Draft Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield Combined Authority (Election of Mayor) Order 2016
Debate between Grahame Morris and Sarah Champion(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Grahame M. Morris
I have been called many things, Mr Gray, but rarely that. However, I am grateful for the advice.
The names of the regions in these devolution packages are often a misnomer. The Sheffield city region covers diverse areas, all with unique identities. This very narrow order will affect nine areas: Barnsley, Bassetlaw, Bolsover, Chesterfield, the Derbyshire Dales, Doncaster, North East Derbyshire, Rotherham and Sheffield. I understand those named on the order are currently full members of the combined authority, with the other five as associate members that will not participate in the election of the mayor. I ask for some clarification on that point. I appreciate that the Minister is brand-new in post, so if he cannot give the answer now, perhaps he can clarify by letter.
I am advised that Chesterfield and Bassetlaw are seeking full membership of the combined authority. Will the Minister outline the implications of today’s order? If these two areas become part of the combined authority, would they automatically form part of the electorate for the mayoralty?
The Sheffield combined area is home to more than 1.8 million people, with 55,000 businesses employing some 700,000 people and an economic output of more than £30 billion a year. The Opposition welcome any investment from the Government to our regions—including the Sheffield city region—and that includes the £30 million a year as part of this devolution deal. However, as my hon. Friends the Members for Rotherham, for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough and for Penistone and Stocksbridge have indicated, our concern is that this is new and additional money, and not simply a rebadging of existing resources.
Returning to the issue of resources, this must be put into context as regards directed cuts to the councils that make up the new city region. Local authorities in the area have had to deal with around £635 million of cuts. I am confident the Sheffield city region will use the new powers over education, skills, business support, transport and planning that the Minister outlined to boost economic activity in the region. However, there are serious difficulties with politically empowering a directly elected mayor while financially impoverishing local government.
The Minister’s predecessor coined a phrase—or we discussed it in Committee on the last statutory instrument on these matters—that this is a process rather than an event. However, if the mayor, who according to the order is due to take up office in 2017 for a three-year term, is not empowered financially and the local authorities he is working with in the combined authority are not, that will cause huge problems. This is only the start and I know that local Members of Parliament and the Sheffield city region are eager to go further and faster when it comes to devolution. I hope that further devolution, along with the finances to give it real substance, can be achieved in the not too distant future.
I do not want to sound like a broken record, but I think that it is important to point out for the record that I, on behalf of my party, must restate my opposition to the imposition of mayors in return for devolution deals. The public have had the opportunity to express their views on directly elected mayors. I point out to the Minister that in 2012 the Government held a referendum in Sheffield on this issue and 65% rejected the idea. However, I also acknowledge that on the same day Doncaster held a referendum on whether to retain its directly elected mayor and 61.7% supported that proposition. The Opposition neither oppose nor support directly elected mayors; we believe that, as we have seen from previous referendums, local communities are best placed to organise and arrange the systems of governance that are most suited to their needs. I have discovered from 16 years in local government that if you try to be prescriptive and, in particular, to apply models that work in the metropolitan areas in London to the regions, they do not necessarily work. We have to have the local flexibility to apply models that work in particular areas.
Sarah Champion
Does my hon. Friend agree that the deal on the table is very much like the ones that my schools are being presented with: they either become an academy or we will make them an academy? The sweeteners seem to be real, but when it comes to the detail it is not new money at all.
Grahame M. Morris
That is a very real concern, which I hope the Minister will address. It is a feature of this specific SI and the resource period that we are dealing with, given the elected mayor’s term of office from May 2017 to 2020.
In conclusion, will the Minister explain why the Government chose to consult the electorate on mayors in 2012, but will now insist on them as a precondition of these devolution deals? I believe the Minister should trust the electorate and if he believes in elected mayors so passionately, he should make the case to the public rather than reaching agreements with the exclusion of the public.