Draft Tees Valley Combined Authority Order 2016

Anna Turley Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 General Committees

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Bone. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

We have always welcomed the principle of devolution in the Tees Valley, but the existing proposal is wholly insufficient for our local authorities to be able to confirm their commitment to a mayoral combined authority. They entered into the deal in good faith, as we are sure the Government did, and they are still committed to delivering it, but not at any cost. They and I do not believe that what is on the table is consistent with the vision that was signed up to last October.

The most pressing issue of concern is the single capital pot. The Tees Valley devolution deal agreed in principle gave the combined authority a flexible, multi-year settlement, providing the freedom to deliver its growth priorities, and a further allocation of £15 million per annum for 30 years.

Our local authorities were given commitments that they would be given details of the funding streams to be included after the autumn statement. That did not happen. They were then promised the same by Christmas. They raised the issue of the lack of progress on the single capital pot with the Minister with responsibility for the northern powerhouse in January. Incredibly, they have still not had confirmation of what will be included in the pot and when it will come to the combined authority.

A letter from the Department for Communities and Local Government was received on 4 March, setting out that initially the single pot will consist of three funding lines: the investment fund, the devolved transport grant and the local growth fund. Those will be joined by the adult education budget in 2018-19 and can be augmented by local revenue streams, such as the future mayoral business rate supplement.

That, I am afraid, is completely unacceptable and not what was signed up for. Two of the three funding streams—the devolved transport grant and the local growth fund—are already devolved to our local authorities, and the third is the £15 million per annum that was already agreed in October.

In the Tees Valley, there are five local authorities with a long and successful record of working together. They have a mature, robust partnership with the local enterprise partnership, which has a 10-year track record of delivery, and they are committed to making the devolution agenda work. By acting like this, however, the Government are stretching their patience.

We must put this proposal in the broader context of cutting £90 million over 10 years from Redcar and Cleveland alone and the Government’s abject failure to intervene and save SSI jobs. That is on top of the proposals to make public services totally dependent on locally raised funds, when we have just lost more than £10 million in business rates a year from the closure of SSI. The Government are also continuing to peddle the myth of the northern powerhouse while in reality investing to support more development and growth in Tory heartlands.

Our local authorities have tried to enter into this with a positive, constructive spirit, but their patience is wearing thin.

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[James Wharton]

We have had an interesting and wide-ranging discussion. First, I commend the comments of the hon. Member for Nottingham North, who is a consistent and passionate advocate of devolution. He talked of the merits he sees in what is being done, but as is his habit on these occasions, he then talked of where he would like us to go further. I have no doubt that the broad thrust of what he said is true—this is only one more step on a very long journey—and I welcome the enthusiasm with which he engages with this subject and the expertise that he has brought to the Committee. We may not always agree on which steps should be taken in which order, but his contributions are always informative and helpful. I welcome them and thank him for making them.

That approach is one that some of the other Members here would do well to heed. At times this morning, the debate appeared to become broader—one that was of course within the remit of the order under consideration, under the guidance of your chairmanship, Mr Bone—about local government revenue and funding settlements, but that is a separate matter. The money that comes with the combined authority—£15 million a year over 30 years, which can be borrowed against and used to drive economic growth—will be in the hands and control of local decision makers and is entirely separate from the local government settlement that individual authorities receive, whether people support them or not.

[Anna Turley]

rose—

[Alex Cunningham]

rose—

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[Mr Allen]

I am getting to my feet to allow my colleagues to intervene on me, because they have some things to say. I am a little surprised that the Minister did not take their interventions. [Interruption.] I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar is itching to intervene.

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate my hon. Friend giving way. I wanted to pick up the point about finance. I was absolutely shocked to hear the Minister dismiss that as if it is not even part of the debate. Discussion of the single funding pot is about what fund there is in central Government that will be devolved to local level to enable us to fulfil our potential. The Minister does the Opposition a disservice if he thinks that anyone here is lacking in ambition for Teesside. We see its potential, and we are here to fight for everything we can to enable it to succeed. Funding is absolutely at the heart of this devolved agenda. There is an amount of money which central Government or Whitehall has to spend, and we want to spend it better.

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[Mr Allen]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point—and I am happy to give way to him—that that in itself is not enough. I have already dealt with the fact that there has to be double devolution, so that there is not recentralisation. A large responsibility weighs on the Minister’s shoulders and those of the Secretary of State, to bring England to the party—to bring it to the devolution democracy that is commonplace in every other western democracy.

This is the first step. I am less critical than many. It has its faults and inadequacies—I have pointed out some of them—but I see it as the first baby step. I am not going to criticise the baby for making a baby step. We should encourage the Government to go along this route, because we have a five-year Parliament. The Government have the whip hand in this place. One of the ways in which we can move this forward is by having proper interaction between local authorities—between the Tees Valley authority and between Members of Parliament—so that we can introduce a second devolution Bill, which I predict will be before the House within 24 months. We can make it a Bill that takes us even further along the lines that I would like and to which my hon. Friends have alluded.

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate my hon. Friend giving way. Does he agree that if we are talking about the next steps of devolution, trust is absolutely integral to the whole process? If the five local authorities in the Tees Valley feel that trust is being broken and that agreements are already being reneged on, and that there is a lack of information, particularly on finance, that is going to be a barrier to any future devolution.

[Mr Allen]

I hope the Minister heard these concerns. They are not made out of partisanship, but out of genuine concern for what happens in the local communities. I hope that he takes steps to repair any mistrust. Similar concerns are being expressed in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. When we try to manage change and make a progressive step forward, a lot of people will be anxious about their own position and about their local authority. All those issues boil up.

It is for the Minister and the Secretary of State to ensure that they work incredibly hard—I know that they do and are committed to the measure conceptually—to ensure that Conservative colleagues, Labour colleagues and the populations of the areas feel involved and feel that their views are respected. That would repair the trust, which seems to me, although it is not my area, to be a little shaky at the moment, to put it moderately, so that everyone is ready for what the Minister wants to do, which is to take us on the next step of the devolution journey.