Draft South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (Election of Mayor and Transfer of Police and Crime Commissioner Functions) Order 2024

Debate between Alexander Stafford and Nick Fletcher

Wednesday 6th March 2024 General Committees

[Nick Fletcher]

I want to reiterate exactly what my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge and for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) have said. I note for the record that all MPs are welcome to join these meetings, yet there are only three here from South Yorkshire. That says something about the other Members of Parliament from South Yorkshire, who have taken the vote for granted for so long. That is why we live in what many people call the socialist state of South Yorkshire. That is why it is so dangerous to hand these powers over; we are pretty much handing them over to a dictatorship. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr said that we should not make this political, but these are political positions, and this is what it is for. People need to know and to look back at what has happened since we became a combined authority. One of the biggest problems that we have had is that money has been wasted hand over fist, and we have lost our airport. That has caused huge economic damage to South Yorkshire for the last two years, and it will continue to do so until that airport is open.

This is important because we are going to be handing over further, really important powers on police and crime commissioning. We all know the place that we are in at the moment, and the police need real backing behind this. Unfortunately, with the leadership that the current Mayor is showing at this moment in time, we have not got that. It is extremely dangerous to hand these powers over without really thinking about that. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley, I urge all Members to vote against this. This is not the right time for this to happen.

[Alexander Stafford]

Does my hon. Friend and the Committee realise that the current Mayor has responsibility for business growth and recovery; education, skills and employment; transport and active travel; housing, infrastructure and net zero; and health, as the chair of the integrated care partnership? Does my hon. Friend believe that giving even more powers to that very extensive brief will serve the people of South Yorkshire? I do not believe that it will.

[Nick Fletcher]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Doncaster, Barnsley and Rotherham will all be left behind. We have seen the way in which moneys have been given to the Mayor—it is literally hundreds of millions of pounds, running into billions of pounds. That is not being divided up equally between the four councils. Unfortunately, because all the council leaders are Labour, no one is actually challenging it. We continually see videos of what is actually happening at those council meetings, and the Doncaster Mayor never sits up and actually challenges any decision that is made. The scrutiny panels are extremely small and they are again filled with people from his own party. Unfortunately, if we continue on this trajectory, South Yorkshire is going to be left behind. Other combined authorities, where we have Conservative members and Mayors, continue to move forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Fletcher]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. That is the same message that I have been giving out for the last 19 months. The Conservative Mayor in Teesside, Ben Houchen, used the gainshare powers, which the Mayor of Sheffield unfortunately said he could not use—but now, all of a sudden, he can use them. Ben Houchen bought the airport with half the gainshare money available to our Mayor, and is making a real success of it.

[Alexander Stafford]

My hon. Friend once again mentions the key point, which is that the Mayor of South Yorkshire keeps saying he cannot do something, and then suddenly it turns out that he can. My hon. Friend mentioned Doncaster Sheffield Airport—suddenly our Mayor can save it, when he had claimed he could not. The same thing happened for my bus routes in Rother Valley. The Mayor said he could not change the bus routes or make things work, and suddenly he has changed them a little bit. The Mayor clearly does not understand what powers he already has. If we give him even more powers, what faith can we have that he will exercise them responsibly for the people of South Yorkshire?

Doncaster Sheffield Airport

Debate between Alexander Stafford and Nick Fletcher

Monday 24th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nick Fletcher]

On the money, the South Yorkshire Mayor has £30 million per year for 30 years. That is £900 million. Ben Houchen, the Mayor for Teesside, has £15 million a year for 30 years. That is £450 million. I believe we are two years behind where we should be because Doncaster and Barnsley councils wanted to create a Yorkshire-wide mayoralty. Nevertheless, we are where we are.

With regard to powers, I say again that we have powers to set up mayoral development areas, we have compulsory purchase powers, we have community asset powers—we have all these different levers but, unfortunately, none of them has been used.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

I am intrigued by those powers, and I think where the power lies is the nub of the issue. We have all seen the great success of Mayor Ben Houchen in Tees Valley, but why is that not happening in South Yorkshire? My hon. Friend talks about compulsory purchase powers. Is he saying that if the Mayor wanted to, he could—perhaps with Doncaster Council—buy the airport to save it, similarly to what Ben Houchen did, but that he has chosen not to do so?

[Nick Fletcher]

The compulsory purchase powers sit with the local authority, and it could have used them. The argument will be that, to use compulsory purchase powers, it is necessary to go through a series of phases first: compulsory purchase has to be the last resort. I understand that, but the threat of its use would have made Peel sit down at the table far sooner, and we may have stood a chance of saving the airport. Using compulsory purchase orders when the airport has closed and been asset-stripped by its owners is not going to help anyone. We are where we are. As I said a moment ago, we have consortia around the table. Let us hope that things change in the next few days.

I could speak for another hour, but I know my time is limited. I want to leave the House with three questions. First, what can this place do to stop this happening again? Should we make all airports community assets? Should any sale or closure of an airport have to be agreed by the local Mayor or the Secretary of State? Should any operator have to give a notice period of, say, two to five years? I do not know, but something must be done.

Secondly, before any more devolution can take place, can it please be explained properly to the electorate what that means? I believe it has been a disaster for South Yorkshire so far. People really need to know what they are signing up for and voting for.

Thirdly, can we have a public inquiry? I need the people of Doncaster to know what has happened. It is important. They really need to know where to put their cross the next time they vote.

[Nick Fletcher]

I thank my hon. Friend. That just proves that the airport is used by people from all across the north of England and is such a fantastic asset.

Peel has been stubborn—I believe desperately so—and its board, mainly John Whittaker and Robert Hough, will have to live with what it is trying to do and what its legacy will be. I am told that John Whittaker is a good man, and he can stop this at the click of his fingers. The question is, will he do the right thing? I hope so.

However, Peel is a business, and businesses make profit. Although I do not believe that greed is good, Peel is doing what businesses are supposed to do: making money. Sadly, I believe our elected Mayors have not done what they are supposed to do. They have been left wanting—absent at first, then slow and, in the words of local business leaders, chaotic. They have shown no vision and are championing our airport only now, when it is probably too late.

Just look at the difference between our Mayor’s social media account and Ben Houchen’s. Our South Yorkshire Mayor is tweeting childish memes when the people he represents—the people who voted for him—are losing their jobs and South Yorkshire is losing its future, while Ben Houchen’s social media is littered with success stories of investment, jobs and giving the next generation an inspiring future.

If we lose our airport, Peel will need to be held accountable, but the combined authority should be dissolved. It is not working, and it is not working for Doncaster. Our combined authority Mayor is buying trams for Sheffield while Doncaster gets second-hand buses and a closed airport. It is simply not good enough. And where is our Doncaster Mayor? Nowhere to be seen.

[Alexander Stafford]

If, as is reported, Peel is planning to sell the site or get rid of it for houses to be built on it, who exactly would benefit from the council tax on those houses? Would the South Yorkshire Mayor and Doncaster Council get money directly from the rate payers who bought those houses? Does my hon. Friend think there is anything weird about that way of doing things?

[Nick Fletcher]

My hon. Friend makes his point; as I say, I hope that those sorts of things will come out as part of the public inquiry.

I have said throughout our campaign that we must keep the faith. I am so saddened. I know that we cannot keep an airport open because people are fond of it, but Doncaster people really are fond of the airport, and I am too. I therefore want to try to end on a note of optimism that we still have a glimmer of hope. The consortia and Peel are still in the room and the combined authority offer is still on the table. I want them to know that if they save our airport, I will be their champion, and so will the good people of Doncaster.

It is a great airport and I know that, with the right owner and the right support, it would be viable. I therefore ask Peel one last time to do the right thing, reverse this ridiculous decision, accept the combined authority’s offer, give the sale the time it needs and let us turn Doncaster into the aerotropolis its founder, John Whittaker, once dreamed of.

Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits

Debate between Alexander Stafford and Nick Fletcher

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Fletcher]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. I will come to other issues regarding similar things towards the end of my speech.

This Government are trying to help people to get back to work and get into work. I cannot stress how important it is that people work. This debate is about the money, but it is also about the value that it gives an individual when they go to work. We need to take down the barriers to get to work that have been put in people’s way over the years. We need to incentivise people to get to work, which is what the Government are doing with the kickstart scheme, the restart scheme and JETS—job entry targeted support.

[Alexander Stafford]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just about getting people back into work but about getting people back into high-quality, high-paid jobs, and that is what this Government are focusing on?

[Nick Fletcher]

I completely agree. We need to get people into work so that they start feeling valued and they are contributing to society, which is what most people in this country want to do. Then, with the lifetime skills guarantee, we can educate them more so that they bring more value to the companies they work for and to the state, and we can increase wages and increase the growth of the country in GDP, so that we can probably lower taxes while still pulling in more money. There will be more people working and so maybe we can get more targeted help for those who really need it.

I have some asks to put to the Government. As I say, we really do need to have some targeted help, because there are people who are going to be particularly hit by this decision. As we have heard, the problem may not be the £20 cut but the benefits system as a whole. Certain demographics really struggle and we need to home in on them as we move forward over the next few months and years. Single people are hit particularly hard. The tapering needs to be adjusted so that it pays to do the extra hours’ overtime that many people need, and want, to do to increase their standard of living. There should be no block on that at all. We need to give some targeted help, and it is important that we look at that, but overall the Government have the right policy. Moving forward from this, we should hopefully see the growth and start getting people into these quality jobs, as the Government want.