Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Jon Trickett and Baroness Keeley

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett]

The hon. Gentleman will not get away with that. The truth is that this Chancellor has been in charge of the nation’s finances for six years and he now wants to wash his hands of the mess he is making of the economy.

I was talking about an ethical hole at the Government’s core. We still remember Conservative Members cheering last Wednesday. They thought it was okay to rob the benefits of the most vulnerable for the purpose of cutting taxes for the better-off. It is not only the cuts to the welfare budget that illustrate the Government’s willingness to attack the poor; it is also the cuts to local government. Furthermore, the way in which the cuts are being distributed across local government equally illustrates the ethical hole that I have described. Those councils that face the greatest social needs are now suffering the greatest grant reductions.

[Barbara Keeley]

The Secretary of State would not give way to answer questions on social care, and that is unfair because it is a key responsibility. He keeps trotting out the usual figure of £3.5 billion, but that is a false premise because the Local Government Association wanted £700 million to cover the two years that will not be covered by the better care fund. My local authority can bring in £1.6 million from the 2% social care precept but it is going to cost £2.7 million to pay for the national living wage in the care sector. That is the sort of gap that we are faced with.

[Jon Trickett]

My hon. Friend is right. I shall come to that point shortly.

Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

Debate between Jon Trickett and Baroness Keeley

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[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?

--- Later in debate ---

[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.