Queen’s Speech

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I stand humbly in this historic Chamber today. I am humbled by the warm welcome of my fellow Peers and the support of all the officers and staff; I wish to thank each and every one of them. I am truly humbled by the enormity of the honour that I feel—a pride that I know is shared by my family, my friends, and so many of my former constituents in Gedling, whom I was proud to represent for 22 years, the people of Nottingham City, the people of the county of Nottinghamshire and beyond.

As I stand here discussing this Queen’s Speech on the theme of communities, voices from my past are calling out to me. I can hear my 94 year-old father, a former Metropolitan Police officer, saying, “Don’t forget neighbourhood policing.” I can hear the man I was named after, my uncle, who is buried in a war grave dated 6 June 1944 in Ranville, in Normandy near Caen, saying, “Never take democracy and freedom for granted.” I hear the voices of Nottingham school pupils, many from disadvantaged backgrounds and growing up in poverty, whom I taught for some 20 years, saying to me, “Make sure every pupil succeeds, whatever their ability, and that we end the academic/vocational divide.”

I can hear the pleas of the many former constituents of mine who needed help with claiming their welfare benefits when the state often made it incredibly difficult for them to do so, when their only crime was poverty. I can hear the voices of young people, including my own grandchildren, demanding that we save the planet for them, if not for ourselves. I can hear so many voices, including me as a younger man, an idealistic socialist standing on the miners’ picket lines or ferociously protesting on behalf of local councils and communities for a better deal. All of them, including the younger me, are calling out: “Vernon what are you going to do with this privilege and this honour you have?”

I say to them, as I say to all noble Lords—this is something we all share, whatever our party background—that I will stand up and speak out, as others have already done on these and other issues, through this House as a proud, working Labour Peer. I say to the Minister that I am no cynic about these things. I know that change has occurred and will occur. However, if the pandemic has shown us anything, it is the power of the state, both at local and national level, to act swiftly and decisively for the benefit of all communities in every region. Why does the state not act with the same level of urgency now for the sake of our communities? I do not want another Peer to be raising in 30 years’ time exactly the same issues of poverty and inequality in our communities as I am.

I wonder what Lord Stanley of Alderley would think. He spoke of the need for a Notification of Poverty Bill, in which he raised many of the issues we still discuss today concerning the working poor. That was in 1935. In discussing welfare and all these other issues, it cannot be right for 2.5 million people to rely on food banks, 980,000 of them children. It cannot be right for over 6 million people to depend on universal credit to survive. It cannot be right for 14.5 million people in our country, including 4.3 million children, to live in relative poverty. It cannot be right for life expectancy, health outcomes and so on still to depend on where you live and where you come from.

It cannot be right for 793 million people across the world to face starvation and for so many of our elderly not to have the social care they need and deserve. We have to act with greater urgency. The cry from communities and the demand from those who were on the frontline during the pandemic, often the poorest paid, is that they want something different. Indeed, is that not the cry from every community? My task, through the vehicle of the Labour Party, will be to play my part, however small, saying that my vision is, “It does not have to be like this”. The state needs to act, and I say to the Minister that that is how this Queen’s Speech will be judged.

To quote the great Romantic poet, Percy Shelley:

“…to hope until hope creates

From its very own wreck the thing it contemplates”.

What inspiring words. My hope, my vision, is to do all I can for a fairer, more equal society. To those voices of my past and present, I say, I have heard you. The power of our words needs to ring out across our nation. The dream of a better future is one we all have to make a reality, and as soon as we can.

Draft West Suffolk (Local Government Changes) Order 2018 Draft West Suffolk (Modification Of Boundary Change Enactments) Regulations 2018

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 General Committees

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his presentation, and I have a couple of questions for him. He mentioned public support, and the explanatory memorandum says:

“The majority of town and parish councils that sent representations in response to the proposals were supportive. Seven responses were received from the eighty-five town and parish councils—four were supportive and three raised concerns.”

I think the Minister said that seven had responded, and they were all supportive. What concerns were raised by those three town and parish councils?

The Minister said that concerns were raised, but did not elaborate on that or explain what they were. It would be interesting for the Committee to have laid out what those concerns were, and how the people in the area were reassured that the proposed local authority would not be a problem and that their concerns could be overcome.

Will the Minister also say something about the merging of the two authorities? Where does he expect the new authority’s headquarters to be? How are those services to be merged, and what does that mean for job losses? Presumably, two HQs will be put together. What arrangements does the Minister expect in that regard?

Finally, although I note the general support for the proposals mentioned by the Minister, why does he expect the new authority to be better? What is it going to do that two separate authorities could not? What does it mean for housing, and for the rural problems that we know there are with housing? What does it mean for the provision of youth opportunities? He quite rightly mentioned all the fantastic industries and other recreational facilities available in this beautiful part of the world. How will the new council work with them to generate even more prosperity and opportunity for all residents? Given that it is a new authority, how does he expect the relationship with Suffolk County Council to improve? If I was trying to be non-consensual, I might ask why he does not want to create a unitary authority in west Suffolk, which would really give them some power—but that is for another day.

It is important that we know what the concerns were and how they were addressed, as well as what the merger means for jobs. The Ministers says that the new arrangement has the support of most local people. Will he say something more about how it will actually improve the services on which they depend and increase the opportunities that are available to them?

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

Very simply, because the acts that are to happen have not yet happened. Most people’s understanding of the idea of retrospective legislation is to change the legality of an act that has happened in the past. In this instance, no such act has yet happened; it is to happen in future, therefore there is no question of retrospective legislation.

My hon Friend’s other point on assurances that he feels he was given in the House previously is the subject of correspondence between him and the Department, as has been clarified multiple times. Perhaps he misunderstood what was being said in the House. It was clarified later in the House of Lords by Baroness Williams of Trafford that it was not the intention of the legislation that one council could block a reorganisation proposal that the rest of the councils in an area had proposed.

There is of course a distinction between a merger, which we are considering in this case, between two councils that consent to it, and a reorganisation across an entire area where two tiers of government are involved. As the correspondence clarified, one council should not be able to exercise a veto to prevent all the other councils of an area taking a proposal forward. I know that my hon. Friend will not be happy with that response, and that he will continue to press me and others on the issue. I look forward to continuing my conversations with him.

The final issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch raised was about an impact assessment on business. The statutory instruments before the Committee have no direct impact on business or the voluntary sector. Any future impact would be due to the decisions of the council, which will be accountable to the local people. It is worth pointing out that business locally was entirely supportive of the proposals, no doubt because of the councils’ great track record of making savings by operating together, and the promise of more savings in the years to come.

Turning now to the questions raised by the hon. Member for Gedling, first, he seemed to suggest that seven might be a particularly low number of representations. It is worth saying that that was the second round of representations. The councils themselves conducted an extensive period of representation and engagement with people across the area before they submitted their proposal. Unsurprisingly, the need for further representations was reasonably limited.

I do not have every one of the representations before me. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the issues raised included the democratic accountability of the future council, and people’s wish to make sure their voice would still be heard. I am pleased to say that the council’s proposal on that score is a modest reduction in the number of councillors from 72 to 64, which will bring the average size of each ward—the electorate per councillor —into line with the English national average of about 1,925. In the new council it will be 1,919. That was one of the ways in which the council was able to provide reassurance.

[Vernon Coaker]

That is a helpful answer. Have there been any proposed changes to the town and parish councils in the area, or do they stay exactly the same? They are obviously close to, and often they give a voice to, people who might otherwise not engage with the district council.

[Rishi Sunak]

There is no direct impact on town and parish councils. Those decisions, of course, will be a matter for the new council. One thing that has been raised is the issue of borough status for one of the areas that we are considering—St Edmundsbury, which has borough status. However, there is provision in the order for the new authority to apply for borough status. It will apply in the normal way to the Privy Council under the existing charter process.

The hon. Gentleman raised the question of the headquarters and what the new council would do. It is probably worth bringing to the attention of those not intimately familiar with the workings of the councils in question that they already work essentially as one operational council. There is already a single headquarters, which is West Suffolk House in Bury St Edmunds, and all the organisational, management and executive functions have been merged.

[Vernon Coaker]

Will the Minister confirm that the new council’s expectation is that there will be no job losses?

[Rishi Sunak]

That will be a decision for the new council to make. I can confirm that the transfer of employees from the two different authorities to the new one should be relatively straightforward under TUPE, because they are all employed in one organisation, for the most part.

It is worth bearing in mind what the councils want to do—the hon. Gentleman will probably understand—and if there is a single operating management structure but two decision-making structures, that creates extra complexity in time and processes. That time will be freed up, and half the estimated £850,000 savings will be the non-cash freeing up of capacity, which can then be deployed on serving residents and constituents better.

Some of the other examples that the authorities have given would be to do with single reporting requirements, improvement of financial systems, removing the need to reconcile between different budgets, and broader and better planning of infrastructure and housing, which can now happen over a wider area. That will ensure that people have better choice, and it will not end at the council boundary as it currently does.

The hon. Gentleman’s last question was about Suffolk County Council. He will be pleased to know that the leader of that council is on the record as saying that he believes that the model we are discussing is the strongest model for moving forward in the first instance; he mentioned potential changes down the line. Before us today is a proposal that is locally led, locally driven and widely supported by all local participants and that will deliver real value for money and real change for residents on the ground. I therefore hope that the hon. Gentleman and other members of the Committee will join me in commending the work of all those in west Suffolk involved in bringing this historic moment into being, and in wishing them every success on the journey ahead.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft West Suffolk (Local Government Changes) Order 2018.

draft west suffolk (modification of boundary change enactments) regulations 2018

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft West Suffolk (Modification of Boundary Change Enactments) Regulations 2018. —(Rishi Sunak.)