Elected Mayors and Local Government

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady, as always. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) on securing the debate, and I thank Mr Speaker for granting it. It is an important one and an opening for many more, although there will probably be more local than national debates. It is important for us to realise that elected mayors affect local, not national, government.

It would be far better to take a practical or bottom-up approach, as others have described it, to the problem than to go for the jugular, as recommended by one of the participants in the debate. Perhaps he should put his own jugular on the line first and see how it feels before he recommends that we collectively do the same, but that is for him to decide. It would be fatal to rush into this blindly. That suggestion shows no understanding of the reality of the complex organisation that we are about to create, or of what it is like in the private sector, let alone the public sector. In the private sector, the shareholders are seen once a year, which can be a pain or a pleasure, depending on how the organisation has done. With this type of organisation, however, there is regular accountability through newspapers and other means all the time, quite rightly, and through weekly party and council meetings. It is a completely different kettle of fish from a private sector organisation.

We learned a lesson from the 1970s that you may remember, Mr Brady—I don’t think you were in the House, but you may have studied it. I was not in the House either but I studied it from quite close up—from Smith Square, where I was at the time. The then Prime Minister, with great executive thinking, brought a private sector approach to things. He said, “We’re going to do this, and we’ll do it from the top down. We’ll impose it and have a nice blueprint.” The then Secretary of State, who had a very distinguished service record in the public sector and a very successful record in the private sector—rather like Lord Heseltine—thought, “We’ll do a proper merger, have a blueprint and make sure that we do it exactly as we have told them.” It was a theoretical blueprint that bore no relation to the different sets of circumstances, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) both said, within 10 years it broke down in the reality of the complicated democratic processes that Governments have to work with in the public sector.

We should forget all that. Let us deal with the situation as it is, and take a practical approach. I speak as one who is second to none in my admiration for Lord Heseltine, and indeed Lord Walker before him, who did the ill-fated 1970s reorganisation. Let us be practical people, with a depth of experience of the public sector and its needs, when we come to deal with this very difficult task.

Some of us in Coventry feel two things. It could well be that we have been slightly behind the game and have not joined in or been promoting this idea early enough or strongly enough, as a west midlands entity, but that is because we have never really felt the same identity of interest with Birmingham and the black country as we perhaps have with Warwickshire, which is our more natural—

[Mark Pawsey]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Robinson]

I would, but we are all limited by time, and the hon. Gentleman, whom I know very well and share many interests with, will have time to make his own speech in a moment.

Coventry is a proud city in its own right. I have told the House before how some decades ago, when I was first selected as a candidate, my party chairman took me to one side and said—I had just been selected, Mr Brady, and you know what local parties can be like—“Now Geoffrey, you have to understand one thing.” I was fairly new to Coventry at the time. He said, “The most important point you have to understand as a Coventry MP is that there is only one good thing that comes out of Birmingham. Do you know what that is?” I had no idea. I suggested cars, machine tools, motorbikes and so on. He said, “No, no. It’s the Coventry road.” That was a silly, parochial approach, and we are no longer— thank God—bound by those sorts of considerations. I would certainly never dream of giving that advice to anybody who might succeed me in decades to come. However, Coventry is a proud city and I believe that Wolverhampton, which has gained city status more recently, feels as Coventry does in many ways.

[Colleen Fletcher]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Robinson]

I will, but I will make some progress first, if I may.

The point that I am trying to make, in a very unsubtle way, is that we have interests, as proud cities representing proud peoples, in a way that perhaps does not apply to Manchester. We also came late to the game and therefore need more time than Manchester. That does not mean we should not get on with it, and I must say that under the dynamic leadership that Councillor Lucas has brought to Coventry, we are running quickly to catch up and she is pushing the west midlands to get going.

However, one thing is clear: what is behind all this. I want to quote from an article in the Coventry Telegraph this week, following the publication of a remarkable document on the west midlands combined authority on 6 July, which makes a very strong case for going down the route of a combined authority for the west midlands. It is a strong case and we should not ignore it at all, and I am sure that Coventry is right in on the act and pushing to develop it. However, we want to say one or two things to the Government about what is lurking behind all this. Let me quote from the article, which deals with the issue of the metro mayor—the first big thing we have to deal with. The article states:

“The issue has left an unsightly rash on the face of the newborn WMCA, and the sooner it is treated, the better.”

The article goes on to say that Coventry and Birmingham rejected the idea very decisively as recently as a couple of years ago and makes the case that we are looking at the re-imposition of the same formula next year. It could be as early as that, and it just does not stack up. It is not what the people will go along with. We have to get the democratic agreement of all concerned. What Councillor Lucas and we are all saying is: could we just have time?

The Chancellor properly said—I realise we are time-constrained, Mr Brady—that for the moment he thinks it is the best way forward. He made that clear again in the Budget this week, emphasising that he believes that elected metro mayors are the best—if not the only—way forward. However, he is open to us putting our proposals to him, and he has very kindly agreed a meeting in principle with the Coventry Members, so that we can explain Coventry’s circumstances to him. We should take him up on that and put the case for a transitional set of arrangements to him.

We will accept the mayor in principle—I am sure we can do that—but let us have a transitional period in which look at how the thing would work and at balance sheets and financial responsibilities. How will the different units be brought together, in terms of their balance sheets? They are all separate accounting bodies, with immense responsibilities. I am no expert on local government finance or organisation, but I can imagine that the difficulties are enormous when a tier of government above is responsible for some of the funding. The importance of skills was rightly emphasised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, and there is also transport and other areas where real money is coming to a new authority or a new power—a new channel for it.

The most important thing is the need for properly organised transitional arrangements. We are giving that a lot of thought—sadly, I do not have the time to get into that today—and we will put those proposals to the Chancellor. We should say, “We don’t want to go down the 1970s route again. Give us time. We are going in your direction and we are catching up fast. Just bear with us.” We can put that to him when we meet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

What the hon. Gentleman refers to is not necessarily the situation that we are discussing. We are considering authorities coming together and taking additional powers and funding from the Government; we are not considering adding to the precept that people will have to pay.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) said, I think, that we should go for the jugular. I am afraid I must disappoint him. We are not into top-down solutions; we are very much into bottom-up solutions and local areas coming together to put their packages of ideas to the Government.

The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) was looking for a game-changing deal for the west midlands. If that is what he is looking for as a local MP, I urge him to speak to his local leaders and encourage them to put forward a game-changing package to the Government. As I said, local areas must bring solutions to the Government, not the other way around. We would welcome an ambitious package from the west midlands, because we want it to move forward.

I must disagree with the right hon. Gentleman’s assessment of the west midlands; I think that it is a place on the up. Things are going in the right direction. Unemployment is decreasing, and £5.2 billion in funding for infrastructure is going into the region at the moment. I was glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull backed up that view and was willing to speak up for the west midlands and shout about our achievements in the area. He also mentioned, with some enthusiasm, that he would support such devolution arrangements if they were ambitious and related to skills, infrastructure and the like. That seems to be the type of proposal coming from the west midlands, which I hope will please him.

I was slightly disappointed by the tone of the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey); it did not seem to correlate with the tone of local authority leaders in her area, which is extremely positive. She asked about the structure of health services and how they would work. That will come from her local area in the proposals that it is making to the Government. Obviously, there will be a negotiation process with officials and Ministers; the Secretaries of State for Communities and Local Government and for Health must both be satisfied that the arrangements are strong on accountability. On whether mayors are elected and how much credibility they will have, the hon. Lady will know that although they will be appointed on an interim basis, they will have to stand for election at the end of that period.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson]

It is still not clear to what extent an elected mayor is an absolute precondition. The Minister mentioned the key phrase “additional funding”. That is what it all seems to be about. In a period of tight local government expenditure—everybody in the House accepts that—the Government are promising additional funding if local authorities come together as single authorities and if we have a metro mayor. Can the Minister confirm that the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills are open to considering alternative interim accounting authorities rather than metro mayors, while still making the additional responsibilities and funding available on an interim basis as we bring the authorities together and work out a sensible, workable, long-term solution—on the basis of a metro mayor if necessary?

[Mr Jones]

As I said, it is clear that if the west midlands wants to put together a package as extensive as Manchester’s, for example, it will certainly need a metro mayor. I think local leaders realise that if the west midlands is to be as ambitious as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill wants, a metro mayor is required. However, it is up to them to decide exactly what they want in that sense.

It was interesting that the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) mentioned that he wants things to be bottom-up. They certainly will be, so I am sure that he will be glad that his party is not in government, because it seems to want to impose a situation on local areas by making them come together.

I was heartened by the enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), who seems to be on the same page as the enthusiastic cross-party leaders in Manchester. I welcome his comments, and I pay tribute to the leaders who are coming together to take forward an ambitious devolution deal.

I say to the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed), that this is certainly not a one-size-fits-all situation. It is for each individual area to come forward with proposals that it thinks suits that area, which the Government can then consider. We need to ensure that in considering any proposals, we consider carefully how governance is managed.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).