Liz McInnes
Main Page: Liz McInnes (Labour - Heywood and Middleton)Elected Mayors
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Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) for doing a sterling job in opening this important debate and for highlighting the very real concerns that exist not just in his area but, as the Minister well knows, right across the country in relation to the Government’s imposition of a mayor as part of devolution bids and deals.
The Chancellor—it is the Treasury not the Department for Communities and Local Government that is leading on the deals—has made it clear from day one that an elected mayor is a prerequisite condition for the devolution of major powers. It is the price that he has demanded for giving more control to local areas. Although individual areas were promised bespoke deals by the Government, there has been little room for manoeuvre.
The whole point of devolution, as the Minister knows, was to move away from over-centralised governance, to open up that dialogue between central and local government on what works best for each area. Yet, from the outset the discussions have been delivered in a top-down fashion, with the Government holding council leaders to ransom, threatening them with no deal if they do not yield to the Chancellor’s will. It is little wonder, then, that the Cheshire and Warrington devolution deal, and also the north-east, East Anglia, greater Lincolnshire and west of England deals, have all stalled, citing concerns regarding the Government’s imposition of a mayor.
It is not just council leaders and their councillors, however, who are expressing concerns. The Communities and Local Government Committee and a recent National Audit Office report have given weight to the legitimate criticisms that are coming up time and time again. The criticisms are about the insistence on an elected mayor, about local geography, transparency and accountability and, more importantly, about the deals being totally void of public consultation. The principle of elected mayors as a means of providing visible leadership and accountability is one thing, but imposing them is a totally different matter. Local areas should be free to decide whether an elected mayor is the right model of governance for them.
Similarly, the way in which the boundaries have been carved up in the geography of the devolution deals has bewildered many local people. Boroughs that have an affinity with other boroughs because of shared issues and identities have been passed over for devolution deals, while areas that have completely different issues, aims and objectives have all been lumped together.
I know that the Minister is not daft, so he must understand that what works for one area does not always work for the other.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
If the devolution agenda is to move forward and be successful, there is an urgent need for some flexibility to allow local areas to adapt governance models to suit their own geographical and political circumstances.
It is also true that elected Mayors in two-tier areas are in danger of creating five layers of local governance. Add to that the undemocratically elected local enterprise partnerships, and we have a complex, overly bureaucratic, costly system of representation that will render the public absolutely dizzy figuring out where to go for which service and who is accountable when things go wrong.
I want the Minister to come clean. The truth is that the Chancellor has his own political master plan, an agenda that has nothing to do with bringing power and decision making closer to people but a desperate and devious plan to neutralise Labour-held councils, to position himself as the creator of a so-called northern powerhouse, and to strike alliances with Labour mayors or try to massage the geography of the deals to increase the chances of a Tory mayor presiding over what were once predominantly Labour areas.
Devolution for this Government is local government reorganisation through the back door and delegation of blame for their own cuts to the combined authorities. I hope that the Minister will provide some clarity in his response, and if there is only one question that he feels able to answer, can it be this: why, despite the myriad dissenting voices of the public, trade unions, councillors, experts, Select Committees and people in this place—even in his own party—is there a rushed insistence on mayors?