Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Monday 28th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that intervention because it gives me the opportunity to respond by saying that there is almost a mathematical relationship between size and the importance of the boundary that exists between different regions. One difficulty with regional boundaries is that they are frequently quite dramatic, although there may be a geographical coherence. I am a Fenman. The Fens are in the eastern region, about which the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, spoke, but they are also in the east Midlands. Yet it makes sense for them to work together as a geographical whole. One great advantage of the LEP approach is that, when the models are smaller, the boundaries are slightly less severe and there is an opportunity for LEPs to work together. That is the whole point of the policy—to create greater flexibility in how the units of economic development can work together where they wish to. That supports the argument of One North East and the degree to which common policies across the north-east can work. I accept that it is possible to have a different point of view, but I am telling noble Lords how we see this. If we really want to address the regional imbalance in this country, we have not succeeded with RDAs.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top]

Does the Minister accept that the Government are out of step with virtually everyone in the north-east?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I take a great deal of comfort from my noble friend Lord Bates, who shares my view of the ability of the north-east to develop common policies where it wishes to do so. There are individual differences between Teeside, Tyneside and Wearside. You would not want to say you were in Newcastle when you were in Washington—I remember somebody getting into terrible trouble for doing so. Locality is very specific and the north-east has different characteristics. It is not homogenous and there are methods of getting economic development in the north-east which do not depend on having a single body to deliver it. A coalition of different bodies with a common policy may well be a much more effective method for doing so.

I gave way to my noble friend when I was talking about the West Country. If I might take Bristol as an example, it is far better for the local partners to develop policies for the specific issues it faces, and for Cornwall to do likewise. I strongly believe that any economies of scale that a regional approach may have are more than outweighed by an absence of local knowledge and commitment and the consequent loss of responsiveness to local circumstances. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who asked why the Gloucester, Swindon and Wiltshire LEP was rejected, I would say that, although there was some business support for the proposal, other businesses in the area felt that a different geographical approach was right. Ministers have gone back and asked the partners to discuss their proposals again in order to develop an approach which takes the full range of local views into account. So the matter is not concluded; it is still under debate, and the Government await evidence on which to make their decision.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Monday 29th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, for moving this amendment, because it has led to a really interesting debate, and it gives the Government an opportunity to explore and explain further the details of the policy initiative which is represented by the abolition of RDAs and their replacement by local enterprise partnerships.

I start from the position of being a provincial. I am a fen-man. I come from an area that is rather overlooked by almost everybody. I live within five miles of the eastern region, but I happen to be in the east Midlands; it is an example of where regionalism tends to draw quite arbitrary lines. Sometimes those lines can be much harsher than when a lot of smaller bodies integrate within a jigsaw of interests. The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, talked about the north-east. It is not an area that I know well but I know it well enough to know that it is not a monolithic area; indeed, it is very different and the interests of Tyneside are different from those of Teesside, Wearside, the Durham coal-field and all those different integrated parts. It has been a problem and a challenge to Government to develop a policy that is going to provide proper, sustained economic growth in the regions of the country. The noble Baroness referred to initiatives going back 20 years or so; I can remember—I am young enough, or old enough, to remember—Harold Macmillan, and Quintin Hailsham with his flat hat on. I will not talk about recently departed individuals in the north-east, but it shows that it is a long-standing issue.

The great advantage of this debate is that it gives me, as my noble friends Lord Eccles and Lord King of Bridgwater have said, an opportunity to explain the Government’s policy. We could have had an afternoon’s debate on this sole subject, could we not? Probably we will. At least I can give an outline of the background, and I hope that will inform our debate yet to come.

I would like to set out the Government’s rationale for abolishing RDAs and encouraging the establishment of local enterprise partnerships. The Government’s economic ambition is to create a fairer and more balanced economy. We wish to see business opportunities in a broad range of sectors balanced across the country and between businesses. Our local growth White Paper, which was published in October, sets out how we will put businesses and local communities in charge of their own futures, rather than having to rely on centrally imposed RDAs. We are encouraging businesses, local authorities—noble Lords questioned where local authorities fitted into this pattern—and their partners to develop local enterprise partnerships, based on real economic areas such as Greater Manchester. My noble friend Lord Greaves mentioned the slight unease he sometimes had in the north-west at the dominance of the big conurbations of Manchester and Merseyside, for example. Rather than these artificial, created regions—

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top]

My Lords, I hesitate to intervene; however, one of the points I am simply trying to make is that the architecture in the north-east was not imposed from the centre. It was something that came up within the region at the time, and had enormous support and continues to have that support.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The Government are hoping that their proposals for local enterprise partnerships will be equally supported. Indeed, I hope through debate to be able to show the opportunities that exist; the thrust of the policy is exactly what I am sure the noble Baroness would seek to achieve also.

New partnerships are based on where people actually live and work. Businesses and civic leaders will work together to drive sustainable economic growth and create the conditions for private sector job growth in their communities; that is exactly the scenario that I hope the noble Baroness would agree to. The partnerships will be developed from the bottom up, rather than the top down.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top]

My Lords, I find this argument really quite strange. The LEPs are being dictated. That is the only thing that we are being offered, even though the Secretary of State said in one of his first statements on this, when he was newly appointed, that he saw the rationale for the north-east to retain a RDA. Indeed at the beginning of June, after the election, he appointed the new chair and it was only two or three weeks later that he then decided, no, he was going to impose a different structure. What the Government are saying may be true for the rest of the country—it is for others to argue that—but it really is not true for the north-east. I am trying to get the Minister to understand that very different positions come from the north-east, and that somehow, if the Government are looking for bottom-up proposals, they are going to have to accept that and go back to the drawing-board on the north-east.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I do not believe that that is the case, and having listened to my noble friend Lord Eccles talk about his experience in the north-east, I do not think that the Government have got this wrong. The north-east will discover that local enterprise partnerships will provide a vehicle that links with existing local councils, local communities and local businesses in a way that the RDAs never achieved. They will be a much more powerful driver for economic growth. I must argue that because that is the position that the Government take.

Government: Role of the State

Debate between Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I hope that the way in which this Government have tackled the deficit issue indicates that this is a confident and competent Government. Indeed, that is the leadership which Governments exist to provide, but it is important to stimulate local communities and make them feel empowered so that they, too, have a role to play in the governance of the country.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top]

My Lords, in the light of his earlier responses, will the noble Lord tell us how many new state organisations the Government envisage will be created if the ambitions of the health White Paper are realised?

Non-departmental Public Bodies

Debate between Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I thank my noble friend for his intervention, which reinforces the point which I have been making, that there will be a series of announcements from individual spending departments consequent upon the spending review.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top]

My Lords—