Local Government: Combined Authority Orders

Debate between George Howarth and John Pugh

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I intend to support the draft statutory instruments, and I shall give my reasons for doing so.

What used to be known as Merseyside and is now known as the Liverpool city region has, over the years, underperformed in comparison with the place we are most often compared with, Greater Manchester. That might seem a strange thing for me to say, as a Merseyside MP, but I have said it publicly before. Indeed, the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), has heard me do so privately and publicly. I say it because we have been very reluctant, as individual authorities rather than collectively, to decide on what was right strategically for the whole city region as opposed to what might be difficult, in the short term, to argue in St Helens, Halton or Knowsley. There has been no mechanism, and often no will, to get together and say, “This is important for the whole city region. We should all get behind it and hopefully bring it to a successful conclusion.”

I will cite an example. It is significant that my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) is here as I discuss this. Under the previous Government, there was a well-worked-up project called Merseytram line 1, which the transport authority had taken to a very late stage; it had carried out all the consultation and the project was ready to go ahead. My hon. Friend, who was the Minister responsible at the time, had to decline it because of opposition from within the Liverpool city region. In other words, some parts of the city region were unwilling to support something that did not go through their own boroughs on the grounds that there was no immediate benefit to them, even though it was of strategic importance to the wider city region. That was a very short-sighted way to behave, and I said so at the time. That is partly why I welcome these orders.

[John Pugh]

Having said that, the scheme would have been much more successful had the route gone first to the airport, which would have benefited the whole region.

[Mr Howarth]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but I do not agree with him. Even if he is right, is the fact that he did not agree with the specific route a reason to scupper the whole project? By saying, “If I can’t get the route I want, we won’t have a tram at all,” I think he has made the point I am trying to demonstrate. My criticism of how we have responded in the past is supported by and encapsulated in his intervention.

Pub Companies

Debate between George Howarth and John Pugh

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Pugh]

I think self-regulation might work sometimes. What we are debating is what will happen if it does not. What do the Government intend to do in that event? I think it incumbent on the Minister to state plainly that if self-regulation does not work, statutory regulation remains an option. If the Government have an objection in principle to statutory regulation, they must make it clear to the House, because that is the most honest and forthright approach.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I have been following the hon. Gentleman’s argument closely. Does he agree—indeed, I think this is his conclusion—that if self-regulation is to work, the industry needs to know that if it does not in fact work, the Government will be prepared to follow up with statutory regulation?

[John Pugh]

I think that the Government must say that. The industry has been given a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh—however many chances we may care to cite. If the Government do not intend ever to introduce statutory regulation, they can and should say so at the Dispatch Box today.