Local Government: Reinvigorating Local Democracy

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, your Lordships may have noticed that at Questions I paid tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his service over many years as a councillor. Indeed, I pay tribute to all of your Lordships because I have really enjoyed the speeches. Former leaders have also paid tribute to my noble friend Lady Eaton for the work she did on Bradford Borough Council.

I was particularly interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, talk about the Barnett formula. I have to declare an interest: when I was a councillor in Cheshire, people used to ask me about that formula and I had to read up on it. I had to work out how to explain the Barnett formula and why the good citizens of Cheshire were £2,000 per head poorer that those in Scotland. I still find that hard to explain, as many of your Lordships have said they did.

As I said, I was a local authority councillor. I was persuaded by my local councillor, who introduced me to politics but sadly died of cancer; he said that I should stand, in 2000, when my party was not in power, and so I stood. My chances were apparently slim, and the Liberal Democrats fancied their chances of taking a Macclesfield constituency, while the Labour Party candidate was doing a really good job. I always remember that, at the count at Macclesfield sports centre, there were the two candidates who thought they were going to win—the Liberal Democrat and the Labour candidate—and me, the unknown outsider. I came in and polled more votes than those candidates put together.

What has come through in the debate, and it is important, is that if you have a local authority background you have a feel for the citizens of this country. I know West Yorkshire and the areas that the noble Lord was talking about but less so those in London. There is a difference between rural and metropolitan areas. My experience was of being on a town council. I was elected to a borough council and told not to go for the parish council, as in the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott: “Don’t go for the parish council, go for the borough council”. We also had a Cheshire County Council, so it was a bit like that sketch in which borough councillors looked up to county councillors but looked down on parish councillors. I was not having any of that.

They were a plucky bunch on Bollington Town Council, because when they realised that I was not standing to be a parish councillor they voted unanimously to co-opt me. They caught me out, and I ended up having 10 years on the parish council in Bollington and 10 years on Macclesfield Borough Council. Then Hazel Blears, God bless her, introduced unitaries, so I now live within Cheshire East Council. As many of your Lordships are, I am steeped in local government. Being a councillor helped me as a Member of Parliament in the Commons; the noble Baroness said something similar.

The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, talked about how people do not think that those on parish councils are interested. I can assure your Lordships that, in my experience, the parish councils in my part of the world are very vibrant. They work well with the unitary council and seem to have a lot of flexibility. It is a wonderful place to live, work and bring up a family. It is not called “Happy Valley” for no reason at all. If you look up Bollington Town Council, you will see that it is a very special place.

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, mentioned that his grandfather was a miner, a councillor and a JP. The wonderful former chairmen of the town council were all, I noticed, JPs until about the 1960s. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. I have learned a lot about his good self and the work that he did as a councillor in London.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is right, and he speaks from experience, in his argument for why devolution is so essential for a flourishing local democracy. Devolution is at the heart of the Government’s plans for economic growth and to level up the whole country. Indeed, the levelling-up White Paper made explicit the need for empowered, devolved local leadership. It set out, for the first time since the emergence of mayoral combined authorities in 2014, a clear menu of options available for places seeking to draw down, and take more control over, a range of powers and functions in local areas.

The Government’s overall approach to supporting local growth has put local institutions at the heard of decision-making, whether through the £2.6 billion UK shared prosperity fund, the £4.8 billion levelling up fund or the £150 million community ownership fund, to name just a few. In my own community of Cheshire East, this has empowered local leaders to spend £49 million through the UK shared prosperity fund, the future high streets fund and the towns fund on projects that are identified and led locally.

All that is alongside the overall increase to local government budgets. The final local government finance settlement for 2023-24 makes available up to £59 billion for local government in England, an increase in core spending power of up to £5 billion—9.4% in cash terms—on 2022-23. This boost in funding demonstrates how the Government stand behind councils up and down the country.

Devolution goes further and enables communities and their elected leaders to use their local knowledge to fix the problems that they face and harness opportunities unique to local places. Crucially, it maintains the core principle of a thriving local democracy: the right of residents to judge how well their representatives and leaders are doing at the ballot box.

There are many different approaches to devolving power. Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London all have their own models. As the noble Lord will no doubt remember from his time with Newcastle City Council, the top-down approach was tried; the north-east was given the opportunity to vote for a regional assembly, which it rejected in 2004.

The truth is that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to devolution in England. Devolution must be locally led, rather than top-down and imposed by the Government. Through our devolution framework and process of devolution deals, we work hand in glove with existing local government to agree the right model for governance in their regions. Instead of creating a conflicting or purely additional tier of governance, this process establishes combined authorities that are made up of constituent local authorities in the area. They are the combined authority’s constituent members.

As constituent members, the local authorities have a seat at the combined authority’s table. They not only consent to devolution but continue to play a role in how devolution works in that area. That includes the requirement that they, alongside the Secretary of State and Parliament, must consent to any further devolution in their area. This is devolution to empower local government, working with existing local government structures for the benefit of residents.

The work of our existing combined authorities and mayors demonstrates how devolution can play an incredibly powerful role in driving economic growth, improving public services and giving local areas a real voice on the national stage. For example, in the Tees Valley, the mayor, Ben Houchen, has worked with business to trial new approaches to sustainable transport with an e-scooter trial, with free e-scooter rides for the NHS, the Armed Forces and emergency services.

At the height of the pandemic, Steve Rotheram set up LCR Cares to raise money for community and voluntary organisations in Liverpool City Region. They raised more than £2 million. Research funded by the Health Foundation found that Greater Manchester had better life expectancy than expected after devolution, particularly in the areas with the highest income deprivation and lowest life expectancy. That is levelling-up in action. Those are just a few examples of the powerful role of mayors and how they help to create greater convening power to deliver place-based programmes.

As a result of these successes, we have been determined to roll out devolution further to places that believe it will benefit their businesses, communities and residents. We set ourselves a mission that by 2030 every part of England that wants one will have a devolution deal, with powers at or approaching the highest level of devolution and with a simplified, long-term funding settlement.

Significant progress has already been made. The Government signed five mayoral deals with areas last year. This takes the proportion of England now covered by a devolution deal to above half for the first time, up from 41% in 2021. It also means that almost 75% of the population in the north is now covered by a devolution deal, providing greater opportunities to help level up those regions.

These new deals will see more than £3.6 billion invested over a period of 30 years and mean that more than 5.8 million more people can directly elect a mayor or leader to represent them in the future. Once elected, these deals will give the directly elected mayors or leaders and their combined authorities greater local control over crucial levers of economic growth and public service, such as transport, infrastructure and skills.

Our devolution journey will not simply conclude with the successes of last year; the Government are committed to rolling out devolution across England. We are particularly interested in exploring opportunities for devolution deals that will empower local leaders and communities where places want a directly elected leader, such as a mayor, across the devolved area. This additional layer of accountability and leadership is necessary to secure the highest level of powers and responsibilities. Indeed, those single, accountable, elected leaders act as an ongoing champion for those regions. That is why, alongside extending devolution to new places, the Government continue to work with existing mayors and combined authorities to push the frontier of devolution.

In the levelling-up White Paper, the Government committed to deepen the devolution settlements of the most mature institutions, to support them in delivering further benefits for local residents. We are delivering on this commitment. Alongside the Spring Statement in March, the Government announced the trailblazer deeper devolution deals with the Greater Manchester and West Midlands combined authorities. These deals included commitments to a single department-style settlement which will give the Greater Manchester and West Midlands combined authorities the flexibility and autonomy they need to deliver for their areas.

Single settlements represent an ambitious step on the road to greater simplification of the funding that GMCA and WMCA receive from central government. The Government’s ambition is to roll this model out to all areas in England with a devolution deal and a directly elected leader over time. These trailblazers will act as a blueprint for deepening devolution elsewhere in England. We will begin talks with other institutions on deeper devolution this year. The Government will set out more plans for those talks soon.

The noble Lord will know from his time in local government, and in this place, that power cannot be passed without clear accountability. That too is crucial for effective and transparent local democracy and is why a crucial part of our work to bring decision-making closer to the people is developing a strong accountability framework. The Government published the English Devolution Accountability Framework in March this year. This sets out how areas with devolution deals will be scrutinised and held to account through local scrutiny by the public and by the Government. The accountability framework will empower local residents and provide them with confidence that devolution is leading to developments in their area. We also published new scrutiny arrangements for the trailblazer deals, to match the ambition of the powers agreed with Mayors Andy Street and Andy Burnham. This includes a model for assurance to cover the new single departmental-style funding settlement.

With great devolved power comes great responsibility. We have agreed with local government mechanisms to ensure that local leaders and institutions are transparent and accountable, work closely with local businesses, seek the best value for taxpayers’ money and maintain strong ethical standards.

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

Will those accountability agreements also be in reverse? In my experience with the high streets fund and the stronger towns fund, a lot of the delays happened at the central government end and there has then been no flex at the local end, so we have lost 18 months’ delivery time. Accountability must be both ways.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

I agree with the right reverend Prelate that accountability is at both ends. In my experience, if there is good local leadership in the local authority that can communicate well with the government departments, it can help things, but he raises a very important point and if we can avoid those delays, working both ways is exactly the way to do it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, asked a couple of questions on local government structures. The English Devolution Accountability Framework, published in March, sets out how areas with devolution deals will be scrutinised and held to account through local scrutiny by the public and by the Government.

Through its accountability framework, the Government have committed to review how current scrutiny and accountability arrangements in London are operating in practice, exploring the strengths and challenges of the capital’s devolution settlement, and how the Greater London Authority works with London’s boroughs. This will be aimed at sharing best practice, learning lessons for other mayoral authorities and considering how current scrutiny arrangements may need to evolve over time.

I will also mention the abolition of the Audit Commission. We are establishing the Office for Local Government, a new data-focused performance body for local government which will increase transparency of local government performance and improve the accountability of performance across the local government sector. There is a need to have the appropriate checks and balances in the system; Oflog will support others to interpret performance data and take action on it, particularly where the data shows early warning signs of failure.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Is the intention that Oflog will do the financial audit?

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

That is the case. In conclusion, we recognise the importance of local democracy, and that devolution is essential for flourishing local democracy. Devolution is a process, not a moment, and the country continues to see the model evolve and the benefits it brings. I thank again the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for bringing forward this debate, and all noble Lords for their contributions today and their service as councillors. I look forward to continuing our discussions on local government in England as we continue our efforts to put power in the hands of local people.

[The Lord Bishop of Durham]

I apologise, but I did ask a specific question about the use of citizens’ assemblies, which the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, was kind enough to support. I wonder if the Minister would like to comment.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

Do forgive me. I do not have a specific answer, but from my experience I can confirm that citizens’ assemblies certainly have a role to play in communities, together with strong parish, local and unitary councils. If the right reverend Prelate would like me to write to him confirming that, I can certainly do so.