Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

Debate between Martin Vickers and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Monday 7th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I shall speak to amendment 56 and the Government manuscript amendment to it. Although I added my name to the amendment, the original proposal came from my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson), who apologises for not being present in the Chamber today. As the House will appreciate, his constituency has been very badly affected by the weekend floods.

I wish to make a few points on my hon. Friend’s behalf. Amendment 56 provides for a very modest change that would give greater flexibility both to the Government and to local communities. Where there is a clear wish for change, a county could achieve it in a much more efficient manner and without too much delay. The amendment seeks to build on existing legislation in relation to changes to boundaries. I am talking about not radical change, but easier changes that both Government and local people support.

My hon. Friend hopes that these changes can be applied to his own county of Cumbria, where they are badly needed and widely supported, as they would improve local government and lead to cost savings. I note that the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) spoke in favour of this amendment. I hope that that sentiment will also be expressed by the Opposition Front Bench and that we can proceed on this matter with consensus. With that, I hope that the House will support this amendment.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I wish to support some of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (William Wragg) and to try to give more information to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) to explain why I am in favour of first past the post.

Briefly, let me talk about referendums and why I have attached my name to amendment 2. It seems that there is a slowly developing theory of referendums in this country that fits in with a parliamentary democracy. It is that those of us who sit in this House, who admire this House and who approve of how our constitution works, have a great affection for the understanding that we are representatives and not delegates, and that we are here to exercise sovereignty on behalf of the people for a five-year period before returning it to them in toto at the end of that period. That is the well-established constitutional position. Against that, and in sympathy with that, there is a developing view of where referendums are useful, and moving from useful to becoming essential; and that is to do with the structures of government. The reason for that is that there is a permanency in the structures of government that outweighs the normal level of legislation with which we deal.

It is quite right that Scotland had referendums on its decisions on independence and on establishing a Parliament in the first place, because those are effectively permanent decisions, irreversible and unchangeable without the consent of the Scottish people. Likewise in Wales, the Welsh have had referendums on their Assembly, as has Northern Ireland, too. With regard to local councils and changes, if the structures are to work they need to go with the grain of popular consent. Authority, when it is used, needs to have a legitimacy that is based in democratic consent. When that consent was not given in the Local Government Act 1972, there was a great deal of hostility to what was done because it did not meet the requirements of local people. Against that evolving doctrine of referendums there is, inevitably, the Government’s view of referendums, which I characterise, perhaps unfairly, as being, “We will have referendums when we think we will win them, but if we think we won’t win them, it is a bit too dangerous, so we won’t take the risk.” It is a pity that the Government have not taken the risk with these new structures. Let us take the Mayor of London as an example. The Mayor of London has enormous popular consent, even when it was Ken Livingstone, let alone now that it is the great man, my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson).