Chi Onwurah
Main Page: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)Department Debates - View all Chi Onwurah's debates with the Cabinet Office
(14 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
Yes, of course I recognise that it is very important that the manner in which the local enterprise partnerships are now established—not least in the north-east, which has a strong regional identity—should be shaped around the needs of the communities involved. We look forward to receiving proposals from the north-east for the local enterprise partnerships in the north-east.
May I just say that localism is not just about bureaucratic structures? It is about giving local authorities greater control over our health service and people a say over how policing is conducted in our local communities. It is about looking long term at how local authorities can have a greater say over money as well. That is real localism, not bureaucratic localism.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
2. What assessment he has made of the effects on constituency cohesion of parliamentary constituency boundaries which do not follow existing administrative boundaries.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
The Government believe that constituencies should be of more equal size, and that should be more important than administrative convenience for Members of Parliament. In any case, many constituencies cross local authority boundaries at the moment. For example, 19 of the 32 London borough boundaries are crossed by constituencies today.
Chi Onwurah
Will the Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister explain to me their definition of the localism that means that local people in Newcastle will have no say locally in the boundaries imposed on them because there will be no opportunity for a local public inquiry?
Mr Harper
Clearly, the hon. Lady has not read the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, which we published last week. We are actually extending the consultation period for local people from one month to three months, to give local people, local organisations and political parties more opportunity to comment on the boundary commission proposals, not less.