Graham Allen
Main Page: Graham Allen (Labour - Nottingham North)Draft Tees Valley Combined Authority Order 2016
Graham Allen Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I strongly welcome this statutory instrument and hope that other people throughout the English regions—and particularly in Nottingham, Derby, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire—seize the opportunity that the Government have offered to devolve power. None the less, as my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar has pointed out, important details on a number of other issues need to be resolved. I believe that the Tees Valley combined authority will be a very good vehicle for adding extra muscle to make sure that the inequalities that undoubtedly exist—and which have, in some cases, been exacerbated by the Government—can be ironed out. I hope that the Minister, given his location geographically, will take this vehicle very much to heart and ensure that this combined authority, as much as any other, works effectively to deliver things that people in the local area need, and particularly the grant aid to which my hon. Friend referred.
We should say, using our political judgment, that this is probably the second such piece of legislation, after the Scotland Bill, to come before both Houses, and therefore it is in my view a demonstration of the Government taking devolution seriously. Those who are critics of devolution in general should understand that if a Bill becomes an Act early in a Parliament, there is plenty of room in a five-year Parliament for further devolution Bills to come forward. I therefore urge my very good friends who will make up the Tees Valley combined authority collectively to work together to help Government frame the next devolution Bill, and the one after that, that will come before a general election in 2020. This is the first important step on a long path, as the Tees Valley combined authority—the TVCA, as we will no doubt come to call it—make its progress.
I pay tribute to the leadership that has been shown in Tees Valley; Bill Dixon in Darlington, Chris Akers-Belcher in Hartlepool, David Budd in Middlesbrough, Sue Jeffrey in Redcar and Cleveland, and Bob Cook in Stockton-on-Tees have done a superb job in pulling this together. I know from the experience in the east midlands how delicate and sensitive such discussions are, but it looks, from the outside at least, that these were conducted in a really positive, creative and imaginative way.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to recognise and commend the excellent work of the five authorities across Tees Valley. They have worked consistently in a collaborative and collective way for long enough, and I welcome that this combined authority will underpin that. My grave concern is the lack of funding that follows it. Addressing the issues of transport, economic development and regeneration functions with the sort of sums that this Government are talking about is frankly, insulting, and rather than propelling us forward, this may do worse and set us back. Does he recognise that there are inherent dangers in the financial settlement?
Mr Allen
There are difficulties that will need to be negotiated. A forceful Tees Valley combined authority will add to the individual efforts of local authorities to make sure that this is properly funded. I hope that the mechanisms the Minister outlined will be used effectively to listen to those questions. I am very conscious of one thing that has been strongly on our agenda in this place—namely, the steel closure that has ruined a community. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland is a member of this Committee and might want to say something about that. It would be a travesty if this authority cannot be seen to deliver something on that. It is almost a test to make sure that the authority is seen in a good light. My hon. Friend has been foremost in the campaign to save the steelworks, so I will give way to him with pleasure.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. SSI is a key issue and we hope that the combined authority will work on that, although its powers are somewhat limited at the moment, but we want to build on that—my hon. Friend mentioned future devolution Bills. However, the economic issues in our area and covered by the TVU umbrella are not just to do with SSI. There are also the events happening at Boulby potash, the stalling at Air Products, the closure of Caparo, two tax offices that are scheduled to go—on top of other downstream jobs. As a local MP, the Minister has been pretty weak in mentioning those. In fact, he has refused to speak about them on many occasions.
The Chair
Order. Interventions are supposed to be short and to the point. I am not sure that that was either.
Mr Allen
Or they can number more than one. I am happy to take further interventions from colleagues who have serious tests to raise about how the Government are taking this forward. As the Minister knows, in principle I am totally committed to this, and future, devolution—but it undermines all of us who believe in that concept if it does not deliver stage by stage, however modestly. It must be seen to deliver for people in the area. Otherwise the same old arguments flow in: “Yet another structure of government,” and so on. This structure of Government needs to be given life and to prove its worth, swiftly. I know the Minister is aware of that.
Andy McDonald
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s record speaks to these issues? My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland makes a valid point. We are addressing the prospect of devolution and a northern powerhouse, yet our received wisdom is a history of job losses and failures, and of the Government failing to intervene. Does my hon. Friend agree that we are entitled to be circumspect about the continuous promotion of this as jam tomorrow?
Mr Allen
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. This authority, and the Government’s whole concept of devolution, needs to deliver—and deliver speedily. The general competence around who does what—whether it is central or local government—is a serious issue. Local government used to be a jewel in the crown; it was where the real decisions were made, locally. One thinks back to the London authority, the Birmingham authority and many local authorities who ran their water, gas and electricity supplies, their transport and their cleansing—which was particularly important in the days I am talking about. Local government has been reduced to a subservient holder of a begging bowl, asking for crumbs, when serious things happen locally that only sensitive, dynamic local government can answer effectively. That is what devolution seeks to build, and the perpetuating of the begging bowl mentality has to finish. I hope that devolution can deliver that and that the Government push devolution on, which was not done, sadly, when we had our spell in government. I know you would bring me to order, Mr Bone, if I went over old ground about how the north-east referendum took place four years after the momentum of Scotland and Wales.
The Chair
Order. Just to help the hon. Member, it is my style to allow Members to talk more widely in context, as I think the hon. Member is. However, we do not want to have a debate, for instance, on the steel industry, as important as it is.
Mr Allen
You are absolutely right, Mr Bone, as always in the Chair. There are colleagues, of course, who will see the future of the steel industry as one of the tests of a new set of machinery of government. If it fails that test, it will undermine devolution for another 20 years.
I have been here long enough to have seen the disaster wrought on devolution by the way in which we half-heartedly moved forward in 1999, 2000 and 2001. We are only now recovering from that. We are in the effort of recovery at the moment, so that has to be done well, listening to people and their concerns, whether they are about the steel industry or other areas, such as the funding stream.
On the funding stream, which is referred to in the order, it is important that local authority leaders, with their Members of Parliament, look north a little and see what has happened on funding in Scotland, where there is assigned income tax and where a level of financial competence is a given. It is in law that they can spend a percentage of the income tax in a way that they, rather than the man in Whitehall, feel appropriate. That ultimately is the bid that has to go in from the Members of Parliament and the local authority leaders to make Tees Valley combined authority an even more powerful institution.
That is the vision that I hope they will pitch for. It is not a vision based on thin air. As we see in articles 7(2) and 7(3), economic regeneration is central to delivery in the combined authority. That is not something that has just happened, that they had a think about and just came up with. Tees Valley Unlimited has been going for six or seven years already and great work has taken place. A lot of people feel devolution must come out of thin air and deliver on day one. I remind people that the Manchester pioneers worked together for more than 10 years in a collegiate way to take things forward, and they were therefore prepared to move forward when an opportunity arose.
I should also say a word about mayoralty. I do not want to go over old ground, because the law is in place now. I again want to put it on the record, as the statutory instrument talks about the machinery of government, that the election of mayors will be far stronger in future if those mayors are put in place by the people in the area they seek to represent. The imposition of a mayor almost guarantees a reaction and a view that it is Whitehall talking devolution but imposing a political system.
Mayoralty should be one of many possibilities on a menu. I hope that the statutory instruments and devolution that follow this order will give people a choice, possibly even to change from a mayoralty to something else. Those who do not have a mayoralty would be allowed to join the party, possibly try it or many of the other systems, whether committee or leadership based, that will have local resonance and legitimacy.
If we impose, all we are doing is turning devolution into decentralisation, which is something that can be given by and taken away by the centre. I know that is not what the Minister intends, but imposing the mayoralty on combined authorities means that that might be the outcome. None of us wants that who wants devolution and genuinely independent local government with a statutory right to exist on its own terms, built into a constitutional settlement so that local government can look after itself, have its own legitimacy, and decide its financial arrangements, governance and local election system with its people. That is what is commonplace in most European and north American countries. We are the people dragging at the heels of that development in democracy. The order allows us to start a journey toward creating independent local government that can follow its own view and that of its people about what is best in their locality.
The order contains a power under section 117 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, as amended, and paragraph 3.1 of the explanatory memorandum discusses the possibility of the Minister amending some of the proposals. People have read it and said that it is draconian, because he could take away some of the things agreed. I would rather look at it the other way around: the power allows the Minister, when he and Whitehall are satisfied—whether or not I like it, that is the system that we have at the moment—to go further and to amend the rules before us to enable some of the things that colleagues have discussed to happen.
Again, as a demonstration and test of the power, I hope that the first time the Minister uses it, he does so in such a way that colleagues on the ground know that he has done so to enable local authorities and the Tees Valley combined authority to do something positive that people in the area want to do. If he uses it for the first time to constrain a local authority and change the rules, it will send a very bad signal. I hope that he will go away with his local knowledge—and, I am sure the friendly relations he has with colleagues—pick up one of the key issues, maybe the steel plant, or maybe something else, I do not know, and say, “I’m going to use that amending power to enable you to do one of the things that you really want to do, because you can’t do it under the current SI. I’m going to take what could be a draconian power and make it into a demonstration of what can happen in the next devolution Bill that comes before us.”
The other thing to which I draw the Committee’s attention is the order’s relationship with the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, particularly Standing Order No. 83P, which deals with devolved legislative competences. It basically says that what we are doing in England is coming pretty much into line with Northern Ireland and the Assembly, Scotland and the Scottish Parliament and Wales and the Welsh Assembly. That is a good thing in itself, but I have one thing to add. If we are effectively making Whitehall the competent authority for the whole of England, thought needs to be given to the broader democratic representation that should take place across England.
That is a big issue. I will leave it open, Mr Bone, in case you call me to order once again, and say something a little more precise. It is incumbent on the Minister and the Government to consider where power then stops. I congratulate the Government on what they have done in pushing power to town halls and devolved authorities such as the Tees Valley combined authority, but I ask him again to use his amending power to consider what happens on what we now call double devolution. If power just stops at the town hall or the authority, it could be argued that we come to a dead end. Fundamentally, devolution means involving people in the localities. It means taking it beyond what the Scottish National party has done in Holyrood.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
We must be cautious and acknowledge that devolution does not always deliver power closer to the people. To take what is happening in Wales as an example, power has been devolved to local authorities and immediately snatched in by the Welsh Assembly. Recently, a power over planning was given to local authorities across England and Wales, and on the same day the Welsh Assembly took that power to itself. It does not always work out in the way we want.
Mr Allen
It is marginally better to be abused by the Parliament or Assembly of your country than by Whitehall—but only marginally. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there has to be a second phase. Communities, neighbourhoods and localities need to have a power vested in them, which they can draw down and use the courts to enforce. In Scotland, if power stops in Holyrood under the Scottish National party, as it undoubtedly has, we are no better off. Indeed, in Scotland we have seen power being sucked up, and I would hate the statutory instrument to repeat that in England. For example, in Scotland one police force has been established, one LEP effectively, and Holyrood exercises an overarching dominance over further education. The power is being sucked upwards.
Using the power vested in the Minister, the statutory instrument needs to provide the ability to say initially, “Before I sign any more orders off, I need to know what your double devolution plans are. We are not going to sign any more off until we know how you push power down rather than just devolve it to town hall.” I would go further and say that this is one of those things that needs a national framework. National rights must be vested in localities, communities and neighbourhoods so that they have the strength to draw the power down in a way that they would be unable to do in their own locality because of the dominance of their local government. That refers, Mr Bone, to paragraph 3.6 of the explanatory memorandum—I know you are keen that we stay in order.
Finally, I refer briefly to the powers mentioned in part 4, article 7(1), which relate to economic regeneration and regeneration in the localities. Part of that process concerns how power goes lower than local government as it is currently constituted and down into the localities. These days, regeneration often takes place at a local level, inspired by charities, the voluntary sector, local councillors and people who are up against particular problems and self-organise. They all need to have a place in economic regeneration. That might be difficult when trying to replace a steel plant, but certainly for estates up and down the land outside London that have been hit by manufacturing issues, we need genuinely to empower people and not just local councils, and not have rule from the town hall rather than from Whitehall.
The measure we are considering today must be just the first step of many. I encourage the people in the Tees Valley combined authority to get together and use their first meetings to pitch hard to the Minister, who lives locally, to ensure that he understands what they want on the next menu of powers, which will certainly come within the next couple of years. If we have a coherent programme, we all, including the people of Nottingham, will benefit from that example.
Anna Turley
I appreciate my hon. Friend giving way. I wanted to pick up the point about finance. I was absolutely shocked to hear the Minister dismiss that as if it is not even part of the debate. Discussion of the single funding pot is about what fund there is in central Government that will be devolved to local level to enable us to fulfil our potential. The Minister does the Opposition a disservice if he thinks that anyone here is lacking in ambition for Teesside. We see its potential, and we are here to fight for everything we can to enable it to succeed. Funding is absolutely at the heart of this devolved agenda. There is an amount of money which central Government or Whitehall has to spend, and we want to spend it better.
The Chair
Order. I remind hon. Members that they are entitled to speak again, so it is fine if the hon. Lady wants to make a speech in a little while.
Alex Cunningham
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. It is deeply insulting to suggest that Members of Parliament who represent the Tees Valley do not have ambition for the Tees Valley. I wonder if my hon. Friend’s expertise in constitutional affairs extends to finance. There is £15 million per year, so £450 million in total over 30 years. How much does he think that the local authorities could borrow in order to finance a capital programme that is probably very small?
Mr Allen
That is a really interesting question. I would be very pleased to talk at length—perhaps too long—about it. However, this is not about constitutional matters but democratic ones. This is about our democracy and how we re-engage people who clearly have disengaged from our democracy. Again, I commend the Government on introducing these proposals. It is very clear that this is a step forward, but there has to be engagement with people. There has to be engagement in this Committee on the issue of the long-term financial settlement between the centre and the localities. Dare I say it, if those who wish to leave the European Union succeed, then of course matters will be raised. There are some very prominent people, the Chair even, who may—
The Chair
Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that when I sit in this Chair, I have no views on anything.
Mr Allen
I am delighted: not that I talk to the media, but I am delighted to put it to the media that the Chair has no views on the European issue. I am sure that that will be front-page news tomorrow. More seriously, if we look at the way in which the localities, the centre and the regions operate in all our European neighbours or in the north American democracies, we see that there are regulated, clear, and constitutional—and I use the word “constitutional” very wittingly—bounds between the three levels of local, regional and national. We do not have that in this country. It is essential that we end up there, and that the umbilical cord of dependence is severed.
It does not mean that we do not have equalisation, to answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North. It just means that people can be enabled to spend money—much less money—more sensitively and more accurately. It is in their interests to get value for money rather than just spend the money that appears in the begging bowl, whether that goes up or down. That level of responsibility and accountability will strengthen our democracy against any efforts to separate from the Union, and possibly against efforts to separate from partners in Europe.
I can only speculate on that but—more accurately and certainly more pertinently—it will mean that we have a different sort of governance in this country, which is built on solid blocks of who does what. There is a horrible European word, although I am sure that the Chair in his current capacity will say that it is neither horrible nor wonderful. I think “subsidiarity” is the most ugly word to describe the most beautiful concept, which is that people should be enabled to decide at the appropriate level what their governance is. Much of this can be done in the locality and by regional or sub-regional organisations, such as the Tees Valley authority. That is where we ought to be going on this. I am sorry for that rather long-winded explanation. I hope, unless other Members are prompted to intervene in my second speech, that I can move on and allow the Minister to engage seriously with the issue.
Andy McDonald
Before my hon. Friend moves on, was he as surprised as I was to hear the Minister in his opening remarks tell the Committee that this was the first of several steps in the route map to devolution and that it included financial settlement? That is the issue that concentrates the minds of many contributors today. Is he as surprised as I am that the Minister somehow now wishes to depart from that unity of thinking that sees this thing right through to what it ultimately delivers for the people of Tees Valley?
Mr Allen
I hope that this is the first step and that there are many others to come. I heard the Minister’s remarks challenging in a positive way those people who will make up the Tees Valley authority to come up with a menu—a shopping list—for the next round of devolution. I thought that was an incredibly generous and positive offer, and I hope it will be seized by those who are listening to our debate so that we can take this forward. That has to include further devolution of finance. We could end up being the odd one out in England.
We see progress in Scotland, where they now have assigned income tax, so their Parliament can take this forward and ultimately introduce its own spending programme. We have seen many developments in the Northern Ireland Assembly that allow it to change rates on particular items at particular taxation levels. We see in Wales a growing move towards the Scottish settlement, where Wales can look after much of what is appropriately done in Wales, which is quite right.
Mr Allen
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point—and I am happy to give way to him—that that in itself is not enough. I have already dealt with the fact that there has to be double devolution, so that there is not recentralisation. A large responsibility weighs on the Minister’s shoulders and those of the Secretary of State, to bring England to the party—to bring it to the devolution democracy that is commonplace in every other western democracy.
This is the first step. I am less critical than many. It has its faults and inadequacies—I have pointed out some of them—but I see it as the first baby step. I am not going to criticise the baby for making a baby step. We should encourage the Government to go along this route, because we have a five-year Parliament. The Government have the whip hand in this place. One of the ways in which we can move this forward is by having proper interaction between local authorities—between the Tees Valley authority and between Members of Parliament—so that we can introduce a second devolution Bill, which I predict will be before the House within 24 months. We can make it a Bill that takes us even further along the lines that I would like and to which my hon. Friends have alluded.
Anna Turley
I appreciate my hon. Friend giving way. Does he agree that if we are talking about the next steps of devolution, trust is absolutely integral to the whole process? If the five local authorities in the Tees Valley feel that trust is being broken and that agreements are already being reneged on, and that there is a lack of information, particularly on finance, that is going to be a barrier to any future devolution.
Mr Allen
I hope the Minister heard these concerns. They are not made out of partisanship, but out of genuine concern for what happens in the local communities. I hope that he takes steps to repair any mistrust. Similar concerns are being expressed in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. When we try to manage change and make a progressive step forward, a lot of people will be anxious about their own position and about their local authority. All those issues boil up.
It is for the Minister and the Secretary of State to ensure that they work incredibly hard—I know that they do and are committed to the measure conceptually—to ensure that Conservative colleagues, Labour colleagues and the populations of the areas feel involved and feel that their views are respected. That would repair the trust, which seems to me, although it is not my area, to be a little shaky at the moment, to put it moderately, so that everyone is ready for what the Minister wants to do, which is to take us on the next step of the devolution journey.