Draft West of England Combined Authority Order 2017

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Percy)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft West of England Combined Authority Order 2017.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. The draft order, which was laid before the House on 16 January 2017, brings to life the devolution deal that the Government negotiated with the West of England in March last year. We are proceeding with this deal with three councils, Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol City, and South Gloucestershire. North Somerset Council, which was initially a party to the deal, decided that it did not wish to go ahead as a deal partner.

If approved, the order will put in place three essential elements of the deal. First, it will establish a Mayor for the West of England, to be elected by the people of the three constituent council areas. Secondly, it will establish a combined authority, to be chaired by the elected Mayor and with a membership drawn from the three constituent councils. Thirdly, the order will confer important new powers on the Mayor and the combined authority, as agreed in the devolution deal. Those powers will be focused on planning, housing, land acquisition and transport. The overall result will be to create West of England arrangements that are to contribute to the promotion of economic growth across the area, improve productivity and facilitate investment and the development of the area’s infrastructure to the benefit of all.

Under the deal, the West of England will receive a devolved transport budget to help to provide a more modern, better-connected network. The deal will allow the West of England to choose how to spend that money in its area. The West of England will also receive new planning and housing powers, and control an urban investment fund of £30 million a year for 30 years, with the aim of boosting growth and prosperity throughout the area.

The draft order is made under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, as amended by the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016. The statutory origin of the order is in the governance review and the scheme that was preferred by the West of England councils, in accordance with the requirements of the 2009 Act. That scheme set out the proposals for the powers to be conferred on the West of England and for the combined authority’s governance and funding arrangements.

As required under the legislation, and as with other orders laid before the House, the councils consulted on their proposed scheme. Last September the councils provided the Secretary of State with a summary of the responses to the consultation. Before laying the draft order before Parliament, the Secretary of State had to consider the statutory requirements of the 2009 Act. The Secretary of State is satisfied that those requirements have been met.

Those requirements are that the Secretary of State considers that the West of England mayoral combined authority, on establishing that body and conferring functions on it, will likely lead to an improvement in the exercise of statutory functions across the West of England area. The Secretary of State also had to have regard to the impact on local government and communities. As required by statute, all three constituent councils have had to consent to the draft order.

The draft order provides for the establishment of the combined authority on the day following the day on which the order, if approved by the Committee, is made. Most significantly, it provides for a directly elected Mayor to be elected on 4 May this year. The Mayor will take office on 8 May for a four-year term. The second election will be held on 2 May 2021.

The new powers conferred under the draft order include a duty on the Mayor to prepare a West of England combined authority spatial development strategy, which must be approved unanimously by all three constituent councils before it can come into being, as well as land acquisition and disposal powers and housing powers, including a compulsory purchase power for the Mayor—the same powers that the Homes and Communities Agency has at present. The order will also require the Mayor to work with the combined authority to draw up a local transport plan. The order provides powers on road improvement and maintenance, and for the Mayor to pay grants to bus operators, ahead of the franchising that we hope to bring into being through the Bus Services Bill.

The powers will enable the West of England to take a strategic approach to driving development and regeneration and stimulating economic growth through the £900 million devolved budget. The order also provides for the necessary constitutional and funding arrangements to support the Mayor and the combined authority. In particular, provision has been made for the three constituent councils to contribute to the funding of the Mayor and the combined authority’s activities in an arrangement where councils are in the driving seat of any decision about the level of the contribution. That was done at the request of the three constituent councils.

In conclusion, the order devolves brand-new, far-ranging powers to the West of England and puts decision making into the hands of local people. It also makes good on the Government’s manifesto commitment. I therefore commend the order to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Percy]

I think what we have heard this afternoon is mild enthusiasm from the Opposition for this devolution deal. I will try to respond to all the points raised. We have discussed many orders on the issue of elected Mayors. I will rehearse the arguments once again in a moment, but first I want to deal with some of the comments of the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton.

On the housing fund under the deal, it is for each individual deal to negotiate what it wishes with the Government, although of course we are open to further discussions in the future. Each arrangement is bespoke; they are all very different. Almost every order that I bring before Committee is different from the previous one precisely because we have negotiated very bespoke deals.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned public engagement, which we have discussed before. As I have said before, no matter how much effort we put in here, devolution simply is not going to be the talk of the Dog and Duck this Friday evening. Once the deals are in place, it will be for the people who have been elected and for the bodies, when they are in existence, to go out there and prove to the public that they are delivering what the public expect of them. My Department has committed a budget to publicise the elections, the Mayor of Bristol has been out doing drop-ins and there has been a whole range of other consultations on the deal. Once the bodies are in place and the Mayors are in existence, they will be able to prove to their local communities what they are delivering.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

While devolution may not be the talk of the Dog and Duck, potholes in roads certainly are. When people see a pothole in their road, they tend to blame the council. When we have this metro mayor layer of accountability, or non-accountability, people will still blame the council even though it might be the responsibility of some other part of local government that they do not understand.

[Andrew Percy]

The councils will still be responsible for filling potholes under the devolution deal, so we can be clear about that.

We have discussed the issue of elected Mayors many times before when considering various of these orders, but the problem that we always get to is that nobody is able to propose a better alternative. The hon. Member for Bristol West said, “Oh well, we can leave it to the combined authority leaders,” but their accountability and legitimacy comes from being elected on a turnout of about 30% of the electorate in each of their constituent councils, so I am not sure that would necessarily deliver more legitimacy.

The problem is that not one of the local authority leaders who sits on the combined authority is elected across the geography over which these powers will be exercised. The public have to be able to hold somebody to account across the entire geography for what is being exercised in their name. The truth is that, although there may be good relationships now among the various local authority leaders, it is not unknown for neighbouring councils sometimes to come into conflict. Now, I am sure that will never happen in the West of England—I am sure the councillors and leaders there have a different approach—but I have seen it happen in other parts of the country, including my own area. That is why having somebody who sits above them and is elected directly by the people would give the public direct accountability.

I want to make it clear to the hon. Members for Bristol East and for Bristol West that this is not at all about bringing back Avon. As someone who represents an area that used to be in Humberside, I understand those sensitivities. When we talk about a devolution deal for the Humber, the first question that comes back is, “Is this the return of Humberside?” I understand that concern, and I want to make it absolutely clear that this is not about Avon. The local authorities and the ceremonial counties will all remain unchanged by this deal.

Nor is it the case that we have forced Mayors on to every devolution deal. We have negotiated a deal with Cornwall, for example, that does not have a Mayor. As part of the negotiations, the local council leaders ask for things and central Government require things. We have said, “If you wish to have the maximum powers and this gain-share funding”—the extra £30 million a year, £900 million over the period—“we expect a direct line of accountability to the public for that money.” As I have said, not a single member of the combined authority is directly elected by the whole geography over which that cash and those powers will be exercised. That is why we made having Mayors a requirement of the process to obtain the maximum devolution deal in terms of powers and funding.

I think I have dealt with most of the points that have been made, other than that made by the hon. Member for Bristol East about resourcing. The order states that the resourcing of the Mayor’s office is something that the three local authorities will agree between them. She also mentioned the role of the current Mayor. I want to make it absolutely clear that the Mayor of Bristol’s powers are in no way affected by the order. The Mayor will continue to exercise those powers in the same way, subject of course to the elements of the devolution deal regarding the spatial strategy sitting above the local plan and all the rest of it. The Mayor’s responsibilities will not be altered.

Question put and agreed to.