Jon Trickett
Main Page: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]
Jon Trickett Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords], notwithstanding the need for devolution to local communities, because the Bill does not offer meaningful devolution to England and would leave behind England’s town, county and shire regions, ignores the will of the people by imposing mayors as a condition of devolution, threatens the financial stability of local government by not offering a fair funding settlement, and fails to reshape central Government for a long-term commitment to devolution.
This is an important Bill and it arises at an important moment in our country’s political arrangements. The Secretary of State was at his charming best. He has a reputation for being a very charming individual, and he did his best to charm the House, but I am not sure he convinced the House, and I will explain why in a minute. I am afraid, although I do like to create consensus, coming from Yorkshire I feel I ought to add a little Yorkshire grit.
The Secretary of State has convinced me that he means well and he believes in devolution, and so do we, but unlike him we would do it from the bottom up, rather than have a top-down model of imposition. We would also search for a more comprehensive model, rather than a piecemeal one, as in this Bill. Finally, we would be much bolder, because particularly in England there is a huge democratic deficit and we need to understand better this English problem. Rather than tackling it piecemeal, as the Government are trying to do, we would take a wholesale approach. That is the model we are going to set out.
John Redwood
Can the hon. Gentleman explain how we can have both a comprehensive solution and only do it bottom-up on the basis of the wishes of people?
Jon Trickett
It is easy: we will launch, hopefully with other parties, a constitutional convention that will try to reach out into every village, church hall, town hall, city hall and every part of the country to test the arguments about a new settlement for Britain, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will join us and others in looking again at the political arrangements of the country.
Several hon. Members rose—
Jon Trickett
I will take two or three interventions and will then move on, because we have to give Back Benchers an opportunity to make their contributions.
Robert Neill
Can I take it from what the hon. Gentleman has said that under no circumstances will any future Labour Government seek to reintroduce imposed regional assemblies, imposed regional planning or imposed tough binding targets for housing or any other matter on any English local authority, or any form of capping?
Jon Trickett
We will engage in a national debate from the bottom up, using the constitutional convention, which has been used in other countries, to try to create a new framework for Britain.
Joan Ryan
May I take my hon. Friend back to an issue that was raised with the Secretary of State: Sunday trading? I should say that I speak as a proud member of USDAW, the shop workers union. It is very concerned about the possibility that the Government will tack on to the end of this Bill at a later stage a change to the Sunday Trading Act 1994 that will benefit nobody, does not create jobs and harms millions of shop workers and damages our community day off—Sunday. Will my hon. Friend commit that he will resist that and will ensure that if that happens we will have a full and proper debate?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Before the shadow Minister continues, may I say that interventions must be very short? Members are expecting to be called to speak. There will shortly be a six-minute limit; the way we are going, we will have to drop it to three minutes. I do not want to do that; I want to get everybody in. So we want fewer interventions, and speedy replies may help as well.
Jon Trickett
I do give that commitment to my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan).
Several hon. Members rose—
Jon Trickett
I will also try to make some progress before giving way again, because I have only got to the second paragraph of my speech so far.
When I first opened the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill, I did so with a momentary tremor of excitement. I asked myself whether this Bill was going to give the great English cities, but equally the market towns, the villages, the country areas and shire districts, a real settlement and real power over their futures. I wondered whether this would be an ambitious Bill that would deliver for England, in all its complexity, the devolution a Labour Government enacted for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London. I wondered whether this would be a Bill that gave people up and down the land, from 16 years of age and upwards, the chance to have a real say in how they are governed.
I read the Bill carefully, and with all due respect I have to ask: may I offer the Secretary of State some private advice, just between the two of us? He should recall the old political truth that hubris is always followed by nemesis. We English, certainly in Yorkshire, have a different way of capturing the same idea: we say “pride comes before a fall.” In this Bill, the Government are displaying a breath-taking level of highhanded treatment of our council colleagues.
In a democracy, we who hold power at the centre should never forget that authority flows up from below, rather than being imposed from above. The sad truth is the Bill offers a pretence at devolution. I will give five reasons why.
Let me come straight to the first and most central point. The Secretary of State did not reveal the whole picture in his answer on metro mayors. The truth is that metro mayors in local areas are a precondition of devolution, and that is simply wrong. It is doubly wrong when that imposition is applied even to areas where the local population voted only recently in a referendum to reject the idea of being governed by a mayor. The people of the great cities of Sheffield, Leeds, Wakefield, Manchester, Bradford, Birmingham, Coventry, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Nottingham voted against metro mayors, yet the leaders of those cities tell me that as a condition of devolution they are now being required to accept something their own electorate rejected. That is triply wrong when the Government continue to impose this single model of governance even though they do not have the legal powers to do so.
In the other place a crucial amendment was passed that decoupled the imposition of mayors in urban areas from devolution deals. I was disappointed that the Secretary of State did not in his speech have the grace to say that the Government will now accept this amendment, which was backed by peers of all parties, including many distinguished Conservative peers.
Furthermore, in a powerful article in today’s The Daily Telegraph—essential reading for the Labour party—the Conservative hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady), who is in his seat now, puts it well, and perhaps better than I could:
“Devolving power but telling people how to exercise it, jars: if the deal is as good as we are being told, why not put it to a vote?”
Barbara Keeley
Perhaps some cross-party consensus could break out here, because I feel sure that if we had had a vote in Greater Manchester, which has always rejected the idea of a metro mayor across the whole of Greater Manchester, it would not have gone through, because every constituent part, with the recent exception of Salford, has voted against that.
Jon Trickett
I agree, and my hon. Friend makes the point I am making.
I have received strong representations in recent weeks from those who advocate that where a devolution deal includes an elected mayor, it is only right that a local referendum of voters takes place and it decides in favour of it. What we have at the moment is mayors being imposed where the referendum voted against. In the vast majority of the devolution deals that have been done since 1997, referendums were held to endorse constitutional settlements—in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and London. Why should there not be a referendum for the northern powerhouse? There is merit in such an argument, and we will make sure that we test it in Committee.
Where there are to be mayors, the House must carefully consider appropriate systems of accountability and scrutiny, as Members on both sides have said. In the other place, Labour supported amendments to improve the audit of mayors. In Committee here, there will be much more to discuss. In London, the Mayor is directly accountable to a directly elected Assembly. Should not that model apply elsewhere?
Mr Ivan Lewis
Will my hon. Friend confirm that it is my party’s position that we massively believe in the transfer of power from Whitehall and Westminster to local authorities and communities? Will he pay tribute to the leadership of the many Labour councils, particularly those in Greater Manchester but also in other areas, that have innovated and pioneered devolution to provide higher-quality public services more effectively?
Jon Trickett
Of course; I said at the beginning of my speech that we are a pro-devolution party, but we want a comprehensive settlement. The people who must not be excluded from any new settlement are the citizens. The citizens of Greater Manchester should be part of any settlement. Indeed, where possible, power should be passed down to those citizens through what the former Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), has described as double devolution.
The programme motion allocates only two and a half hours in Committee—albeit on the Floor of the House—to debate all the amendments on the powers, functions and reporting mechanisms of any mayor who happens to be elected. That is clearly inadequate for such discussions.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the provisions relating to elected mayors in clause 3? Subsection (2) states:
“An order under subsection (1) shall not be used as a condition for agreeing to the transfer of local authority or public authority functions.”
Subsection (3) goes on:
“A mayor for the area of a combined authority is to be elected by the local government electors for that area”.
Does not that provide sufficient cover for what the hon. Gentleman is asking for?
Jon Trickett
Every one of the leaders I have spoken to—they have been negotiating with the Treasury, by the way, rather than with the Department for Communities and Local Government—has told me that, despite their objections, they have been told that they cannot have devolution unless they agree to a new form of governance, namely a metro mayor. That may or may not be what is on the face of the Bill, and we will see what the Government do in Committee and what amendments are tabled, but the truth is that this is a fait accompli. A single model has been imposed from on high. I invite Conservative Members to reflect on whether the only possible model for city and town governance involves a directly elected mayor with no accountability to a wider assembly. That is a presidential, not a parliamentary, model of governance, and it is anathema to the British constitution.
Mr Gareth Thomas
Charming as the Secretary of State might be, he nevertheless gave wind to the prejudice that lurks in one or two minds outside London that the capital has all the power and all the wealth. I know that my hon. Friend is bigger than that. Will he therefore acknowledge that, in the face of an acute housing crisis, Londoners recognise that more devolution needs to be given to the Mayor and the London Assembly so that we can properly tackle that crisis? For example, might my hon. Friend support an amendment to the Bill that would give London the same opportunities to control housing legislation that Scotland and Wales currently have?
Jon Trickett
We would look carefully at any amendment that was presented to us. The point I want to make is that the old days of a Westminster-based elite cooking up deals and imposing them on cities and other areas are over. It is time we consulted the people and engaged in a wider conversation, but that is precisely what the Government are avoiding.
Mr Betts
I have a lot of sympathy with the points that my hon. Friend is making about the imposition of elected mayors. Recognising that we will eventually need to move to a wider settlement, perhaps through a constitutional convention, does he accept that in the meantime it is not our party’s position to stand in the way of devolution deals to our colleagues in local government, particularly in major cities including Sheffield and Manchester?
Jon Trickett
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that local government leaders should not be directed by those on the Front Bench. If they feel that something can be done in a deal with the Government that will be beneficial to the community, they should do it. Equally, it is our duty to express opposition to the way in which this is being imposed on local government. I have spoken to council leaders in south Yorkshire, where my hon. Friend is a distinguished Member of Parliament, and they have told me that this deal is being imposed on them.
The second reason that the Bill is a pretence at devolution involves the wider context of local government finance. In a comprehensive Bill, there should surely be clauses regarding the way in which local government can be funded to make it more autonomous and less dependent on the centre, but the reverse is the case here. There should also be clauses regarding fair funding, as the cuts in recent years have been concentrated on the urban areas. We know that the Chancellor manipulated the formula for the benefit of certain areas in a way that was politically beneficial to the interests of the governing party.
The truth is that the Secretary of State is not devolving financial power, or any power. He is delegating Treasury cuts. What the Government give in pennies, they take back in pounds. Since 2010, local government in England and Wales has lost 40% of its funding. Now every children’s centre, every fire station, every care home, every nursery, every pensioner waiting for a bus, every youngster looking forward to attending a youth club on a Friday night and everybody of any age whose horizons are widened by public libraries—they and many others are anxiously waiting not for this Bill but for 25 November, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer will announce his spending review.
The Tory-led Local Government Association is expecting further cuts to local authorities of up to an additional 40%. That is on top of the cuts that have already taken place. Cuts on that scale make a mockery of the Secretary of State offering further devolution. This is the delegation of cuts, not the devolution of powers.
I have already referred to the wise words of the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West in that excellent journal, The Daily Telegraph. It has to be said that that paper has been on a roll this week. Yesterday, a report by its political editor stated:
“As many as four Cabinet ministers, including Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, and Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary”,—
and two others, unnamed—
“have so far refused to submit to the Treasury plans to cut their departments by as much as 40 per cent.”
I put it to the House that the anti-austerity case that my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has been pursuing has now extended to members of the Conservative Cabinet. It seems to have wider cross-party support than was first feared. But wait a minute! That same article reports that the Business Secretary and the Justice Secretary are “enthusiastically” preparing for massive cuts to their Departments. The House is entitled to ask what side of this dividing line our Secretary of State stands on. There is no mention of him in the article. Is he fighting the corner for those fire stations, libraries, care homes, students and nurseries? Or is he, like the Business Secretary and the Justice Secretary, “enthusiastically” anticipating cuts on a historically unprecedented scale?
Jon Trickett
In giving way to the hon. Gentleman, I invite him to tell us whether he supports the cuts that have already taken place in his local authority, as well as those that are going to take place in the next three years. I am sure that his local paper would be interested to hear this views on that.
Jon Trickett
I notice that the hon. Gentleman did not answer my question.
The Bill ought to include reference to proper financial autonomy and to fresh financial arrangements for local government. Anything that pretends to offer devolution with one hand while retaining the power to control finances with the other is nothing more than an iron fist in a velvet glove.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is making an important point about local government finance. Certainly, the two councils in my constituency are suffering very badly from the reductions in funding. Does he also recognise that, with the devolution of powers such as health, there is a complex situation starting to develop in which health budgets are ring-fenced, except public health, which has been top sliced, and adult social care, which has been decimated? There is still an overall budget deficit in the health and care system.
Jon Trickett
That emphasises my point. As much as the Bill may offer a form of devolution, the truth is that whenever financial decisions are made by the Treasury, true devolution will not be achieved. That is what should be in the Bill, and that is why the point I am making is so important.
My third reason for why the Bill is not satisfactory refers to something that is happening at No.11. It was announced at conference that business rates are to change, which must be a good thing, but, as always, the devil is in the detail. No clear announcement was made about how the redistribution between richer and poorer councils would take place. Some £26 billion is collected in business rates, £2 billion of which goes to Westminster council. We need more information in the Bill about how such a scheme will work. Let me say to Members, many of whom represent suburban areas in London, seaside towns, rural communities, shire districts, market towns and all the wonderful places that make up England, that they should be seeking answers to these questions. The Bill is silent on all these matters.
Fourthly, the Bill threatens to do a great disservice to the very backbone of England and English democracy. It is a puzzle to me why a Tory Secretary of State should ignore this. The market towns, the county villages, the shire counties, the county towns, the suburbs and some of the smaller freestanding cities are the backbone of England—the great cities are wonderful, but they are not the backbone—and they have been offered a second-class form of devolution. Why should that be? I was once privileged to lead the great city of Leeds, which is one of the most powerful economic and cultural engines in the north, and even in England. Indeed, the renaissance of English cities, mostly under Labour control, has been one of the great successes of the past 20 years—I have always thought that this should be added to the checklist of the enduring achievements of Labour in government—but this Bill risks neglecting all the areas that are not in those great urban centres. The potential for growth and enterprise lies elsewhere in England, which is a rich, diverse country that we all love. The Bill is almost silent on the matter. The Chancellor’s ambassadors who were running around the country did not bother to call in to the market towns and the shire towns of the country; they went to the big cities.
The bottom line for me is that the same powers should be on offer to both urban and rural areas of England. For example, whatever powers are available to metro mayors to raise business rates—by the way, it will not be possible to raise business rates unless an area has a metro mayor—should also be available to the smaller towns and the rest of England, too.
Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman should be aware of the recent Cornwall deal, which deals with the very heart of the rural communities; it is not all about the big cities. The Prime Minister himself delivered that deal to the very rural area of Cornwall.
Jon Trickett
As everybody in local government knows, the truth is that the Treasury deals with the big cities. The big cities are where the glamour is and where the general direction of this Bill is. Other areas have been left to the lesser actors within the Government. It may be that, in some areas, the best way to promote connectivity and economic growth and to establish devolved institutions that reflect the identities and culture of the locality is to have a combined authority. Let me take Yorkshire and Humber as an example. My own view—I am not going to impose anything because we do not believe in imposition—is that Yorkshire has the strongest identity and is the most obvious economic unit. It is a great shame that the Government’s consultation process did not allow ordinary citizens of the county to be engaged in a debate about the county’s own future.
As with other proposals in the Bill, the only people excluded from having a view are the electorate themselves. That brings me to the final weakness in the Government’s proposals, which is their complete failure to consult the public, businesses and the wider civic society. What happened to the big society? Leaders of councils from all parties have basically had to enter negotiations with the Treasury, and we all know that it is the Treasury and not the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government that is conducting these negotiations. The leaders have all entered into the negotiations with a gun held to their head. They either do devolution Whitehall’s way or it will not happen at all.
Council leaders have had to do the best they can for their areas, but it is noticeable that they and others are beginning to become more vocal in their concerns about this whole top-down process. For example, the great newspapers of the north-west, including the Manchester Evening News, The Bolton News, the Wigan Evening Post and the Oldham Evening Chronicle, have taken an unprecedented united stance in campaigning for a fair devolution deal. They are asking not only for the necessary funds to make devolution a reality, but for no more closed-door decision making. A basic flaw of the Bill is that there is no list of the powers that central Government seek to devolve. That is because, in reality, the whole agenda is being driven by Downing Street.
Let me briefly return to my opening remarks about hubris. It sounds like we all believe in devolution, but Labour are determined to make it happen. We will seek to work with those of other parties and those of no party who share the same objective. The past few weeks—I have spoken to leaders about what has happened over the past few weeks—have seen the demeaning process of the Chancellor’s emissaries dashing round the country meeting leaders in private, attempting to strong arm local councillors into so-called devolution deals for which there is as yet no statutory basis. I am sorry to say this but the Secretary of State, as charming as he is, has been little more than a passive observer. He was not even in the room. I fully understand why councillors will engage in these negotiations, and indeed some progress has been made—it is right that I should acknowledge that. However, we are not convinced that the Bill incorporates all the necessary safeguards to be supported in its present form, and that it is sufficiently bold or radical in resolving the English problems.
Barbara Keeley
It is noteworthy that national organisations, such as the British Medical Association and the Nuffield Trust, are very concerned about the health proposals, and the Minister should take that on board. They have expressed concerns about how health powers and resources will be devolved. The matter is not clear. This is an area where there are already variations in funding, in standards of care and in the way NHS funding is used. This is a question for the Minister. What will national pledges and targets mean in future when there are shared budgets? It was forced on Greater Manchester, which is why none of it is clear.
Jon Trickett
My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is why we need a comprehensive settlement to the constitutional and political problems facing our country. Clearly, there is a role for a central, active Government, but not for a bureaucratic top-down Government. Some decisions do need to be made nationally to ensure that there is no postcode lottery, especially in the health service and other areas. On the other hand, decisions should be made as close as possible by the people themselves.
Let me finish on the following point. Rather than remaking the shape of our democracy, the Bill is more about remaking the image of the Chancellor as he prepares to become the Tory party leader. In their present form, the deals that are being made will prove to be no more than a short-term fix. Most of them will not endure in the longer term. We will seek to amend the Bill, but would it not be preferable, even at this late stage, for the Secretary of State to agree to put aside the Bill for a period of time and join with us and others in the hard but necessary task of rebuilding our constitution and our political culture on a consensual basis from the bottom up? This Bill is a top-down imposition on local democracy.