Draft Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority Order 2017

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2017 General Committees

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I do not intend to detain colleagues for long, but I have two brief questions and an observation. First, lest anyone watching the proceedings should think that the House does not take its scrutiny role seriously, let me say that I believe there is a mistake in the explanatory memorandum—on page 4, at line 6 of paragraph 7.3—which refers to something that happened on 8 November 2017. Perhaps the Minister could ask his officials to correct that, so that the electronic version is correct.

I certainly support the draft order, which seems to have broad local support. However, speaking as someone whose local authority area is not in a combined authority, could I ask the Minister to explain whether the local authorities underneath the new body that we are setting up will be slimmed down to some degree—or are we just creating a new structure without taking anything away? I am concerned about the totality of the public sector and how we pay for it.

I see that the Norfolk and Suffolk combined authority will not go ahead, because the Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk was not happy with it. Will the Minister briefly give us his thoughts on whether individual district councils should continue to have the power of veto when there is broad support for combined authorities?