Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 3 and 4. I have listened with interest to what the noble Lords, Lord Heseltine and Lord Deben, have said. The amendments are about flexibility—the whole point of devolution is flexibility—and the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, let the cat out of the bag when he said that you would only have a deal if you have a mayor. That is diktat, not a deal: it means that you have to have a particular model. In this new world of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, the conurbations of Leeds, Sheffield and others are coming back to a mayor. That is because they know that they can only have a deal with a mayor.

Not only politicians but business people said on BBC Radio Sheffield this morning, “We do not necessarily want a mayor. It is unfair that we are being told to have a mayor”— particularly only a few years after the people had a voice and said no. This is what Amendment 4 is about. What arrogance to say that this place knows what the better governance arrangements are for cities and conurbations elsewhere in this country. Again, it marks the political class as being distant from the people whose lives it wishes to improve.

I was surprised when the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, said that he was erecting a ladder for politicians to climb up—the very thing that local governments have done which has failed their areas. It was a very strange thing to say. Again quoting directly from what noble Lords have said, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said that we need to do something new. As someone who led a council relatively recently, I agree. However, something new does not necessarily mean one issue in a straitjacket called a mayor.

Are mayors so successful? Tell that to the people of Doncaster, where the Government had to send in commissioners when they had—and still have—a mayor. Tell that to the people of Stoke-on-Trent and Hartlepool, who have voted to no longer have a directly elected mayor. Go down the road and tell that to the people of Tower Hamlets, who have a directly elected mayor. It is not even a panacea internationally. Some cities in the USA have become bankrupt even though they have a directly elected mayor.

The amendment is not against directly elected mayors in areas where people wish to have them. I would not stop people who feel it appropriate and wish to have a directly elected mayor in their area from having one. However, it is arrogant to say to people who may come up with a new model that works for their area that they cannot have the powers because we have decided that their governance model is not correct. It is not only politicians who are saying that. The PwC report by Jon House, its head of local government and devolution, which was published only a couple of weeks ago, said that you have fallen into the trap of moving away from innovation and outcomes when you enforce one model of governance and people start talking about that.

I support the amendments. Amendment 3 gives flexibility and allows for the kind of innovation that the noble Lords, Lord Heseltine and Lord Deben, have talked about—I am sure other models will emerge. Secondly, what kind of Bill sets out the way a locality is governed and administered on the people’s behalf, but does not ask the people what they think about it?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of the amendment as one of the very few people in this House—I exclude the noble Lord, Lord Tope—who has had up close experience of the two London mayors we have had over the past 15 years. I can assure noble Lords that the system works sometimes, but not always, so to make it a compulsory element is absolutely nonsensical. Some of the language used here is a bit misleading. Talking about an elected Mayor of London as local government is a complete nonsense because it is not local government, it is regional government. The whole point of the Mayor of London is that he or she is not a local politician; they are a regional politician with responsibility for the strategic oversight of the area to which they are elected. Sometimes it works and sometimes it fails. It has failed spectacularly in London on our housing stock. The fact that we are so short of affordable and social housing is, I think, a failure of the mayor. As I say, this is not about local government, but strategic regional government.

I can assure noble Lords that making an elected mayor compulsory is nonsensical. It all depends on the talents and abilities of the person, and I would argue that while it has worked for some issues, for people here to say, “It is the answer because it is modern, innovative and fresh thinking”, is complete nonsense. Please do not be fooled; rather, accept that a mayor should be an optional extra, not compulsory.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I too rise to support Amendments 3 and 4, and to echo some of the comments that have already been made. This is actually about choice. The Minister has rightly said that the Bill is not prescriptive, and yet it is highly prescriptive when it talks about mayors. We can see different forms of leadership working well in other parts of the country. We talk about international cities and Europe, but mayors in France are not directly elected; they are the top person on the list. People in other cities elect their leaders in different ways. Some call them mayors and some do not, and as I say, some of them are not directly elected.

We heard last week from colleagues who said that in their area of the country, a mayor would be entirely inappropriate. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has explained how it would be unacceptable and inappropriate in her own area. I would say that if we are in favour of no prescription, we should allow innovative forms of leadership to emerge in different parts of the country. We should not try to impose a certain form and say that people will not have powers if they do not adopt a mayor.

Perhaps I may talk briefly about the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and his rewriting of the history of the city of Bristol. I should point out at the start that the successes of Bristol have been well known for a long time. For the past 10 to 15 years it has been the most successful city outside London. It has the highest GDP per head of population of any English city except London and it is the European Green Capital, something that emerged through my own administration and has been carried on by the mayor. Certainly, there was instability of government when the Labour Party lost its majority on the city council, but that is no different from what has happened in many other places. Indeed, the city ran a successful three-party coalition for 18 months. I led that coalition, so it is no good the noble Lord shaking his head; that is indeed what happened—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

Does the Minister agree that, when you have this much power vested in one person, you also need a very good system of accountability and scrutiny? Here in London that has not happened enough. As a member of the London body, I know that we have not had enough powers. Is that something the Government are thinking about?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness’s question is the subject of later amendments. Certainly, the London model is not being considered in Greater Manchester. However, during the Bill’s passage, there has been a lot of discussion on the need to strengthen scrutiny.