Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

I suggest to the House that those of us who believe passionately in recreating a form of local administration that is modern, of a scale and accountable, comparable with the battles we have to fight on an international scale, should not constrain it with the same sorts of problems that have bedevilled the existing structure, which we broadly know has to be replaced.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, is perhaps the best-qualified special adviser ever to have occupied that position. He is a unique spad, but that is no reflection on the legions of other spads who have found their way into positions in your Lordships’ House or elsewhere.

With great respect to the noble Lord, his argument is not entirely convincing. On his argument, we should have an elected Prime Minister rather than an elected Parliament. Perhaps that might not be a bad idea in the circumstances but as a matter of principle I would not have thought that he would subscribe to that. When he talks about the legitimacy of an elected mayor, he seems to overlook the turnout in the most important mayoral elections of all, in London. As I recall, that has varied between 35% and 45%—marginally above the average local authority election turnout, which I guess is in the upper 30s and lower 40s. That does not suggest that that office has any greater legitimacy than that of council leaders.

I ought to refer to my local government interests. Like the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, I have been leader of Newcastle City Council. There are other very experienced council leaders around the Chamber, although not, I think, on the Government Benches—apart from the Minister, of course, who has her own brief to deliver—although there are experienced local government members of the Conservative Party in your Lordships’ House from time to time.

The noble Lord also implies that somehow the people are being consulted, but that is not what is happening. They are not going to be consulted. The offer apparently will be made that, “You will have a certain set of powers providing you have an elected mayor but we are not going to ask you to vote on whether or not you have an elected mayor”—perhaps because all but one of the authorities that chose to have referendums a few years ago decided against it, and perhaps also in the light of the turnout in the elections for the other post that was much bruited by the present Administration, elected police commissioners, where the turnout was even more risible than that for elected mayors in London.

The noble Lord’s support for local government in various forms has manifested itself over the years and I do not for a moment take away any of the credit that he deserves for his interest in and support for local government, although he himself admits it was somewhat qualified by the circumstances of the day. But I do not think that what he is suggesting is acceptable, in the sense that we are going to have effectively two tiers of local government across the country or across such parts of the country that do the deal that the Government are offering to them. I do not think that division of local government is going to reinforce local democracy; I think it will weaken local democracy.

Local government is essentially place based. The problem with some of this is that whereas there are major functions which need a wider canvas, as it were, to be dealt with—one thinks of transport, elements of economic development and the like—other services are intrinsically local and much more closely community related. I repeat what I said in an earlier debate about size. The Norfolk area, as we heard, runs 70 miles from north to south. It is greater in the north-east, embodying in the North East Combined Authority two county areas and five metropolitan districts—not a single city, not even just a city region but a complicated set of areas like that; and the same will apply in other parts of the country where this might take place—and that will devalue the immediacy of local government and the community-based services of local government, and that would be a blow to our general democracy.

It would be unfortunate if the line that the noble Lord has argued was to be adopted, in the sense that you would get a deal only if you accept that. I do not entirely concur with everything the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, says but I think there is merit in much of his argument and I fear that the case put by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, frankly overstates the democratic element, which we want to see conserved and, indeed, improved in local government.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, I have developed huge respect for the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, over the years following the work that he did in Liverpool Toxteth and his overseeing of that very significant project, which I was able to visit some 25 years ago. But I want to speak specifically to the wording in this amendment because I am unable to understand why the noble Lord takes exception to it. Amendment 3 says:

“The Secretary of State may”—

I stress, may—

“refuse to make an order under subsection (1) if he believes that the proposal made by the appropriate authorities … does not provide sufficient democratic accountability … does not have the support of local authority electors … or … would risk the proper functioning of local government”.

It does not say that the Secretary of State will refuse if the proposal made by the authorities does not provide sufficient democratic accountability. All that is happening here is that the Secretary of State is being given discretion to make a judgment, based on whatever information is brought before them. They are not required to do so because suddenly the electorate in an area are saying, “We demand that this procedure does not take place”. It is for the Secretary of State to make a judgment and to use his or her discretion. If the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, had read the amendment in that light, I would have thought that he may have taken a more flexible view of it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, it is not an imposition. It has to be agreed. The Secretary of State does not want to impose anything on anyone, but he does want to see full accountability for the full devolution of powers.

[Lord Beecham]

You go into a shop and there are two items for sale. One of them has a price tag—the price in this case is a mayoral authority—and the other is a different, cheaper item. If you want the bottle with mayoral authority, you have to pay that price. Is that not the position? In that sense, there is not really a choice, is there?