Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Woolmer of Leeds Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, we have Amendments 44G and 45A in this group, to which I shall speak first. Amendment 44G is an attempt to address in part the concerns expressed by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee at paragraph 17 of its first report this Session. Again drawing attention to the wide powers in Clause 10, the committee states:

“We are not convinced that requiring the consent of the local authorities affected is by itself a sufficient control over the very wide powers conferred by clause 10. In our view the delegation is inappropriate without the exercise of the powers being made subject to similar constraints and protections as those which apply to the establishment of a combined authority under Part 6 of the 2009 Act”.

The amendment that we are talking about requires that when exercising the power under Clause 10 the Secretary of State must,

“reflect the identities and interests of local communities and to secure effective and convenient local government”.

It is difficult to see why the Government should object to any of that. Since then, and only today, just before the Committee met, we had the opportunity to see the Government’s reply to the committee’s deliberations, in which the Minister says that these regulations are not of themselves establishing new structures or governance arrangements but modifying where all the councils concerned consent to processes for merging authorities, creating unitary authorities and reducing the number of councillors to fast-track these processes. This is not a sufficient distinction to say that we should eschew the recognition that these processes should reflect the identities and interests of local government.

Amendment 45A is also addressed by the DPRR report and would remove the subsection that removes the denial of the hybrid procedure. We know that this is not unusual in legislation. Indeed, in the case of Ebbsfleet, for a limited period, with our reluctant agreement, it was instigated, but there is normally, surely, an alternative mandatory consultation process that is laid down as a substitute. That is what happened in the case of Ebbsfleet. Where is the process in that situation? On what basis is the hybrid instrument process, if applicable, to be denied if there is no alternative procedure on offer?

Amendment 44F, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, seems entirely reasonable to us, and the Minister may say whether it is necessary to provide specifically for this in legislation. Are not associate membership arrangements already in operation in certain circumstances?

Amendment 46A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in part mirrors an early amendment that we tabled. We have no great objection to the establishment of an independent commission to review and advise on the progress of devolution, but we need to be mindful of not creating another tier of bureaucracy and a process that might drive uniformity on these matters. My noble friend Lady Royall is right to focus on how devolution is working for communities and individuals. Putting decision-making and policy formation closer to communities and individuals and getting their engagement is one of the fundamental reasons for embarking on this process, or should be. Of course, it will be an evolving process and nowhere near complete in six months, although we need to give it impetus from the beginning.

As for the issues raised by my noble friend Lord Liddle, I fully understand the desire to have a single-tier or unitary authority. I know that in our own local case in Luton it has transformed the opportunity to deliver and join up services in the town. The difficulty that we face, whether it is a county council seeking unitary status or the reverse, is that just one council holding out and not agreeing negates the opportunity of Clause 10, but I say to my noble friend that it operates in two directions. If our noble friend Lady Hollis were here she would say in no uncertain terms that having the need for unanimity has destroyed the opportunity for Norwich to get unitary status.

I think I may have a way through this, and perhaps the Minister might comment. I am not sure that the provisions are still in operation, but about six years ago there were successful attempts to get unitary status for Exeter and Norwich. The enlightened Government of the day supported it, but unfortunately it was judicially reviewed, and when the coalition Government—the coalition of Liberal Democrats and Conservatives—came in they overturned the decision. There is a serious point here: there are big towns and significant cities, such as Cambridge, Norwich and Exeter, that believe that any decent economic analysis shows that they can deliver more effectively for their communities if they are part of a unitary authority. In a sense, my noble friend’s amendment to deny the need for unanimity would have its problem in one direction or the other.

I entirely accept the point that we would not want to leave it up to the Secretary of State in any unfettered way, but should we not be thinking perhaps of establishing some criteria such as those that were certainly applicable at that time, as I recall: an assessment of whether the cities involved could benefit from unitary status and whether it added value to their communities? Certainly, that was the initial assessment in the case of Norwich and Exeter. Perhaps revisiting some such criteria, if those procedures are not still around, might be worth while. I accept entirely that devolution to county regions is party policy, and heaven forfend that I should not support party policy. We can see the benefit of unitary status for counties, but it is a two-way street and it can have an impact in the other direction.

My noble friend referred to “tiny district councils” being largely powerless, but they are seemingly not so powerless when they can stop a unitary authority. However, we are not talking about tiny district councils; we are talking about significant district councils that are being denied the opportunity of unitary status and all that that could bring, just as it could to a unitary county council in Cumbria.

[Lord Woolmer of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I will address this issue in relation to combined authorities and take up the points raised by my noble friend Lady Royall. In relation to combined authorities, in reality a lot of the deals are being done in discussions between leaders of authorities, the department and the Treasury. There is a danger of a democratic deficit: that is, the deals that are being done are not necessarily devolution with the wholesale endorsement and support of the wider population. They are being done behind closed doors, with detailed and close negotiations, and afterwards people are being invited to accept that—indeed, not only to accept that but to accept an elected mayor, which in some cases fairly recently they have rejected.

So there is a problem: in order to make haste with the underlying drive of this legislation, there is a strong temptation to consult and persuade people after the event rather than beforehand. That is probably inevitable. However, I say to my colleagues, certainly in my part of the world, that ensuring that people accept this, agree with it and are enthusiastic about it will be an enormous job. They will be faced by what is pretty well a take it or leave it situation. They will not have played a great part in this. Of course, their elected representatives will have done—that is, indirect democracy—but that does not necessarily mean that people at large will have done. I said earlier that I am very enthusiastic about a combined authority for the whole of Yorkshire, which has 5 million people. However, it is enormously difficult to involve 5 million people beforehand and to find out whether they agree. Indeed, there will always be people who strongly disagree.

Therefore, there is a problem here that not merely the leaders of authorities but government Ministers have to deal with. To say to people, “We’ve done a deal behind closed doors and this is what the devolution package looks like”, is hardly taking people with us. I say to my colleagues around Yorkshire—we have the former leader of Sheffield here—that there will be a big job to do in making the move from doing a deal with the Government to forming a large combined authority and it being something that people are enthusiastic about. I hope that in the fullness of time this will have the enthusiastic endorsement of the wider electorate and that they will be given an opportunity to express their opinion at the ballot box. There is no suggestion that there should be a referendum on a large combined authority or on a mayor, so there will be, in my terms, a democratic deficit. People will have to work hard to ensure that there is gradual and significant support for the driving aim of this legislation in the large metropolitan areas.