Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Fourth sitting)

Alex Norris Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Thank you. We will go straight to the Opposition. Shadow Minister.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q117 Thank you, Mr Bone, and thank you, Mayor Andy Street, for your time this afternoon. It is much appreciated.

I will start with a simple question: with the experience you now have of being Mayor of a huge part of the country, and of the powers you have been exercising, what do you see next for the powers of the West Midlands Mayor?

Andy Street: Thank you for the question. I think there are two ways of answering it. In some of the areas where we have been exercising powers already, we are looking for them to be deepened—so housing, transport and skills. Then, of course, in some policy areas, we have not had any powers and are looking for them, and we might talk about inward investment as an example of that.

The other way of answering the question is to talk about the fiscal deal. At the moment, we have really been applying to Government for funding and then allocating it using all our knowledge—the whole idea that decisions taken next to people are better—but we have not had our own fundraising power. There is a real moment as to whether this next trailblazer devolution deal is going to begin a process of fiscal devolution.

[Alex Norris]

Q Thank you, that is really helpful. I am hoping that you might pull back the curtain, in so far as you are willing to, on the operations of a combined authority. Your membership is very big, so how does that work in practice? How do you work with those who have democratic mandates and with others who have been selected, because they are involved with your local enterprise partnerships? I believe you also have a trade union representative—I would always suggest that people join trade unions, because it seems a good idea to me. I wondered how that works in practice, how you try to build consensus and how you work with your combined authority?

Andy Street: Yes, you are right—interesting question. The remarkable thing about this area of the country —I think what I am about to say is true, and it is in contrast to every other combined authority—is that we are completely balanced politically: 14 Conservative MPs, 14 Labour MPs, four Labour councils, three Conservative councils and a Tory Mayor. That means that there has to be a model of working across party and consensually.

The way the decision making works is that our board takes the decisions. That is the seven local authorities, obviously balanced. The executive will be responsible for all the preparation of all the policy areas, all the proposals, but it will be that board that formally takes the decisions. One thing that I often talk about and am very proud of is that every single major financial decision that we have taken over the past five years has been taken unanimously by that board, across party. So, actually, an enormous amount of work has to be done to find what we might call regional interest and that consensual point, rather than—dare I say it on this call—the more conventional Westminster approach, the partisan approach.

[Alex Norris]

Q Moving on, there has been some interest, in both oral and written evidence, in clause 140, on compulsory purchase orders. Do you think that the powers go far enough? If not, what more would you want to see, perhaps in a Government amendment? Would it be an opportunity to address the issue of hope value in the legacy of the Land Compensation Act 1961?

Andy Street: To be very honest, you are taking me beyond my level of knowledge with that last clause. I do not see it as a critical part of this Bill. I am quite comfortable with the CPO powers that we have at the moment. We use them infrequently, but when we have needed to use them, they have been powerful. We have also used them almost as a deterrent. I am not sitting here thinking that that is the thing that I must get out of this legislation. That is not a dodge of the question; it is my honest view. But I am not equipped to give you a detailed answer on that bit in your question.

[Alex Norris]

Q That is absolutely fine. I appreciate your candour. I have just one very quick one to finish, Mr Bone. The written evidence for this Bill is starting to trickle through. There seems to be more with particular reference to the West Midlands. Obviously, we had the chief executive of the combined authority here on Tuesday. We seem to have had more interest in police and fire functions in the West Midlands than on any other issue. Some of that evidence is contradictory. Can you express your definitive position, as Mayor of the West Midlands, as to what the future is in this area, what level of interest you have, and how that might be shared, or not shared, with other Mayors that you work with?

Andy Street: I think the reason you have had a lot of interest in this is that we are in a different position to the other very large combined authorities. It is interesting why that has come about. You thanked me for my candour earlier on; I will give you my candour again on this. The situation here, unlike in Manchester, London and Leeds, is that the Mayor does not have the police and crime commissioner responsibilities. It was obviously imposed—I shall use that word—on those three areas through their deals. When our deal was struck, it was subject to local agreement. Despite a public consultation that came out overwhelmingly in favour of a merger of the two roles, the board decided that that was not what was going to happen. I regret the fact that that board decision was split on party lines. I said earlier that we always try to find consensus, but this is the one issue where we did not find it. That is, I think, why you have had input, because it remains a contentious issue. My personal view is, as it has always been, that there is enormous advantage to the model of one single accountable person. There is clear evidence that that has worked in other areas, and where we have not yet achieved that, we are slightly weaker for it.

Having said that, we have done two things here. Both the police and crime commissioner and myself, although from different parties, have committed that we will work as effectively as we can together. The second thing is that I have always committed that, so long as the rules were the same, we would not reopen this issue. Of course, the Bill changes the rules, and therefore it will, potentially, give an opportunity for this issue to be reopened. Hence the correspondence you have received.

[The Chair]

For the Government side, I call the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

I should have said to the witnesses at the beginning that you might be surprised that you are getting questioned by the Minister, but the advantage of these evidence sessions is that we can have a wider debate and get more information, which feeds into the process later on, so Ministers are taking the chance to get your evidence for that purpose. We are now going to go to the shadow Minister.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q Thank you, Mr Bone, and thank you to our witnesses this afternoon. Your time is much appreciated. I also want to turn to heritage. It is an area of the Bill about which there is a high degree of consensus on its importance. As you say Lizzie, it is important that it is seen as a levelling-up issue and a place issue, and I think that gives us exciting scope to build on. I will turn to clause 92, and I will go to you first, Lizzie, but I hope the other panellists might put their views in, too. I will just ask you to expand on your written evidence, in which you say that there is scope to go a little bit further. What sorts of things did you have in mind?

Lizzie Glithero-West: We are very pleased to see the list of assets. While this table does cover many of the key asset groups we would expect to see—it has been pointed out that the inclusion of registered battlefields could be a little clearer—it would be good to address a couple of gaps at this stage. To be clear, they are not major gaps, and we really welcome this clause being in the Bill.

One such gap would be around the setting of conservation areas. A number of my members are supportive of the idea of inserting a clause to allow the protection of a small number of nationally important archaeological sites that cannot now be designated because they lack structures. These are things that would have gone into other Bills. It is a very small number of sites, but they are very important. They cannot currently be designated but they could be designated, so there is a great opportunity to address that.

The point about setting is around conservation areas and the impacts of, for instance, tall buildings nearby and so on. Our briefing refers to that not currently being in the Bill. The other thing we would like to probe a bit for parliamentarians is how these designations will interact with other natural environment designations—for example, ancient trees, ancient woodlands, veteran trees and ancient hedgerows. There is such a symbiotic relationship between the natural and historic environment. Often, a few different designations will be in the same area, and it is important that there is clarity around that. It has also been noted that there should be consideration of maritime archaeology—perhaps looking at the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 in addition to what is already in this list.

One other point I want to make is about the clarification of some of the wording. If the wording has been chosen to align the Bill with the national planning policy framework, it should be noted that the NPPF talks about preserving and enhancing significance, which is subtly but importantly different from preserving and enhancing assets. A related amendment should replicate the intent of the NPPF, which would ensure that the process of undertaking archaeology, which, by its nature, can be destructive but enhance knowledge and significance, is covered by the duty and not inadvertently excluded. The concern from some in the sector is that unless enhancement of significance is properly defined, it could lead to unintended consequences. Those were the main points on my list. I hope that is helpful.

[Alex Norris]

That is very helpful. Do the other panellists have anything to add?

Nicholas Boys Smith: I will make a point very quickly; I will not comment on those detailed points. This does not actually need to come through primary legislation, but, building on what I was saying earlier, there is an important opportunity and need in the criteria for listing, as set out by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Historic England, to put more focus on issues such as townscape quality, pride in place and local popularity as well as—not instead of—issues of architectural importance.

An architectural historian might say about a building, “Oh, there are 50 of those around the country” or “Well, that is the 15th of those, and there are earlier ones over there.” Actually, if that were a town hall, it would be very significant to the people living in that town. It comes back to the wider debate about levelling up and pride in place. There is an important need to gently weave those things more clearly into the guidance for listing, but as I say, that does not actually have to come through the Bill. I do not get invited to this kind of thing every day of the week, so I have taken the opportunity mention this today.

Adrian Dobson: I do not think I have anything to add on this particular point.

[Alex Norris]

Q Turning to clause 93 on the stop notices, are you confident that they are rigorous and strong enough to beat back unscrupulous developers? Lizzie, you mentioned your concerns about the period between now and Royal Assent; I think you were making a point about greater risk. Could you cover that in your answer? I am interested to hear the views of all the panellists on that.

Lizzie Glithero-West: It is a very short answer from me. Clause 93 is supported by our membership. Private owners of heritage will want to be sure that it is very clear, but the clause is welcome. My only point would be that in any transitional system between Bills, you want to ensure clarity and that there is no confusion.

Adrian Dobson: I have just a general point. One of the challenges for the planning system is that, inevitably, things get concentrated on development management and that can be, initially, at the expense of what you might call proactive planning and also enforcement activity. There is just a concern that the proactive planning and enforcement activity can become the Cinderella element of the planning system if you are not careful.

[The Chair]

Nicholas?

Nicholas Boys Smith: I think I am done on heritage.