Combined Authorities (Overview and Scrutiny Committees, Access to Information and Audit Committees) (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Baroness Swinburne Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Swinburne]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 19 February be approved.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Swinburne) (Con)]

The draft regulations, which were laid before the House on 19 February, will, if approved by Parliament, complete the legislative framework for overview and scrutiny committees, and audit committees, of combined county authorities. They make provision about the membership and proceedings of these committees and in relation to allowances for committee members. The regulations also provide for allowances for members of a combined authority’s overview and scrutiny and audit committees.

The wider context of these regulations is that these committees are essential components of the architecture of accountability in combined authorities and combined county authorities. As more powers and resources are devolved to these important bodies and their mayors, the responsibility to ensure sound governance and effective decision-making in the interests of local people becomes ever more important.

Through these regulations we are ensuring that the new combined county authorities have strong and effective overview and scrutiny committees, and we are pursuing a number of further initiatives to develop this architecture of accountability. In particular, we have published the English Devolution Accountability Framework and a scrutiny protocol, and we intend shortly to issue revised statutory guidance on overview and scrutiny.

It may be helpful to say a little more about these initiatives. The English Devolution Accountability Framework sets out how institutions with devolved powers, such as combined county authorities,

“will be scrutinised and held to account … by the residents and voters of their area”,

by local leaders and businesses and, as appropriate, by central government. As part of this framework, the scrutiny protocol in particular sets out how a combined county authority’s or a combined authority’s overview and scrutiny and audit committees hold the institution—and, where there is one, the mayor or directly elected leader—to account.

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To conclude, we must also recognise that the more powers we give out, the more robust the checks and balances need to be. We are concerned that 14 years of Conservative economic mismanagement, compounded by spiralling inflation and the failure to grow our economy, have hit councils hard. We are keen to ensure that local councils are supported where the Government have failed. We will not expect councils to live hand to mouth, with short-term financial settlements year on year—I think we are now on our sixth single-year financial settlement—which make it difficult for councils to plan. Labour will give councils long-term, multiyear funding settlements so that they can plan ahead, as well as the tools they need to get on with the job. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

I thank Members for their contributions. There were some questions that I may need to come back to in more detail. With regard to the questions that in particular the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, asked about the situation in Teesdale—

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Teesside.

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

Teesside—apologies; a lot of briefings have gone on in the three weeks since I joined this department.

As noble Lords will know, the mayor has accepted all the recommendations that the independent panel made in its review. They are in many cases substantial and therefore will take time to implement. But they are sensible recommendations and are in line with the frameworks that we have put in place and are putting in place with regard to the scrutiny protocol. From that point of view, the mayor in that region now needs time to put this into place, and the overview and scrutiny committee needs to step up to make the changes required.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

There are two points to that. My question is not really about what is happening in Teesside; it is about what mechanism the Government now have in place to ensure that the things that led to the Teesside review do not happen again. In the explanatory framework, the Government state that they are not going to “actively” monitor the legislation. Secondly, the protocol is welcome but it is non-statutory, so bodies do not have to apply it to their own overview and scrutiny committee. That is the case, is it not?

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

We expect that all combined authorities and combined county authorities, where there is a significant amount of power being devolved, will adopt the best practice that we can possibly put before them. The English Devolution Accountability Framework pulls together all the existing policies and best practice, and indeed we will go further with the scrutiny protocol, plain English guidance and new published outcomes and metrics for areas to be measured by. There will be a new framework, and they will be held to account.

The intention is that this accountability framework will empower local residents and provide them with confidence that devolution is leading to improvements in their area overall. Ultimately, the mayors are accountable to the public, but we believe that the mechanisms need to be there for them to be accountable on a more frequent basis. The Government retain the ability to intervene in exceptional circumstances, but scrutiny and accountability should be led locally. Those are the principles we are applying to this—not just for one authority but for all these authorities, as we devolve the power.

I do not have an exact timetable for the scrutiny protocol; I will write to noble Lords as to when that will become operational. A lot of the work has already been done. Certainly, the scrutiny protocol will apply to all the activities and arrangements of the overview and scrutiny committees in all English institutions with devolved power, including combined authorities, both mayoral and non-mayoral, and combined county authorities—again, mayoral and non-mayoral—and with regard to all devolved powers in county councils and unitary authorities that have agreed to devolution deals. It is very comprehensive; they will all be covered by it.

With regard to the payments of allowances and the differences that may be deemed necessary in order to get good-quality people, any payment may be made only in accordance with a recommendation from an independent remuneration panel at that authority. Therefore, we would expect that panel to take the lead on this. The other side of the coin, of course, is that if an existing combined authority does not wish to make any payments, it is not required to do so, but if in the future it should change its mind, it will not need to seek further fresh legislation in order to do so.

In conclusion, these regulations are essential to ensure a robust local accountability framework for the exercise of devolved power by combined county authorities and their mayors.

Motion agreed.