Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Graham Allen

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

This is a great day. It is the beginning of what will be a very long journey. I think that we will probably have two more Bills on devolution before the end of this Parliament, but at the general election in 2020 we will look back and all the anxieties about the detail in the Bill—some of which we disagree with, of course—will have become irrelevant as most local authorities in England will have devolved to some extent or another. That will be the future. I must put on record again that I think that the Secretary of State has been foremost in introducing the Bill. He has a fantastic record of working with local government and with Labour local government, in particular, through his work with the core cities and on the cities agenda. The Bill is part of a line of progression.

Of course, we cannot have perfection in the first Bill, but those who have some sort of aldermanic sclerosis and believe that we will not move anywhere unless we get absolutely everything right are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It is important that we move on devolution now in a way that previous Governments, regrettably, did not. This is the most fantastic opportunity, in my opinion, for all of us who care about the principle of devolution, enabling people to make decisions as closely as is humanly possible to where they are and where they live.

It is the beginning of the end of possibly several hundred years of the imperial view that Whitehall knows best and that only the man in Whitehall can tell people whether they should have double yellow lines on their high streets or be allowed to have a betting shop on their street corner. What nonsense! It is treating one’s own country as if its people are slaves, rather than liberating them to make a genuine economic contribution, in times of austerity and at other times, as well as a social and political contribution locally. Even with the distinguished colleagues around me, I do think our politics is over-blessed with too big a gene pool. Why should not the leader of our capital stand to be leader of one of our great parties? Why should not the leader of Greater Manchester, Nottingham, Newcastle or anywhere else push our politics forward with a lot of local experience? This is something of which many Governments in the recent past have been bereft.

This is the beginning of a journey. I personally would rather we did not have a mayor—Nottingham voted not to have a mayor. However, if we continue this journey and have another Bill and another one after that, I am sure that we will devolve to such an extent that we will liberate people in the localities to choose their own system of governance and method of election. That will be a definition of devolution achieved.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Part of that choice on localism is the level at which it is most appropriate to make decisions. Forty-odd years ago, my constituency was a patchwork of urban district councils and small municipal boroughs, and people still very much identify with those neighbourhoods. Is it not right that we also seek to empower those communities again?

[Mr Allen]

The movement from Whitehall to town hall is very welcome, but then we must go the extra mile. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), an SNP Member, is no longer here, because we do not want to go the way of pushing power from Westminster to Holyrood, only for the latter, instead of dispersing some of that power, to suck it up and create a national view on everything, rather than liberating the talents in Scottish local government. There are many lessons to learn from Scotland—we should be humble about that experience and learn everything possible—but that is probably one exception to the rule about listening to how the SNP has done things in Scotland.

There will then be a broader picture. Once we have embedded devolution and organically we have made a start, when it is proving its worth and we can demonstrate that we will add value to every single pound, we can move to the next stage, which is the one outlined by the Opposition Front-Bench team. It is to see it as part of the broader jigsaw of a constitutional convention that will consider local government’s role, as part of the debate about devolution in England, an elected second Chamber and a written settlement, among other things.

It is important that what Whitehall giveth, Whitehall does not taketh away. As the Secretary of State is aware, that will mean at some point entrenching the progress we make so that it can never be reversed. That will mean super-majorities in the House, hiding stuff behind the Parliament Act 1911 and so on. There are lots of ways to make it difficult for the wrong sort of Secretary of State to suck these powers back up.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Graham Allen

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Allen]

It is always good to knock off a quick anti-Westminster point, so I will join the hon. Gentleman and say that everything that he resents about Whitehall, I resent at least as much in so far as it impacts badly on one of the 10 poorest constituencies in the United Kingdom, so—I mean this in a friendly way—he does not need to lecture me about how inadequate Westminster and Whitehall are at freeing up and liberating people to get better jobs, improve skills and improve their schooling, all the things that all of us hold in common as we move forward.

What I am saying is that we need to figure out how progress that has been made in Scotland—massive progress, which I fully support—can be replicated, not just in a narrow sense of “This is good for us”, but if it is so good, how it can be good also for Wales, Northern Ireland and England.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I commend the work that my hon. Friend and his Select Committee did in the previous parliamentary Session. Although we are talking today specifically about the Scotland Bill, is this not also about how we re-engage the debate across the whole of the United Kingdom about how we bring powers down to the very local level so that what happens in Scotland today is valid for Nottingham, Manchester, Durham and other parts of the Union tomorrow?

[Mr Allen]

If we have now breached the principle and the wonderful idea of devolution—giving power away, not decentralisation, where Westminster and Whitehall can suck it back—let us look at devolution that is entrenched and can stand the test of time. I agree very much with getting the words right. My Select Committee was clear about the words reflecting the permanency of the Scottish Parliament.

The question is how we achieve permanency in an unwritten constitutional environment. We do it in two or three possible ways. One suggestion in one of my amendments—I tabled new clauses 6 to 9—is that the Scottish Parliament is protected behind the ingenious mechanism of the Parliament Act, which requires both Chambers to agree to any change in the status of those things that are protected. The other idea is related to Magna Carta, which is being celebrated today, and calls for a new Magna Carta—a written constitution. I commend the Scottish Executive for the work that they have already done on that. [Interruption.] If any hon. Member has something to say, please stand up and correct me. I am happy to take a correction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Allen]

We might not yet be a federal Parliament officially, and we might not yet have the right words for it, but there is absolutely no question but that our Union is moving towards a federal basis, rather than the alleged parliamentary sovereignty referred to earlier. I hope that I live long enough to see parliamentary sovereignty in this House, because I have not seen much of it over the couple of decades I have been here.

The other thing that I think is really important to have clarified—this is also in the interests of my friends in the SNP—is the role of local government. If we have an overarching, federal structure in the United Kingdom, there are certain things that that structure needs to define. Human rights is a classic example, and I would argue strongly that so too are the rights of the sub-national tiers of government. Otherwise, all we would be doing is transferring state power from Whitehall to Holyrood. Some people say that that is precisely what has happened in Scotland, but I am sure that is a false accusation. However, in order to ensure the freedom of those who work at the grassroots, in our communities and neighbourhoods, defining the rights of local government, which is commonplace in every other western democracy, and to do that in our Union while it exists and is flourishing, would ensure that no such accusation could be levelled at my newly elected friends in the SNP.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend will remember that in the early 1990s there was a word that was in vogue in what was then the European Community: subsidiarity. Although it is a horrible word, it has a very serious meaning, which is that decisions should be taken as closely to the people as appropriate. Is not that just as relevant to the devolution debate? We should be talking about handing powers from this place not only to Holyrood, Cardiff Bay and Stormont, but even to places such as Manchester city region, and to local communities beyond.

[Mr Allen]

I think that devolution is so good that it should apply to everybody in the Union. I welcome the breakthrough that has been made in Scotland and hope to see a similar settlement for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. I often say—my hon. Friend will have heard this before—that subsidiarity is the ugliest word in the political lexicon to describe the most beautiful concept.