Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I should declare an interest, as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I welcome the debate, and I welcome the shadow team’s involvement in a slightly larger remit including a constitutional convention. I think that if we were to look closely at other models of an upper House, or a bicameral system, we could discover a great deal about the regional differences to which many Members have referred today.

Let me say a little about some of the other points that have been made by Members on both sides of the House. First, I share the considerable reservations that have been expressed about Sunday trading and the impact that it might have. Secondly, let me draw Labour Members’ attention to something of which they may not be aware. A voluntary tourist levy has been introduced by the London borough of Hackney, and I suggest that they have a look at it, because it is a great example of the way in which a business approach can occasionally be combined with people joining in voluntarily. The levy is spent directly on such functions as the cleansing of the borough.

I wanted to make a couple of points about the question of mayors, which was raised by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (William Wragg). There is a predominance of male mayors, and I think we should look at that. I do not think enough women are either council leaders or mayors, and I suspect that that is why I was invited to become the vice-president of the LGA. When I last looked, 88% of council leaders or mayors in the country were men, and I am sure that very few of them are black or ethnic minority.

We also need to look at the possibility of fixed terms, because in some areas there will always be a Labour mayor and or there will always be a Tory mayor. In such areas, having three fixed terms might be a way of slightly loosening things up for people coming through who want one day to be the mayor. We need to be brave and consider that, even though it is not an easy topic to raise with people who currently hold the role.

I wish to address the three key areas, the first of which relates to capital budgets and housing. There is no reason why we have to wait for this Bill to go through; we could easily allow councils to borrow to build homes. If the Government really want to be radical and non-ideological, I suggest they try a Treasury-approved scheme whereby certain councils that are keen to build homes, perhaps in London and the south-east, are permitted to do so. That would get around our forever lifting borrowing caps and things; we could just allow certain schemes to come through. The all-party group for London is examining a particular scheme and will bring that to the Government’s attention. In parts of the country where housing is not such an urgent issue, we might be able to consider, for example, certain transport capital projects, so that we are being innovative and not waiting for this whole process to go through. We could look at Treasury-backed schemes to undertake transport projects in parts of the country where housing is not the key capital issue.

My second point is about skills. In the London context, the LEP is not best practice, because the scale does not work; it does not connect to local communities. Perhaps it does in Manchester or in other parts of the country—I do not know enough about that. On skills and employment, local boroughs—large unitary authorities—that have a billion-pound turnover are big enough to have an LEP of their own. We should be a bit more ambitious than what is currently on the table in respect of skills and unitary authorities.

My final point is about the health revenue stream. There is currently no incentive for a local government leader to do any prevention whatsoever; there is not enough money so why do it? We have to consider a mechanism whereby when it comes to the end of February, local council leaders are doing the right thing because they know it is the best thing for the public purse, because the saving goes back to the NHS. We have to think of a way of being really creative so that local authority leaders are doing the right thing on prevention, rather than being penalised because they are doing prevention, which is slightly more expensive; they spend more money and it saves the NHS money, so there is no recycling there of the budget. I wonder whether our very clever civil servants could think about getting together with the Department of Health to carry out some experiments on that.

I also wish to raise three issues of governance in the London council context. First, voluntary committees are currently considered capable by Departments of receiving appropriate delegations and funding as part of the devolved settlement in specific service areas. We need to be given reassurances that the governance framework matches what we need to do because, as I said, London is of such a scale that the Manchester model does not quite fit, but neither does one of sub-regional partnerships.

My second point relates to the issue of the Mayor versus the boroughs. It is not a party political point, because this is just how it works. We need to ensure that voting rules do not preclude the protection of minority interests; a 50% plus 1 arrangement would not provide enough protection between boroughs or between boroughs and the Mayor. That needs to be looked at in more detail.

Finally, joint committees remain capable of being entered into and being left by individual authorities rather than by external direction, so there is a bit of an opt-out—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I call Robert Neill.