Elected Mayors

Debate between Chris Williamson and John Stevenson

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) on securing the debate, which has been interesting, although sparsely attended, and I have enjoyed the contributions immensely. He summarised effectively the background to the present situation and the previous Government’s proposals on executive mayors, as set out in the Local Government Act 2000 and the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. I agree with his comments on an enhanced role for councillors. Perhaps I should declare an interest, as I am still an elected member of Derby city council, which is a unitary authority. Having been a councillor for nearly 20 years, I absolutely believe that it is fundamentally important that we enhance the role of local councillors. I am not sure about his support for personality politics, which occasionally creeps into our political system. I think that politics should be more about values and what we stand for when we run for political parties or as independents, rather than the cult of personality.

[John Stevenson]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but does not he agree that personality politics has already entered our political system as a result of the televised leadership debates that were introduced in the run-up to the general election? The personalities of the leaders dominated the headlines for days.

[Chris Williamson]

Indeed, I do agree, but in a way that supports my point, because to some extent that obscured the policies and values that the political parties represented. It was more about the individuals who were speaking in those television debates. To some extent that is regrettable, but perhaps it was inevitable, now that the genie is out of the bottle.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned localism, which is something I support, so long as it is democratic localism. I do not like the notion of locally elected institutions being bypassed. People understand local authorities, and I would like more powers to be vested in them, rather than for their current duties to pass, for example, to the voluntary sector.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Sir Peter Soulsby) has extensive experience in local government and is highly respected in that world. He represented Leicester as the leader of the council with great credit for many years. He referred to the need for improved scrutiny, and I agree that there could be some improvements, but it is important to note that the previous Government did extend the scope of scrutiny. Part of the problem is the time required to fulfil the scrutiny role effectively, because most councillors hold down full-time jobs, so perhaps we should look at the time made available to them to fulfil that role. That comes to the thorny question of allowances, because unless people have substantial means or are retired, they will find it difficult to spend the necessary time to make scrutiny as effective as it could be.

[Chris Williamson]

My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point, with which I agree entirely. In many local authorities, such scrutiny has been seen as something of a poor relation, so he is right that it is essential that it is adequately resourced. In a context of squeezed budgets, however, that can be difficult, but it is a valid point nevertheless and something that local authorities must take on board.

The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) referred to single-tier authorities. Support for the notion of single-tier authorities is growing, and I am sure that he will be somewhat disappointed by the Minister’s recent decision to reject the application of Exeter and Norwich to become unitary authorities. Given his experience in local government, the hon. Gentleman probably understands better than most the benefits that flow from such an authority. His comments on extremists were well made. It is up to the main political parties to ensure, when a mayoral election takes place, that we reach out and get our message out to the general public and persuade them to support the mainstream and progressive values that we represent, certainly on this side of the Chamber. If we can get our message out effectively, we can overcome the threat posed by extremists. That threat is posed only where turnouts are low, so it is vital that we engage with people in the political process to ensure a reasonably good turnout. If we can improve turnouts, the extremists will fall by the wayside.

In my view it is abundantly clear that since the general election the Government’s policy on elected mayors has turned into something of a Brian Rix farce. Earlier this month, the Minister was caught, metaphorically, with his trousers down when he told the media that current council leaders would be transmogrified into executive mayors by order of the Secretary of State. He said that that would be followed by a “confirmatory referendum”. Just a fortnight ago, he told the Yorkshire Evening Post that the referendum question would be, “We’ve set up these things, do you want to stick with them?”

Cue the knee-jerk intervention by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Following the inevitable backlash to this oxymoronic top-down approach to localism, the Secretary of State told the House of Commons last week that he had ruled out the possibility of imposing mayors. In fact, he said that it was “out of the question”. True to form, however, he went even further later the same day and indulged his penchant for overstatement by saying that he

“had in the top left-hand drawer of my office a pearl-handled revolver with which to shoot the first person to suggest a restructuring of local government. The last time I checked, the revolver was fully loaded and waiting for such a person.”—[Official Report, 21 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 1155.]

Despite the Secretary of State’s menacing warning, the Minister seems to be alive and well, and it looks as if he has had a lucky escape.

To be serious for a moment, this past fortnight clearly illustrates that the Government’s policy on elected mayors is in complete disarray. We have the Secretary of State threatening to shoot anyone who proposes any form of local government reorganisation, while the Tory leader of Birmingham city council has said:

“If anything it’s a distraction to the real issues of local government.”

Then, we have the Prime Minister, who has pledged to hold mayoral referendums in 12 English cities. Furthermore, before his outburst last week, the Secretary of State himself was setting out plans for local government reorganisation. On 17 August, he told the Financial Times that he was planning to introduce executive mayors in the country’s 12 biggest cities by 2012. In a statement to the House, he said:

“We will put local councils in the driving seat to join up public services… We want elected mayors to trail-blaze such initiatives, not least since elected mayors in our cities will be embraced by the public”.—[Official Report, 11 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 3WS.]

The reality is somewhat different from the Secretary of State’s hyperbole, however. As things stand, there does not seem to be a huge appetite for executive mayors. In fact, since 2001—the hon. Member for Carlisle set out the history—24 out of 37 referendums have rejected the idea. Stoke was one of the 13 places to vote in favour of an elected mayoral system, but even there residents subsequently voted to scrap it. Will the Minister therefore clarify precisely what the Government’s latest policy position is?

[John Stevenson]

I am curious. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, and I commented on the fact that only one third of referendums for elected mayors had produced a yes result, but I would be interested to know the Labour party’s view going forward with the idea of elected mayors. Labour Members were clearly up for elected mayors back in 2000, when the Blair Government introduced the idea. As I mentioned, they thought that it would be a great success. However, I am interested in the Labour party’s view now.

[Chris Williamson]

The hon. Gentleman is right that there was a groundswell of support for elected mayors in the previous Labour Government. We introduced legislation to enable elected mayors to be introduced, and we subsequently strengthened it in 2007. As we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South, a strong body of opinion in the Labour party supports elected mayors. However, it should be down to local people to decide, and we should not necessarily impose anything. At the very least, the elected members in an area should come to a view on elected mayors. Going forward, I think that that would remain our position, although we are now in opposition and we are looking at our policies. We will no doubt give this issue greater scrutiny as time goes by, but as things stand, it would be down to local people to decide what type of governance they wanted for their local authority, and I hope that that would remain the position.

Will the Minister clarify precisely what the Government’s policy position is? Will he implement the Conservative party’s manifesto pledge, which said:

“we will give the citizens in each of England’s twelve largest cities the chance of having an elected mayor.”

If the answer is yes, will he explain why the Secretary of State ruled out any local government reorganisation when he addressed the House last week? Will he give a guarantee that mayors will not be imposed in the country’s 12 largest cities without a referendum? Finally, will he concede that, in the current climate, elected mayors would be placed in an impossible position because of the unprecedented cuts in local government funding that he has signed up to? Those cuts will destroy vital public services, increase unemployment and undermine economic growth.