the area.