Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Woolmer of Leeds Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I have listened to the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, I cannot recall the 1960s; I was born in that decade, so my period is rather similar.

The noble Lord has always been a big figure in local government during the entire time that I have risen up and been involved in it, but I have to say that I think his analysis on this is wrong. I say that because my starting point is that, although some people might say that this is just semantics, the Bill is not really about devolution but about decentralisation. It is fundamentally a decentralisation of responsibilities from certain bodies to a combined authority or a mayor. The noble Lord talked about international comparisons, whether it be the Länder in Germany or the cities in the US, or elsewhere, where they have not just a nameplate saying “mayor” but real fiscal powers. When I was leader of Sheffield City Council it would have made no difference whatever whether my nameplate said “leader” or “mayor”; I would have been pulling levers with nothing attached because all the fiscal powers were in Whitehall. That is the important point that is missed by the Bill.

While I agree that it is a step in the right direction, we should not kid ourselves that under the present fiscal arrangements a mayor will be the silver bullet that will give local areas the autonomy and power to be authors of their own destiny in the way that some are suggesting in this debate; something more fundamental is required. Having said that, if we are going to go ahead within the boundaries of the Bill as it stands, then nothing in the amendment of my noble friend Lord Shipley would stop a mayor or powers being created if that was what the local area, along with the Secretary of State, so wished. As the noble Lord said, all that the amendment says is that the Secretary of State “may” refuse an arrangement that has been proposed if it,

“does not provide sufficient democratic accountability”.

What is wrong with strong democratic accountability? We have it here in this Parliament, and I would expect it in local government. All that the amendment says is that not only would strong economic powers be taken into consideration but there would be strong democratic oversight of the powers invested in, possibly, one person. That is reasonable.

In the amendment, the second reason why the Secretary of State might refuse a proposal would be that it,

“does not have the support of local authority electors”.

To go ahead without the support of the electors would be rather strange in my part of the world, where only a few years ago the electors rejected a mayor but now it would be imposed upon them if they wished to have these powers. I hear the Minister when she says that a mayor would not be imposed, but I ask her about the report in the Birmingham Mail on 1 June about the Chancellor saying to the leaders of the West Midlands that,

“only elected mayor will guarantee full funding and powers for West Midlands”.

If that is not a prescriptive approach, what is? So there is prescription within this if you are going to get full funding powers. How would the people of South Yorkshire and Sheffield feel, having said that they, including businesses, did not want a mayor, only to have one imposed in order for limited powers to be decentralised from Whitehall to the area?

There is a third reason in the amendment why the Secretary of State may refuse a proposal. Wherever powers are devolved or moved within the existing structures, whether from national or local government, that should not destabilise local government. There is nothing wrong with that. There are still functions that councils will have when there has been the shifting of the existing chairs on the deck, which is all that the Bill actually does. If there were some fiscal powers, then it would be a devolution Bill. However, if those chairs are going to be moved, it is really important that some of the functions are kept with each individual council. It does not mean that financially they cannot continue to carry out what will be significant statutory functions.

The final subsection proposed in the amendment is about the mayor. I have already spoken about this: a nameplate is not going to change how a place is governed. If it was so significant, why have some councils that had already moved to a directly elected mayor moved back? It has not been the panacea that some would suggest. I advise the Minister to think very carefully about a Bill that puts so much reliance on a name without thinking about significant fiscal powers being moved downwards—which, after all, is what makes a difference.

I end by saying that I think the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, argues my case for me. He talks about the powers of local government in the past, the engines of economic growth and social change. However, they did not have mayors or a single democratically elected person; they had the powers that central government has taken over. I accept that some of those responsibilities and powers will go, but without looking at the fiscal powers that make the difference we will be back here in five or 10 years’ time having the same discussion, because that is the key that will make the change, not the name on a nameplate.

[Lord Woolmer of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with every word just said by the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. I return to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, who has almost provided the framework in which we have discussed this amendment. I seem to recall that it was not a Labour Government who brought forward the legislation following up Redcliffe-Maud.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

Peter Walker.

[Lord Woolmer of Leeds]

It was Peter Walker in the Conservative Government, but that is history. If I have understood the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, it was that over the years local government has fallen increasingly into disrepute and lost the confidence of the people, and that is why everything went to the centre. Now it has been decided that we are going to devolve some real powers back to these discredited bodies that no one has any confidence in, but we are not going to give them the power; we are going to create one elected person in each area, called the mayor. In place of dozens of discredited local councillors—in the vision of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine—there will be one credible, powerful mayor.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, this Bill provides for combined authorities. Perhaps I originally misunderstood what the noble Baroness was referring to. Other local government Acts would provide for other types of powers to be devolved down but not in the way that this Bill provides—for example, through the Localism Act. It is important to understand that nothing would ever be imposed on a local area. The area would have to want it to happen. It would have to be a combined authority under the terms of the Bill and everyone would have to agree.

[Lord Woolmer of Leeds]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for reminding us that the Bill applies only to combined authorities. Can she confirm that? I want to return to a question asked by my noble friend Lady Hollis on whether a mayoralty will be insisted on by the Government in discussions with a combined authority. It was said that that would be a matter for individual discussions. Surely the Minister and the Government must have some guiding principles? Surely the Government cannot enter into discussions with a range of combined authorities with different scales, resources, problems and issues and not have any basic principles to which they are working? Otherwise it would be a matter of great unfairness. One combined authority would not have to have a mayor to be granted certain powers while another one could be told that it had to have a mayor to obtain exactly the same powers. I say to the Minister again, and I am sure we will keep returning to this: surely the Government must have some principles in mind of what powers would trigger this requirement to have a mayoralty.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, because these are bespoke deals, it will be very much a conversation between the local areas and the Secretary of State. The Government are clear about two things: first, any proposals have to be proposals for growth and, secondly, they have to be fiscally neutral within the Government’s spending envelope that would have usually gone into those devolved matters. We have deliberately avoided specifying and putting down criteria because it is a bespoke deal between local areas and the Secretary of State. So no prescriptions are laid down; it is a matter for discussion between the local areas and the Secretary of State.

I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, because I talked about the Localism Act but actually councils can resolve to have an elected mayor under the Local Government Act 2000. I just want to correct that mistake.

There have been different views on local government over the past decades and the past 150 years. I was a baby of the 1960s so cannot remember some of the reorganisations that took place then, but my noble friend Lord Heseltine made the compelling point that government has centralised over a period of 150 years. No matter how it has done it and how it has been prescribed, it has ever increasingly pulled power towards the centre. This is our golden opportunity to reverse that and it is the right thing to do.

We are now pursuing an unprecedented process to reverse that and we demand an accountable form of governance to support the powers being devolved. We have made it very clear that we want to hear from areas on their proposals. As to opposition to mayors, we are not trying to impose them anywhere but, where mayoral powers are devolved, there must be a clear, single point of accountability. International experience shows that where cities have a mayoral model it is a powerful form of governance, and the Chancellor has said that we will devolve major powers only to those cities which choose to have a mayor.

Going back to subsection (3)(c) of the proposed new clause, it is already part of the Secretary of State’s consideration about whether to establish or change an existing combined authority. The Secretary of State has to consider whether there is convenient and effective local government.

Finally, the provision in proposed subsection (4) seeks to prevent the Secretary of State imposing on a combined authority the Government’s model of an elected mayor. This is unnecessary. The Bill requires that all appropriate authorities must consent to governance change, as I said before. The Secretary of State could not and would not impose a metro mayor on any combined authorities that did not wish to adopt such a model.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the Government certainly would want it, but with the agreement of those local authorities. Greater Manchester has not had a mayor imposed upon it; it has agreed that a metro mayor will be the accountable person.

[Lord Woolmer of Leeds]

Surely that is a misuse of language. My noble friend Lord Smith of Leigh made it clear that, in his experience, when it came to it, the price was worth paying—his words—to have a mayor in order to get those powers. Surely it is a misuse of language to say that it was up to them. Surely that was a condition of having, if we can call them this, the Manchester powers. What my noble colleague from Sheffield asked the Minister was, in short hand, whether in order to have the Manchester powers a combined authority would have to have a mayor.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, if I could repeat the point, the combined authority agreed with the Secretary of State that the mayoral model was the model of governance that it would agree to have. Greater Manchester did not have that model imposed upon it. It agreed with the Secretary of State that that would be the model that it would go with. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Smith, will correct me if I am wrong.

If I could make some progress—