Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Flick Drummond and Mark Pawsey

Monday 13th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey]

Absolutely, and I am pleased that the urban conurbations are coming together in combined authorities across the country.

I am also pleased that the Government have received combined authority proposals from two local authority groups in the east midlands. The Derbyshire consortium has 10 councils including the county council and city council, and the same process is under way in Nottinghamshire.

As part of that process, the Government are right to insist on a directly elected mayor for each combined authority so that there is a figurehead for the body being created. I have tried to put myself in the position of an overseas investor who arrives in Manchester or Birmingham wishing to invest in the region. I would want to understand who is the titular head of the body and who is ultimately responsible. A directly elected mayor goes some way to addressing that.

[Mrs Drummond]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the decision in the last Parliament to create single pots for infrastructure projects such as those determined by the local enterprise partnerships has shifted power, which has been crucial to places such as my area of Portsmouth and his of Rugby?

[Mark Pawsey]

Absolutely. The shift of power from the centre out to the regions is massively important and I will talk about the importance of local enterprise partnerships shortly, but first I want to talk about the impact of combined authorities in my part of the country.

Even though Rugby is right in the middle of the country, under the old regional development agency model we were placed in the west midlands because Warwickshire was put in the west midlands. However, my town’s economic links are much closer to places such as Lutterworth and Leicester in Leicestershire and Daventry and Northampton in Northamptonshire. In so many instances we in Rugby look east rather than west. That is one reason why I have some concerns about the developments in the west midlands. It is entirely right that the urban area of the west midlands—Birmingham, Solihull, Walsall, Dudley, Sandwell and Wolverhampton—comes together. I ran a business in Rugby, and we looked at that block of authorities as one big market. In fact we did not know where one authority ended and the other started because to us it was one big market.