Teesworks Joint Venture

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend that it is a matter of regret that those allegations were made, in the terms that they were made. It is incredibly serious to allege corruption and illegality. The findings of the review are absolutely clear on this; the review found no evidence of corruption or illegality.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, I am afraid that allegations of illegality and corruption were not the only allegations that led to this review. There were also allegations of a lack of transparency and—as a taxpayer in Tees Valley myself; my family have lived there for generations—there is a great deal of concern about a lack of value for money for taxpayers. Those complaints have been upheld by this report. On various occasions in the run-up to this review, the Mayor of Tees Valley asserted that there could not have been any wrongdoing because an official from the Government was involved in the decisions that were found so lacking by this review. Would the Minister like to comment on that?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

As I said in my original response, the Government welcome the recommendations on strengthening governance and transparency. We welcome the oversight that this review has provided in those terms. I think the noble Baroness might be referring to the fact that the government official is a member of the board of the development authority. When a government official is a member on a board, in examples such as this, their role is as an observer. In this case, however, the panel noted examples of questions being raised by that government member as part of that review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I do not believe that there are any further plans to cover any further reviews.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, the report says clearly that the measures in place

“do not meet the standards expected when managing public funds”.

I have read the recommendations and I look forward to the mayor’s response to them. Does the Minister think that, outside of the mayor’s response, the Government have a duty to ensure that this kind of practice does not continue and that there is training or perhaps some intervention from the Government? The Government have to take some of the responsibility here, because they have allowed a situation to evolve where the standards that we would expect for managing public funds have not been met. For all we know, because of the lack of transparency, this situation could be replicated in other areas.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I say to the noble Baroness that we have considered the panel’s findings against the draft best value guidance, which was published in July 2023, and concluded that they do not meet the test for urgent intervention. The panel makes a number of recommendations for the combined authority, the development corporation and other partners, and some for government. We are now giving the mayor and partners time to reflect on the panel’s report. We have asked him to write to us and set out his action plan for responding to the recommendations within six weeks. One of the recommendations for government was around the clarity of legislation in this area and oversight arrangements. We will take that away and look at it carefully, because that is an area, for example, that could have read- across to other development corporations or combined authorities.