Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making his arguments very well and I do not want to take him to task over them, but I want to ask him a question. Presumably the Bill will again end up in the House of Lords, as the European Union Referendum Bill has done. Does he think it is the place of unelected people in the House of Lords to make a decision on this question, or should it be reserved to the House of Commons?

[Norman Lamb]

I continue to argue strongly that we should have a democratically elected second Chamber, and we sought to achieve that during the coalition Government. Sadly, Conservative Members managed to block that long-overdue reform. [Interruption.] I think the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) is agreeing with me from a sedentary position. But we are where we are, and because Conservative Members ensured during the last Parliament that we still have to put up with an unelected second Chamber, it will just have to do the job as best it can. It is a revising Chamber and I hope that it will again make the argument that 16 and 17-year-olds should have the right to vote. I hope that I have responded adequately to the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh).

David Willetts made the case strongly that there had been a break in the generational contract. I believe that it is incumbent on all of us to address that serious issue and to ensure that all political parties start to show a real interest in the interests of young people. If 16 and 17-year-olds had a vote at local and national levels, there is no doubt that the parties would focus more attention on their interests.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, I gently remind the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) that although I did not want to interrupt him when he was in such rhetorical form in his intervention, matters concerning the health service are in the next group of amendments. The House so much looks forward to hearing what he has to say then, but that will be after we have finished debating this group of amendments, having heard Sir Edward Leigh.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

It is of course a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), with whom I normally agree. I quite understand his enthusiasm for referendums, which in one sense surprises me, because a traditionalist like him would normally have opposed the concept of referendums. He would have opposed them in the past because it was felt—this point has been made many times in the House of Commons—that they were a fundamentally unparliamentary device that has often been used by Governments who are dictatorships to impose extreme changes on society.

I understand where my hon. Friend is coming from, however, because in recent years referendums have been seen as a fundamentally conservative force. Generally, the people vote against change. I understand his arguments and I understand why the Government are wary of accepting any amendment promoting a referendum, because they have looked at what has happened in the past, particularly in the north-east, where people voted against change. The Government are determined to drive change forward and fear that if there is a proposal for a referendum, people will usually vote no. This is a very interesting argument.

I want to dwell on amendment 56, which was tabled by my hon. Friend—and indeed real friend—the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers). Normally I agree with him about most things, but on this occasion his amendment concerns me, and I want to make a few points about the situation in Lincolnshire and give the Minister the opportunity to reply.

My hon. Friend represents north-east Lincolnshire, and I represent Lincolnshire. Lincolnshire is a very conservative county. It is so conservative that the Gainsborough constituency—which I am proud to represent—has had only three MPs in 90 years, and all three have been Conservative. People do not like change in Lincolnshire, and they are wary of any device such as that in amendment 56. The Government appear to have accepted the amendment, albeit with a sunset clause, and it is quite unusual for a Back Bencher to table an amendment that the Government then accept.

People in Lincolnshire—and, I suspect, other rural counties—want to proceed by consent, which seems an admirably conservative point of view. Normally, proceeding by consent means dealing with the tried and tested, and taking things forward together. Many people are scarred—this has already been referred to—by the events of the 1970s, when ancient counties were swept away. There were different enthusiasms then. They may not have been in favour of elected mayors, referendums or unitary authorities, but everything was done on the basis of Heath-ite efficiency. We now know that that drive towards Heath-ite efficiency was fundamentally wrong and unpopular, and it imposed Whitehall centrist ideas on what local people wanted. I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) is here. As a result of 1974, we created the ludicrous county of Humberside, destroying Lincolnshire, East Yorkshire—what madness. We know that is not the right approach.

Speaking as a Conservative—not just as a party politician, but as someone who tries to understand Conservative values—I appeal to the Minister to proceed with great caution and to take people with him on this matter. Now, elected mayors are all the rage, but a few years ago so were police and crime commissioners. We had a mixed history with that—low turnouts, lack of interest, and not necessarily democratic accountability.

Lincolnshire County Council is generally well run, popular, and has been in place for 130 years. The district councils have been in place for more than 40 years. It is not for me to speak for local councillors in Lincolnshire, but since they cannot speak in this place and have only me to say these things, I hope nobody minds if I say that we do not want a solution imposed on us. What worries me about the amendment—and the Government’s ready acceptance of it—is that, as the county council and district councils recognise, in terms of unitary authorities, elected mayors and devolution, we do not want a bruising battle over many years between district and county councils about which should be abolished.

We want to proceed by consent and to get together. We are happy with the idea of central Government devolving more powers to a county such as Lincolnshire, but we recognise that we are not Manchester, Birmingham or London. We are a large, quite poor county with a low rate base and a scattered population. There is no question that we could run the NHS or anything like that; we are not in the business of devo-max. We want to leave the present structure in place with district councils and county councils, and perhaps form a new body on which those will be represented. We would then accept new powers for that body. That is how we want to proceed by consent. Given many of our discussions so far, I am worried that in our rush for change and innovation, we may ride roughshod over what local people and councillors want. Being sensible people and knowing their area, they generally want to proceed slowly, cautiously, and by consent. With that, I feel that I have made my arguments and I will let others speak. I am sure they will be far more interesting than me.

[Nigel Mills]

I am in the unfortunate position of not only having to follow my hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), but disagreeing with them both. I always thought that if I disagreed with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, I should sit down and think again. In this case, however, I disagree with his arguments, because I think that when electing an individual who will have significant powers, we should try to ensure that they are elected with a larger proportion of the vote than is required by first past the post.

I suspect that no one would want some kind of extremist to win a powerful mayoralty in a fluke election where there were 14 candidates and the winner ended up with 16% of the vote. I accept that that is unlikely, but it would be a horrible situation. I am sure that the people of France, having seen their election results over the weekend, are glad that they will have a run-off in their presidential election. If the Front National were to win the first round, people will get a chance to elect a non-extreme president. I disagree with my hon. Friend, because when electing an individual who will have power, I am not sure that first past the post is the right answer. We should have the system currently used for the London Mayor and police commissioners, where there is a run-off after the original vote to ensure that the person who wins commands 50% of the vote.

I also disagree with my hon. Friend that not having an elected mayor is the least worst thing. If we are to devolve significant amounts of money and power to a new body, that body must be accountable directly to the people. We need people standing and being elected on the basis of how they will use that power and money.

When people elect a leader of a district council that has a small £10 million budget and mainly does planning and refuse collection, I am not convinced that they will be thinking, “The party I am voting for will choose the leader of the council and will effectively have a veto over the new super body that covers at least two counties in my area.” That is not accountable to the people, and I think it is bad for democracy. We risk recreating the police authority model that we did not think worked, but on a much larger scale and with more powers. That would be a retrograde step for our constituents’ democratic accountability over key public services, and that is why I do not support the amendment.

On amendment 56, I am a supporter of devolution to English regions. The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) made the right arguments, because areas such as Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire do not have a long-standing, coherent geography that makes people think, “That’s a natural body of government I identify with.” We must proceed carefully, and ensure that we produce Government bodies that people identify with and say, “Yes, I see a coherent natural fit. That is where I look to for decisions to be taken.”

The hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that some parts of north Derbyshire and north Nottinghamshire might feel better suited to the Sheffield region than to Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. I am pretty certain that Amber Valley, which runs along the boundary between Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and has the strapline “The Heart of Derbyshire” sees itself firmly in the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire area, rather than somewhere else, but it is right for individual local districts to have the democratic right to say, “We represent our people, and we think that that region is the right place for us to be.” If people vote for that, that is what should happen, and there should not be a veto from a higher authority that covers a different area.

In exercising that right and making that decision, the Secretary of State should try to achieve consensus, consider the broader picture, and ensure that we do not achieve some strange, farcical democratic situation where, if the people of Bolsover choose to go with Sheffield, they suddenly have no say in holding their own police force to account because that is handled by the elected mayor for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. We must proceed with caution regarding what powers go to the mayors. If they are mainly economic powers and interests, and perhaps transport, perhaps elected mayors should not replace the police commissioners if we are to vary the geography, as that could be a dangerous step.

I know that people in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire are keen to replace their police and crime commissioners, but I am not sure how one person can hold to account two different police forces. That seems a little strange, because someone could be using one mandate to hold to account two forces with very different policies. We must think carefully about such functions. We ought to think properly about the geography, not just rely on some historical, centuries-old set of local government boundaries that may not make sense in the modern world. We should step back and think about what a good system of local government would look like if we added that extra tier. I am not sure that our constituents would thank us if we had four different tiers of local government.

My constituents in Heanor or Ripley elect 21 town councillors and 45 borough councillors. They elect two councillors to the county council, which has more than 60 councillors. I am not sure that they will fancy electing a new mayor and another tier of government, and paying for all that as well. I am not sure that many of them understand exactly what functions those three council tiers have, and what a fourth one on top would do. They would probably think that all four had some role in economic development and regeneration, largely because that features significantly in most of the election literature that we see.

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[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I am concerned about amendment 56 and the Government’s acceptance of it, albeit subject to the proposal in amendment (a).

The reasons for my concern go back some time. Twenty years ago, before I was privileged to be a Member of Parliament, I served on the Local Government Commission, which looked at structures of local government in England, including at whether councils should switch from a two-tier structure to a unitary one. The method we adopted in those days was to invite local people and councils to submit evidence, and to hold public inquiries and hearings on the evidence. It was very much a bottom-up process. That was decided by consensus in the commission. In due course, it made recommendations to the Government, which were adopted by Parliament if changes were involved.

In Dorset, which I have the privilege of representing in Parliament, there was a lively debate about whether Poole and Bournemouth should become unitary authorities, with Dorset County Council remaining a county council and a two-tier system operating in the rest of the county. In the end, it was agreed that Poole would become a separate unitary authority, as would Bournemouth, but the remainder of the county council area would be two-tier, with Dorset County Council dealing with the main services such as education and social services, and the borough or district councils dealing with the services closest to the people.

Nothing that has happened in the 20 years since leads me to believe that people in Christchurch, East Dorset or Dorset are anything other than content with the current arrangements. When there was all this talk about the possibility of change being forced through by the Government, I was assured by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that nothing would happen to change things in Dorset unless it had the wholehearted consent of the councils concerned. On that basis, a half-baked proposal introduced by Poole, with support from Bournemouth, to try to set up a new unitary authority incorporating Christchurch and East Dorset, could not work. Dorset County Council understandably said that it would mean that part of its area, which enables it to provide good services and make economies of scale, would be taken away and no longer be included in Dorset county. The line, which the Secretary of State articulated to me very persuasively, was that there was no need to worry, because nothing would be imposed from the centre. It was something that would only come from the bottom up.

That is where we were until today and the inclusion of amendment 56 on the amendment paper. I assumed that the amendment did not have Government support, and I had not applied my mind to the question of opposing it. I assumed, on the basis of what I had been told, that it would be opposed by the Government. Much to my amazement, I found that a manuscript amendment had been tabled, suggesting that the Government were going to accept amendment 56, albeit on the basis that it would only be in operation until 31 March 2019, which coincides with the end of the current period for district councils. The terms of office for all the district councils that were elected last May expire at the end of March 2019.

That is the effect of the Government amendment, and they have not provided any detail about the criteria that they will use to exercise their significant power to intervene against the wishes of one or more local councils in, to take my county example, Dorset.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I hope that the Minister is listening, because it is open to him to intervene on my hon. Friend, to make it clear that in areas such as Lincolnshire and Dorset we should only proceed towards a unitary authority by consent.

[Mr Chope]

Of course, it would be open to the Minister to do so. I understand—I have been told privately, not on the Floor of the House—that the Government are neutral on this. They do not have an agenda to try and create unitary authorities.

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[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, so far as it goes, but basically he is saying that the Government will now decide. A few months ago the process was to be bottom-up, driven by the local councils: if they wanted change, they would be able to introduce change. Now we are told that nobody will be able to dictate, neither a borough council nor the county council, but ultimately the Government will decide. This is a significant change of Government policy, announced in the form of a manuscript amendment to amendment 56.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

This is an interesting triangular discussion and it is terribly important. What I think my hon. Friend is looking for, and what I am looking for—again, the Minister can intervene on my hon. Friend—is an assurance that if either Dorset County Council or one of the district councils does not want change, that would effectively be a veto, and the same would apply to Lincolnshire and other rural areas. In other words, change would proceed only by consensus. The Minister says he wants to proceed by consensus, as I understand it, and that is extremely important. Again, he can intervene on my hon. Friend.

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention and for his suggestion that we might be able to find a modus operandi between the two of us, who are very concerned about this, and the Minister, who I know is doing his best to give us assurances which will enable us to support amendment 56, as amended by the Government, rather than dividing the House on it. I am happy to give way once more to the Minister if he is able to give the sort of undertaking that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough was suggesting he might like to give.

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[James Wharton]

We will be talking about that with the LGA and other interested parties, but we are still in the process of delivering those deals and it would be against the spirit of devolution were we to announce the format for such a forum. I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s comments, however, and the value that such a forum could bring. I am happy to put that on the record. It is our intention to have those discussions and to develop something that has broad agreement.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson), who cannot be with us today because of the terrible flooding that has afflicted his constituency, has tabled amendment 56, which would enable the Secretary of State to use a fast-track process for unitarisation or boundary changes in a particular area. I suspect I am going to take a few interventions on this amendment, but I wish to highlight this point: it enables a fast-track process and streamlines the use of existing powers; it does not bring in powers that do not already exist. He tabled a similar amendment on the first day of the Committee of the whole House, with a view to ensuring that no one council could effectively veto such a change, however sensible and supported such a proposal might be.

My hon. Friend wished to see a way of preventing one council from denying change that might be in the best interests of the wider area. We have heard further arguments today about the proposition, particularly from my hon. Friends the Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills). When we debated this last time, I made clear our approach: if such a governance change were to be made, there needed to be a level of consensus across the area and that we are not in the business of imposing change on any one. That remains our starting point and our intention.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I know the Minister does not want to comment in detail, but, moving from the general to the particular, what would happen if Lincolnshire County Council, for example, wanted to use amendment 56 to fast-track the procedure, but one or more districts objected to a unitary authority? Do I take it that nothing in amendment 56 would make it easier for the district councils to be overridden by the county council?

[James Wharton]

The powers already exist for the Secretary of State to review and change local authority boundaries and create unitary authorities—to do many of those things that hon. Members have talked about with concern. This is a streamlining amendment that makes it more straightforward to deliver things where there is the desire; where it is important, as part of a deal; where there is consensus; and where the Secretary of State, having applied the statutory tests, is satisfied it is the right thing to do in the interests of that area. It is a welcome amendment, therefore, and I hope that hon. Members will support it.

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[Greg Clark]

I will indeed. My hon. Friend raises an important point. The whole process by which we have operated and negotiated with places has recognised that the best ideas come from local places themselves. Previous local government Bills have attempted, with unhappy consequences, to impose a Government view of how local government should be organised on reluctant local authorities. This Bill does not do that and the amendment that he mentions will not be used for that purpose either. Rather, it will bring local communities and local authorities into a discussion about what is best for their area.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The Secretary of State, as usual, is handling difficult issues in a consensual and careful way. As I understand it, he wants to use amendment 56 to encourage a discussion. Discussions are fine, but, for the want of argument, if a county council wanted to use amendment 56 to drive for a unitary authority against the wishes of one or more district council, I take it that the county council could not use it to override the district councils.

[Greg Clark]

All of our negotiations have achieved consensus locally. That is my approach. Amendment 56 allows us to require that those conversations take place. No authority can reasonably refuse even to discuss the potential for reform. That is right. It is reasonable for neighbouring authorities to have conversations about what is the best way to proceed. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, the powers are already there.

In responding to the case that was made in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) and that was made again on Report, we thought that it was worth having in the Bill, as a pilot, the ability to, as it were, encourage authorities to have the conversation. Anything that is agreed needs to be agreed by the Secretary of State and by this House. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) can be absolutely sure that, in exercising my authority in this area, I propose to maintain the preference for consensus that I have shown so far.

It is worth reflecting that, in the few years since we started negotiating, first with cities and then with local authorities and their businesses through the growth deals, there has been tremendous enthusiasm across the country. Members have spoken at various points during the debate about how the degree of collaboration and involvement of businesses and local authorities has been very much greater than that experienced in the past. That is absolutely the case. If we are to prosper and succeed as a nation, every part of the nation has to fire on all cylinders. This important Bill will help to drive that forward.

During the debate, many amendments have been made, resulting in the Bill’s improvement. We have accepted a need for various reports on the progress of devolution to come to this House, so they can be debated. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady) in particular, as he made a very strong case that Members should be involved in the ongoing scrutiny of agreed deals. I am only too willing to have my feet held to the fire. As the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), has observed a number of times during these proceedings, in my earlier incarnation in the Department I published a progress report of all Government Departments on whether we were living up to our commitments on devolution. I fully expect that the scrutiny of the House will be equally exacting when it comes to the receipt of the reports.

It is important that we have devolution right across the country. We started with cities, but the enthusiasm in counties and districts right across the country has been very palpable. When we issued an invitation for places to come forward, 38 places, covering almost all the country, submitted proposals. The Bill enacts some of our manifesto commitments to create a metro mayor for Greater Manchester and to create mayoral authorities for the great cities that have concluded deals with the Government.

In response to proposals, again from the bottom up and starting with Greater Manchester, we have been able to enter into discussions about the devolution of health matters, so that the two sides of the same coin that are health and social care can be better administered locally, jointly between the NHS and local government. I am pleased we have been able to make amendments on those matters.

I am pleased that we have ended the Bill’s proceedings with a degree of consensus between all parties. That was very much our intention from the outset. We started with a degree of discord on Second Reading, but I had high hopes that we would be able to persuade those on the Opposition Front Bench to move away from that. As we have scrutinised the Bill and accepted amendments from all sides of the House, including from the Back Benches, I think we have strengthened the Bill. I am grateful to those on the Opposition Front Bench for having, I think, modified their view. I hope we might even hear a degree of enthusiasm—I will be careful on that; I had better not count my chickens—from them.

This is an important moment. The Bill was in the first Queen’s Speech and one of the first to be introduced in this Session of Parliament. On Second Reading, I said it was an historic Bill that would do something our predecessors have not done and that our successors will look back on. They will see this as a piece of legislation that changed the direction of policy and built up our cities, towns and counties across the country, so that their discretion, power and ability to set their own future becomes much greater than it has been in the past.