Lord Warner
Main Page: Lord Warner (Crossbench - Life peer)Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Lord Warner Excerpts
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft and to which I added my name for reasons anticipated by a number of my noble friends already in this debate.
As stated at Second Reading, I support the Bill but with an element of caution. Memories of the 1980s are still strong in the minds of some of your Lordships, as was the need at that time to address the profligacy of some local politicians by bringing powers and—with them—spending decisions back to Westminster and Whitehall. Now, some 30 years on, we consider providing potentially increased responsibilities to new combined authorities and designating their chairs as mayors. Today, we seek to provide them with a platform—a very public one—for potentially wide-ranging yet still unspecified powers. There is always a danger, not least evident recently in Scotland, that with devolved powers but without some element of financial accountability the finger will be pointed at Westminster for failing to recognise the financial consequences of a devolution of functions by the same electorates we seek to empower. The politics of such a potent mix can be far-reaching.
One way the Minister can benefit from the lessons of history is to consider ways of meeting the challenge whereby our determination to empower elected communities must be met by trusting those same electorates and their representatives with at least some additional responsibilities for raising the finances required to exercise the powers with which they are entrusted. I hope that today the Minister will be able to address this issue and in so doing agree that one of the potential functions that could benefit from municipal bonds, as in the United States, could be the populist and much-needed sport and recreation facilities.
Since the Government in their legislative programme rely heavily on key manifesto commitments, the Minister would simultaneously earn acclamation and plaudits from her colleagues by implementing the sports legacy from London 2012, which was in the Conservative Party manifesto. That legacy called for: new facilities outside London; a youth and community sports strategy designed to inspire a generation to develop a sporting habit for life, and not just in London, the city that hosted the Olympic Games, but throughout the United Kingdom; increased participation at all levels; and state-of-the-art sport and recreation facilities. This area has been very London-centric and investment in our great cities to achieve these objectives can be accomplished by providing a real voice for the proposed combined authorities over the current, centrally controlled spend on sport and recreation, including the decisions currently made for the whole country by Sport England in London.
This is where the amendment of my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft could add an important and very clearly defined financing vehicle to the current precept mechanism already enshrined in legislation. If the Minister felt that the powers in the proposed amendment go too far, municipal bonds could even be restricted specifically for this purpose as a sort of test case for the combined authorities. Whichever route is taken, we need to create the nexus between the management oversight for functions and financial responsibility and accountability to the local electorates who will be the principal beneficiaries. It is that objective that ultimately will be delivered. I predict that the Bill before us is a stepping stone on that journey. This proposal by my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft for municipal bonds is a key and important step in that direction.
Lord Warner (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, support this amendment. I listened carefully to some of the ideas about what such a bond might be used for and hope that there would not be a narrow set of functions and services for which this kind of fundraising could be used. To some extent I am following up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. In particular, some of the needs of children and young people in many of these areas require a lot more support than they currently get. Even some health facilities might be the kind of thing, particularly on the preventative health side, that these bonds could be used for. It is very important that the Government give serious attention to this and also to using these bonds to leverage other funding sources for some of the projects that might be available. I hope that, if we go down this path, the uses to which these bonds might be put would be not drawn narrowly but spread over all the functions devolved to a combined authority.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I have not so far participated in this Committee and apologise to the House for that. I have just not been able to be here either for Second Reading or the first day of Committee. I declare an interest as leader of a London borough. Actually, I am rather pleased that London does not feature in the Bill in respect of the potential ideas for centralising power in London away from the boroughs. I hope we will not see any of that stuff come forward in another place at a later stage without any opportunity for debating it in your Lordships’ House. I am not going to go into the broader subjects, but I have read the debates very carefully and I find it dangerously easy to restrain my enthusiasm for imposing models on people. Very important points have been raised so far in this Committee.
I shall confine myself to this amendment, as is proper. I am not part of the little posse that came in to support my noble friend’s amendment, but I am glad to see that they are here. My own authority has been involved in discussions with the LGA proposals to look towards wider bond issues. But there are practical issues that need to be addressed, particularly in the difficult areas of things we all love and are potentially enthusiastic about, whether it is music or sport. It can be easy sometimes for that enthusiasm to run away a little. I can think of a number of local authorities not too far distant from my own where enthusiasm for the theatre has ended up with them having to underwrite substantial costs. So we need to proceed in this area with caution, but I hope that my noble friend will be able to respond positively, because caution is one thing and “no” is another. It should be possible to unleash the enthusiasm of local people. Do we not all believe in localism, as my noble friends have argued? Perhaps when she replies, my noble friend might offer to have discussions with my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft and others and representatives of local authorities and see whether, in the course of the passage of the legislation, she will give a positive commitment to considering this creative and interesting idea, albeit with corners that need to be probed—although perhaps not as many as some other aspects of the Bill. It is a very good and welcome thing that my noble friend has brought this forward.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I am pleased in principle to support Amendments 36C and 36F. However, in Amendment 36C, on publishing a list of public authority functions, why do we need to wait to within one month of the enacting of the Bill? Surely it is known now what the functions might be. Should the House not be informed what they are before the passing of the Bill? I would be grateful if the Minister could specifically explain why it is not possible to list the public authority functions before the Bill passes rather than afterwards.
Amendment 36F is fine as far as it goes—and of course we will have the opportunity in Amendment 36G to discuss strategic planning issues, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, explained. But I have two points to make in relation to this amendment. First, this is not necessarily an exclusive list; other powers and funding could be thought about. One is careers advice. It may be seen to lie within the skills head, but probably it could be treated separately. There may well be others. We should have a discussion about whether there are other areas to add to the list of matters that the combined authorities should be consulted on.
My second point relates to the use of the word “powers”. At some point we need to think more in terms of responsibilities. Powers and funding are one thing, but what you do with them is another. There is now the prospect of a very large number of functions, powers and responsibilities coming into the remit of combined authorities. I am starting to get very worried about the capacity of the combined authorities to manage all of the things that they may be asked to undertake. As part of the consultation that is asked for in Amendment 36F, I hope that the issue of capacity and resources is also addressed.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I support my noble friend’s Amendment 36C. It is particularly important in relation to NHS responsibilities, which we will come to a little later. There is a considerable number of laggards in the NHS who are really nervous about getting into this territory. It is important that they start to engage their brains with this, because there is a growing number of failing health economies. Too many of them are sitting waiting to see what happens in Greater Manchester rather than engaging with this issue. I hope that the Minister will address this point—the sooner the better—and not be afraid to make it clear to the outside world, particularly the NHS, that these functions could be transferred down to the combined authorities.
Lord Woolmer of Leeds
My Lords, these amendments go to the heart of one of the problems that we have talked about many times in this Bill—the principle of not quite open house but, “Tell us what you want and we’ll discuss it. We’re not going to reveal our hand, but we might be interested in discussing it and we will listen and talk”. I share the view of my colleagues on the opposition Front Bench that it makes a lot of sense to go further than that for many local authorities that are considering whether or not to become combined authorities—not the relatively small number of combined authorities that currently exist but those that are looking at what it might all mean.
I still think that it is a terrible waste of people’s time not to have a reasonable idea of the kinds of thing that the Government might be positively interested in. I have said this before but any local authority groups coming together will have to second-guess what the Government might be interested in devolving, which is a terrible waste of time. They have to have a dialogue and find things out while someone else has probably been through the same process already. The Government must have a view about the areas that they are prepared to see devolved. Devolution is a two-way process. It is what local government and people in local communities would like to have, but it must also be about what central government feels it makes sense in the current climate to give a lead to—so I welcome these amendments.
To pick out one area, skills, and all that is associated with it, fewer than 2 million people go to university—full-time or part-time—but almost 3 million people are in further education. A lot of people in your Lordships’ House have been to university but far fewer will have been through FE colleges. I see the noble Lord indicating that he did. It is easy to overlook the fact that far more people look to other routes into skills and education than universities. I am from a strong university background so my view of universities is not negative at all, but that is the reality. The skills of that group of people are very important to the economies of our combined authority areas. The people with low and medium-level skills are almost certainly the people who will work and live in those communities. A lot of people in universities go off elsewhere—we would like to keep more of them in West Yorkshire. These people are the key to skills and our economic development and growth. Having a strategic view on that is extremely important.
That leads me to two final points. First, my noble friend touched on health and social care, and I would like to see that on the list. Any list can be added to, and it is clearly the case in Manchester, so it ought to be on a list that is indicative of the kind of things that we would expect to be up for discussion.
Finally, it is important to bear in mind that the role of the authority’s mayor is largely and overwhelmingly strategic, and where there are interventions, they are to help secure the strategic objectives. There is some temptation for local authorities to think, as the discussions go on, that local authority powers will be taken away from them: that while there might be some devolution from central government, powers will be taken away from local councils. Putting that kind of message out and making clear the difference between strategic powers and detailed implementation powers is extremely important. I warmly welcome the thrust of these amendments.