Draft Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority Order 2017

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2017 General Committees

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I am pleased that we are discussing another devolution deal that is coming to fruition and that the local authorities in the areas consent to the proposals, which is why we are discussing them today.

Perhaps we need to go a bit further back to see why we are here at all. This was part of a wider devolution deal involving 22 councils across the East Anglia area. That came from the Government trying to impose their vision of what a devolved settlement could be, with extremely high bars for what was and was not acceptable, and extremely high expectations about direct accountability in a way that we do not see in Parliament. Rightly, councillors in the area were not happy with the settlement. People said, “Why are you expecting more from a local authority in terms of accountability than you expect from the UK Parliament?” We do not have a directly elected Prime Minister or Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Secretary of State, who continues to build his power base through a number of Bills that are coming through, is not directly elected either. However, for posts with a fraction of that power, the Government are demanding that direct elections take place in areas across the country. Moreover, they are demanding that the construct of those combined authority areas bears little relationship to community identity or historical partnership working in those areas.

There was a great deal of sense in Greater Manchester, which has a long history of working together, and not just before the county was disbanded, but since with the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities. Incrementally, ever more joint working was taking place and people were coming together. That is not the case in a great deal of the combined authority arrangements that are being introduced. They are very much artificial constructs that have been bolted together to try to justify the scale of devolution that the Government want. I repeat my fears from previous statutory instrument Committees: turnout could well be affected by people not having a connection to the posts being imposed.

I commend the councils in the area concerned for the consultation that was carried out. It had 4,000 responses, which is significantly more than we have seen in other areas, as was referred to in the councils’ summary document. However, there is a lot of cynicism about what the Mayor could be and what powers will really be devolved. We talk a lot about the devolution of schools—that has been covered in detail in reports in the public domain—but almost nothing has been said about the fact that education responsibilities are being taken away from the same seven local authorities in those areas. The Government need to clarify whether they are really willing to let go in order to let areas develop their own public services and economies, or whether the centre still wants to grab control back from local areas.

I am pleased to see that Cambridge City Council has managed to secure money in the devolution deal; the documentation that we have seen states explicitly that £70 million will be spent on a new generation of council housing. Many Labour councils throughout the country will look at that with a degree of jealousy, because many of them have consistently been restricted and blocked by the Government from bringing in new generations of council housing.

I have a number of questions for the Minister. First, is there a real desire to see genuine devolution of education, skills and training to local authorities? Will that include the reversal of the centralising nature of education in this country? Will the powers gifted under this devolution agreement be offered more widely, so that other areas can be given the opportunity and the funding to build a new generation of council housing?

Moreover, will the Government commit in the very near future—next week would be a good time, if the Minister has time on his hands after we deal with business rates this week—to introducing a framework of devolution in England that is clearly understood and available for all? There is now a significant kickback from areas—not just urban areas but Conservative shires—that do not feel that devolution is on offer to them, either because their community does not meet the requirements for a directly elected Mayor or because the artificial construct of a combined authority does not meet their aspirations for their areas or local economies. We cannot have a vision for a devolved England if we do not have a framework for it.

I ask the Minister to clarify those points. We do not intend to vote against the draft order. In the spirit of championing devolution, we look forward to seeing more devolved settlements in future.

[Andrew Percy]

It is always a delight to debate the future of devolution and the position of the Mayor with the shadow Minister, as we have done when considering every single such statutory instrument, and as we probably will when we debate the next draft order this afternoon. I welcome what I think is his tacit support for the deal and I will try to respond briefly to his points.

The shadow Minister compared the directly elected Mayor with the UK Parliament. As I keep making clear whenever we debate these statutory instruments, and as I will no doubt have to keep making clear in future such debates, the difference is that Parliament is elected from across the whole United Kingdom and is accountable for the decisions made throughout the country, whereas for these devolution deals there is nobody elected from or accountable for the entire geography of the area. When maximum powers and budgets are being devolved—shared funding is an example—we insist on having somebody accountable for and elected by the whole area, which would not be the case if we simply left it up to the combined authorities. His analogy with Parliament falls down at that point.

The shadow Minister spoke about the history of local authorities working closely together in Manchester. Manchester is probably the best example in England of authorities working together over a long period. For the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough deal, we have had to apply the statutory tests, which require that the area covers a functional economic area and that it improves the function and exercise of statutory powers. Both of those tests have been met. He also spoke about the scale of devolution. All I will say about that is that we have an investment fund of £20 million a year, a £100 million housing and infrastructure fund and a £70 million fund specifically ring-fenced for Cambridge City Council. That is substantial and very real devolution.

The shadow Minister asked about skills funding. As he will be aware from previous debates, a number of deals include the devolution of post-16 or post-19 skills funding. As one would expect, there is still a national policy on our education system, but the two do not necessarily run contrary to each other. We have made good on our pledges on devolution in the area of skills.

[Jim McMahon]

Does the Minister agree that there could be a compromise position? We could meet the objectives of having regional schools commissioners and of having devolved arrangements by allowing the boundaries for regional schools commissioners to be coterminous with those for combined authorities.