Draft Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral Combined Authority (Election of Mayor) Order 2016

Conor McGinn Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 General Committees

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I intend to make only a few brief points on the order. The announcement that we will have a metro mayor in Merseyside was greeted with some degree of scepticism in my constituency, not least because it was seen as a political construct imposed by the Conservative party despite it not having a single elected Member of Parliament on Merseyside. However, I welcome the introduction of the order.

I firmly believe that a metro mayor serving the whole of Merseyside and the Liverpool city region can bring us tremendous opportunities for trade and investment and for creating a civic identity for the region. Of the component parts of my constituency, people in Rainford feel a strong Lancashire identity, people in Billinge feel a Wigan identity and people in Newton-le-Willows feel a Warrington and a Cheshire identity. I think that it is fair to say to my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, West Derby and for Wirral South that there has always been a healthy rivalry between St Helens and Liverpool on a number of matters. Part of the reason for that is the geography of the region. In Manchester, where there are proposals for devolution, there is the city centre and a doughnut around it, so if an area to the east feels that it is on the periphery, there is a corresponding area to the west, north and south. On Merseyside, of course, St Helens is the periphery because the other side of Liverpool is the Irish sea.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

Via Wirral.

[Conor McGinn]

Yes, via Wirral. It is therefore important, and I pay tribute to those standing for the Labour selection for the mayoral candidacy who have made a virtue of including the whole Merseyside region in their plans.

Will the Minister take note of some of the initial concern and scepticism that was expressed, notwithstanding our commitment to making this work? With regard to turnout at the election next year, there is a duty on local authorities and all of us as elected Members from Merseyside, but also on the Government, to ensure that we do not have a repetition of the first elections for the police and crime commissioner, so that the new Mayor of Liverpool, whoever he or she is, has a resounding mandate from right across Merseyside and the whole city region.