Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

60: Clause 7, page 6, line 33, after “whole” insert “or part”
Member's explanatory statement
This probing amendment means that a CCA can include part of a two-tier council area, rather than the whole area.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, as we start to examine those parts of the Bill which address local government and devolution powers, we might welcome the fact that the Bill addresses the long-standing asks of councils and their representative bodies for greater devolution, and that there is more flexibility in the proposed structure of combined county authorities than we might previously have envisaged. Nevertheless, we had hoped for a Bill that was far more ambitious and open to ideas when looking to address the imbalance of power in the UK.

As we have often heard in your Lordships’ House, the UK today is the most centralised state in Europe and there is too much in the Bill that seeks further powers for the Secretary of State to intervene. I welcome very much that the Secretary of State accepts that the national challenges require place-based solutions—at least, it appeared so from the White Paper. However, I feel strongly that Part 2 would better deliver this if accompanied by greater powers and fairer funding so that leaders can support the local economic recovery according to the needs of their own areas.

We have pointed out before in your Lordships’ House that, without a comprehensive and fair funding system across local government which would properly empower local authorities to deliver what is needed to support, sustain and develop their communities and economies, any steps taken towards devolution will have a hollow ring. Even worse, if funding mechanisms are driven by the current competitive bidding pots, which favour areas that are able to spend the most on shiny bids, they will run counter to the whole levelling-up agenda. I was grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for saying that the sheer number of funds have become onerous and that we certainly need to look at that. There is a further danger in this “bidding bingo” way of funding local areas: it is yet another way of imposing the Government’s policy on growth and infrastructure in local areas and does not make for true devolution in any sense of the word.

We may have wished that provisions for reorganising local government had been the subject of a separate devolution Bill, an issue I have raised before in your Lordships’ House. Given that this does not appear to be on the horizon, we will be seeking amendments to transfer greater powers to local areas. I welcome the implicit recognition that devolution can drive economic, social and environmental development in local areas, but questions remain over whether the specific model of combined county authorities is right for every area, and whether all the current constituent parts of local government will have their importance recognised and their voice heard as the new structures develop. Local residents and leaders will always know best their own areas and the powers they need to deliver on their ambitions. Amendments for this part of the Bill will aim to allow greater flexibility for towns, cities, counties and the people who live in them to determine their own future.

Amendment 60 is a probing amendment to discover what a CCA can include as part of a two-tier council area—will all or only part of it be allowed? The amendment is designed to help us understand whether the Government will prescribe the nature of a CCA area to include all constituent councils. This has been tabled because there has been significant confusion about the geography of CCAs and what is and is not in scope. For example, does the CCA have to include the whole of an upper-tier authority area? In the case of my home county, Hertfordshire, must it include the whole of the county? The Minister will know that this is complicated: in some areas, counties already include unitary areas, and some county areas have enormous populations and significantly diverse demographics.

In previous devolution rounds, we have seen a confusing spectrum of scope—from being instructed on what will be in and out geographically, to documentation saying that it is for local government to decide. The second option is clearly preferable to all of us, but even when that is the stated initial intent, the goalposts are often moved during the bidding rounds to be more prescriptive than was initially thought.

Amendment 99 probably belongs better with the group of amendments relating to consultation on CCAs. If consultation is needed for the formation of a CCA and/or its dissolution, as we contend in other amendments, should there not also be consultation when a CCA is to be amended? Later regulations could determine the qualifying parameters for this, so that extensive consultation is not necessary for minor changes. This and similar amendments seek to determine the principle of public engagement on local government structures. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, is quite right to table this amendment to explore the area that can be included in a combined county authority. As I understand it, a combined county authority is a bit of a misnomer. Last Wednesday, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said in response to an amendment that a CCA could include, for instance, the unitary authority of Wiltshire and the city unitary authority of Swindon. Equally, when I asked her what would happen in Devon, she said quite clearly that the county and district authorities of Devon and the unitary authority of Plymouth would be included. These are not necessarily combined county authorities: they are unitary and county and district combined authorities—if that is determined, we hope, by the people who live there and the councillors elected to represent them.

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[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I am pleased that the Minister has raised the East Midlands. On the northern tip of the East Midlands there is Chesterfield and north Derbyshire. Most businesses in that area would look into the South Yorkshire Combined Authority in terms of their business, and not into the county combined authority. It seems to be an administrative boundary designed down here in Whitehall rather than a true travel-to-work area. How would the north Nottinghamshires and Chesterfields be affected by this when, in reality, the economic performance and activity is actually into the South Yorkshire Combined Authority?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

May I add to what my noble colleagues have said? This goes to the heart of this amendment. We struggle to say how you can have a county with more than one functioning economic area included in that county. To take my county as an example, the south of the county largely relates to London, because some of the boroughs almost are London boroughs, whereas the north of the county relates much more to Cambridge and Bedfordshire. There are definitely two distinct, functioning economic areas within one shire county. The shire counties go back centuries: their economic geographies have changed very considerably since then. If you take the economic geography of my noble friend Lady Hayman’s area, people in Cumbria may even relate to an economic area that includes parts of Scotland. This is not a simple picture around the country.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

Some extremely sensible and logical points have just been made. Perhaps I could address them by pointing out the contrast to what we have seen up to now. Devolution deals, up to now, have typically been put in place in city regions, where they cover the functional geographies in which people travel, commute, work and live.

The Government absolutely recognise that functional economic geographies are far less clear-cut in rural and semi-urban areas, and that the strategic scale and cultural and political resonance of county identities can act as a useful proxy. One can work only on the basis of best endeavours when trying to decide what a sensible area looks like. On a best endeavours basis, deals should be agreed over a sensible geography of a functional economic area, with a single institution in place across that geographic footprint to access more powers. That is the aim.

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[Earl Howe (Con)]

I take the noble Lord’s point. The experience we have had with combined authorities is that local authorities’ natural tendency is to co-operate with each other. We have seen this all over the place: they do not want to operate in silos and they look outside their boundaries. Yes, there may well be cases where at the beginning there would seem not to be a particularly good fit, but that does not preclude two authorities, such as those he mentioned, getting together and finding a way through, if they possibly can, to address the mismatches of the kind he mentioned.

Amendment 99 seeks to amend Clause 23 to require a public consultation before any proposal to change the area of an existing combined county authority. We agree that those with an interest in the area should be consulted before a combined county authority is changed. As I said, we will have more to say about this in the debate on the next group of amendments.

Clauses 45 and 46 set out a requirement for a public consultation on any proposals from the local area on changes to the area of a CCA. Where a combined county authority has been established and subsequently seeks to change its boundary, Clause 23 enables the Secretary of State to make regulations for areas to achieve that. The Secretary of State may make regulations changing the area of a CCA if that is something the area consents to, the Secretary of State agrees and Parliament approves the necessary secondary legislation.

We fully recognise the crucial importance of residents in the local area having a say; that is common ground between us. That is why any CCA or local authority seeking to submit a proposal to the Secretary of State to change the area of a CCA must carry out a public consultation, as set out in Clause 45(3). This consultation must take place in the area covered by the CCA. This enables local residents, businesses and other interested parties to have a strong input into any such proposals. A summary of consultation responses is then to be submitted to the Secretary of State alongside the proposal.

Clause 46 provides an additional safeguard to ensure that there is sufficient public consultation. This enables the Secretary of State to undertake a consultation prior to making any regulations to enact these changes if they feel that there has been insufficient public involvement in their development.

We completely agree with the sentiment of Amendment 99, but I suggest that we already have provisions later in the Bill to address this; we will debate some of these in a few moments. I therefore hope that the noble Baroness feels able to withdraw Amendment 60 and not to move Amendment 99 when it is reached.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased we tabled these probing amendments, because they have brought out some of the discussion we needed to have in these areas. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for her comments. She said that “combined county authority” is a misnomer, and I think she is absolutely correct.

Previous responses indicate that we could include unitaries and counties all within a two-tier area. It is not clear in the Bill what that might mean. In the example of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, with the overlap of economic areas and travel-to-work areas, et cetera, the geography is far more complicated than back in whatever century it was when the county shire boundaries were devised. The purpose of my amendment was to determine whether parts of a two-tier area would be required to join a CCA if it did not work for them. It is really important that we do some more probing around this and think about it more.

We did not get on to the subject of population, which I will come to in a minute. My concern with this is that we have the phrase that the Secretary of State can determine “by regulation” what a combined county authority will look like. That does not seem to me to be in the spirit of devolution in any way whatever. If it is for the Secretary of State to determine that by regulation, I would be interested to know the noble Earl’s view on how that would be conducted in relation to the partners in the local area.

I am grateful for the noble Earl’s extensive response on this, which is an indication that we are moving the debate forward somewhat. I will come back to the issue of the functional economic area. These are not neatly contained now within county council areas. We have heard a few examples of that. We need to focus on that and think about how we might amend the Bill to recognise that.

The noble Earl spoke about streamlining funding. I was grateful for those comments and I am sure they will be welcomed across local government, but when will we see the detail of how that streamlining of funding will work? If he has any more information on that, it would be helpful.

I have a lot of sympathy with what the noble Earl said about city regions. They make a lot more sense—I spent quite a lot of time with colleagues in the city region in Manchester looking at how that works. However, that does not mean that that model can be lifted and put down in areas that are very different in this country. The difficulties that we have set out underline exactly why there must be flexibility for local areas to consider for themselves what the appropriate geography might be for them.

I return to the issue of population size. In previous iterations of these bids for devolution, we were told that any bid under 600,000 population would not be considered. My county of Hertfordshire has a population of 1.2 billion—sorry, 1.2 million; I am exaggerating—which is a very different issue from a rural county that might have a population of only 300,000. That is why this is much more complicated in shire areas. Will the noble Earl comment on whether population issues will be taken into consideration in relation to the size and constitution of combined county authority areas?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

It may be helpful to the noble Baroness if I comment on that specific question. We expect upper tier local authorities with a population of less than 500,000 to collaborate with their neighbouring authorities to agree a sensible geography for a devolution deal. Where neighbouring local authorities wish to join a deal which has been negotiated and have the same level of ambition, we will expect other authorities to take this seriously in order to secure devolution and to avoid areas being stranded. Once again, I come back to the point I made earlier that our experience with combined authorities has shown that this kind of co-operation takes place quite readily. That is the position we have taken currently.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Earl for his clarification. It covers one side of the picture with the smaller county areas. However, larger county areas, where the population may not lean towards a single county authority, should still be a subject for discussion.

I agree that we have several amendments relating to consultation processes and that the other amendment in this group probably sits better with those, so I am happy to postpone discussion of that until the future group. However, the principle of consultation, and recognising the importance of local areas having a say, seems to be enshrined for all the other issues around the setting up and dissolution of a CCA. If it is right for those, it must be right for a change of boundaries too. That is the point we were trying to make with Amendment 99. That said, we have had a useful discussion and I am happy to withdraw Amendment 60 at this stage.

Amendment 60 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

61: Clause 7, page 7, line 5, at end insert—
“(3A) The Secretary of State may not lay regulations under this section until he or she has deemed that establishment is supported by no less than 60% of residents in the area.”Member's explanatory statement
This means that a CCA is established only if the Secretary of State deems there is no less than 60% of support from the local residents.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, as we have already discussed this afternoon, the principle of consultation when fundamental changes are being made to governance structures is an important one. Amendment 61 is aimed at establishing the principle of public consultation in relation to the formation of a combined county authority and to setting a realistic threshold for the constitutional reform to proceed.

A fundamental principle of localism is that changes must be made with people and not to them. Without a provision in the Bill like this, it is too easy for a leader or a group of leaders, or even a Secretary of State, to take fundamental governance changes, such as the formation of a CCA, a long way without consulting those who will be affected by them. The complex structure of local government in the UK, which means some areas have multiple layers of local authorities overseeing services, makes this even more necessary. The amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman outlines the process for ensuring that the outcome of the consultation process is publicly available, essentially before any submission to form a combined county authority is made.

Amendment 62 is designed to probe government thinking on the constitution of combined county authorities. With the rolling five-year housing targets potentially being removed, for example, is it the intention that governance structures should be able to consider the impact across a defined economic area, or do the Government envisage that the combined county authority will determine such matters for itself? If the latter is the case, is there to be an arbitration process which will help to determine where one economic area crosses boundaries with another? On the issue of non-constituent members of CCAs, for example, will it be the case that some members of authorities will be required to sit in more than one authority if it affects their economic geography?

Amendment 63 reflects on the nature of levelling-up missions and the significant part of the Bill that refers to planning matters. The Government may have assumed that co-operation between combined county authorities would take place in order, for example, to resolve boundary issues where a service is necessarily delivered across boundaries or where a planning matter either crosses boundaries or requires a facility delivered in one area to have the use of services provided in another. As I make these points, I am reminded of the example of Harlow and Gilston village, which sits in both Essex and Hertfordshire.

Planning history suggests that writing the duty of co-operation on the face of the Bill would be helpful. Whether we are talking about the delivery of missions across rural areas, or in urban areas such as London and Manchester, where the boundaries of CCAs may be complex, guidance and a framework for duties to co-operate would probably be helpful.

Amendment 64 is crucial, particularly as it is difficult to see how missions will be delivered at all with a patchwork quilt of non-coterminous boundaries between public bodies as they are currently constituted. This has been a long-standing issue in local government. The amendment will, for example, enable discussions about the impact of the rollout of ICSs on the potential for future health devolution—a really important issue. If we do not devolve the responsibility for health issues to these new authorities, we will not be able to tackle as effectively the inequalities in health that we discussed in earlier debates on the Bill.

It is welcome to note from the Greater Manchester population health plan that significant benefits have already been recorded for local residents following the devolution of health and social care to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. This includes a substantial increase in school readiness and a smoking prevalence rate falling twice as fast as the national average. We definitely see the benefits of this, and we want to see it extended across other devolved areas. We would welcome further information from the Government on how they envisage the further devolution of health, police and crime commissioner powers, and other public functions which would enable the progress of the missions.

Amendment 65 is probably shaped by my long experience as a district councillor. We in district councils were very pleased to see the original amendment to Clause 18, which enshrines the role of district councils in determining the future governance of their areas; but I always believe in a belt and braces approach, particularly where the track record for inclusion has not always been consistent. The same applies to my colleagues in the National Association of Local Councils in respect of parish and town councils. We want everybody to be included in these discussions.

Lastly, Amendments 101 and 102 refer to the dissolution of CCAs. The first would require that public consultation take place before dissolution. If there is to be consultation on the setting up of a CCA, it follows that it should also take place if one is to be dissolved. Amendment 102 asks the Secretary of State to clarify, upon dissolution of a CCA, how local powers will be retained, and implicitly suggests that they will not return to central government. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on how that might work for the future. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 127, which appears in my name in this group, and to make a couple of brief comments on the amendments so clearly and comprehensively presented by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage.

I refer back to the terminology the noble Baroness used in the previous group when talking about what the spirit of devolution should be: it should surely be a democratic spirit. The decision about the shape of devolution should rest with the local people, the people who are actually affected. Historically, the perception and the reality of some instances of devolution has been deals done un-transparently, in the dark, in what would once have been smoke-filled rooms. The smoke may have gone, but that lack of transparency remains.

What we are seeking here is a different idea of devolution—devolution that is truly transparent and open, with local people in control of the process rather than having it inflicted on them. With that in mind, my Amendment 127 calls for a referendum to be conducted on whether a combined county authority should be established in a given area. It occurs to me, having listened to the debate on previous groups of amendments, that the amendment should say “established or disestablished”, but we are in Committee so we can explore these things as we go along.

I see that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, is in his place, so we might have already had extensive discussion about what happened in Sheffield, South Yorkshire and north Derbyshire. I will not, therefore, go into great detail on that, but it is worth noting that Sheffield voted against having a mayor and then, not long afterwards, found itself with a mayor.

I will also give a more positive, more recent example from Sheffield. Sheffield is the largest local authority to convert, through a referendum, from a cabinet-based system to a modern committee-based system of government. I know many of the people who were involved in that campaign, which was led not by political parties but by a local community group. Many people said, “You’ll never get this referendum through. It’s all too technical, difficult and complicated, and people won’t understand.” But the referendum was voted through. It was a real vehicle for a huge amount of debate and discussion in the city about how it was run and administered, and how that could be done better. Putting a referendum in for CCAs would be a chance to have a discussion and a debate, and to really engage local people, which is what we need in our local areas to improve the quality of local governance.

Of course, the other recent example of such change, driven at the local level with decisions made by local people, is the city of Bristol deciding to get rid of its mayor. That was the decision that the people of the city made. Again, some said, “You’ll never get this referendum through; everyone is just going to shrug and it will all be too difficult.” But people were engaged and involved and they made the decision for themselves. Surely, that is what democracy means, and that is why I have tabled this amendment.

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I hope that these rather lengthy explanatory comments are helpful and that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, will feel able to withdraw Amendment 61.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the noble Earl for his detailed comments on the amendments. I would like to start with a few comments on the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. She mentioned that devolution deals were often done in smoke-filled rooms. I do not think that would have been the case in Manchester because they seem to have cracked the smoking cessation issue in Manchester, which is good to hear. But it is true that there has been an impression that these deals were cooked up behind closed doors. There has not always been a degree of consultation, which is why we have had such a significant discussion this afternoon around what consultation should take place on the setting up of a CCA, the dissolution of one or any boundary changes. The examples that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, gave on the effectiveness of public consultation and referendums in both Sheffield and Bristol illustrate that these things can be done very effectively, if adequate information is provided for the public to have a debate and discussion before they vote.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, raised the opportunity for the Government to issue a statement on consultation, being clear about what the parameters need to be, what the Government’s powers are and what local people can expect to have a say on. That is a vital point.

We also had a lot of discussion under this group of amendments and the previous group on travel-to-work areas. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked whether each CCA is going to have a single economic hub. I do not think that question has been answered yet. We may have multiple hubs in county areas. I will use a local example, as it is the one I know best. In Hertfordshire there are multiple hubs. There are even two very distinct economic clusters: one in the pharmaceutical industry, which is thriving and doing extremely well in things like cell and gene therapy, and one in the creative industries. They are very distinct and different economic hubs within one area. We need to think about how that works in counties where there is not just a simple, single economic hub.

On Amendment 63, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, talked about how previously on this Bill the Government have been clear more than one public authority may be included in the CCA. Non-constituent members have been talked about a lot. If there is more than one public authority in an area—for example, a local enterprise partnership, the National Health Service or a PCC—it can be very confusing when they do not have coterminous boundaries about who is responsible for delivering within that CCA. It is important that we get further clarification on that as the Bill develops and goes forward.

My noble friend Lady Hayman spoke about standards of consultation and the fact that the consultation should be publicly available. Added to our other discussions on consultation, these are important points. I am grateful to the noble Earl for saying that he would come back to us on that strange subsection in Clause 46 that talks about the Secretary of State having the power to say that they do not think that any further consultation is necessary. That will require further clarification.