Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority Order 2017

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

That the draft Order laid before the House on 23 January be approved.

Relevant document: 24th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, the draft order that we are considering, if approved and made, will establish a combined authority with an elected mayor for the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough area. It will also confer important new powers on both the mayor and the combined authority. The Government have, of course, already made significant progress in delivering their manifesto commitment to devolve far-reaching powers and budgets to combined authorities in England that choose to have directly elected mayors. Since the first devolution deal with Greater Manchester was agreed in November 2014, we have passed the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016, which provides new powers for the Secretary of State by order to devolve to a combined authority a Secretary of State function, and confer on a combined authority any functions of a public authority.

I remind noble Lords that Parliament has approved orders establishing combined authority mayors in Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, Sheffield City Region, West Midlands, the Tees Valley and, most recently, the West of England. Parliament has also approved an order conferring additional functions on the Greater Manchester Combined Authority covering planning, transport and skills. Furthermore, orders conferring functions on other combined authorities have been laid before Parliament, to be considered imminently.

This order gives life to the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough devolution deal, agreed between local leaders and the Government. We are taking forward this deal with seven constituent councils, these being: Cambridge City, Cambridgeshire, East Cambridgeshire, Fenland, Huntingdonshire, Peterborough, and South Cambridgeshire. The deal means that the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough area will receive: control over a new £20 million a year funding allocation over 30 years, to be invested in the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough single investment fund to boost growth; control over a £100 million housing and infrastructure fund and an additional £70 million over five years ring-fenced for Greater Cambridge to meet housing needs; powers over strategic planning and the responsibility to create a non-statutory spatial framework for the area; and a devolved transport budget and responsibility for an identified key route network.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, if I may first make a number of declarations, I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Lords’ Interests and declare that I am a locally elected councillor and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The order before us is one of a number that we have considered in this House in recent weeks. As we have heard, it proposes to establish a mayoral combined authority, with that authority having control over a number of areas including transport, economic development, regeneration, housing and planning. It also provides for the governance arrangements to include a directly elected mayor. I am not opposed to the order per se but I have a number of comments and a few questions for the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth.

I hope that the new arrangements will deliver better joint working between the authorities. Bringing them together in this fashion may foster stronger partnerships in other areas as well and in the wider East Anglia area, to which the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred. In general, however, I would be interested to hear from the Minister where the Government are going in respect of devolution. The order seems a little confusing and not very strategic at the moment.

I am not clear in general how the Government see these devolution deals going forward. I would be particularly interested in the response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, in respect of having four tiers of local government. He made a compelling point for the Government to answer there. I am also in full agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, on the points he made in that respect, and with my noble friend Lady Hollis of Heigham. She made the point about having to have a directly elected mayor to get the transport powers, which is an issue for a number of local authorities.

When Manchester became the first combined authority it got much wider powers than we see here today, as it has powers in respect of the NHS and the police. Is that sort of deal off the table for the future or is some sort of back-door reorganisation being suggested? It really is not clear. I am not sure whether the sort of patchwork that we are getting all over the country is the right way to operate. Perhaps we could hear a little more about what the Minister thinks could happen after May. There appears to have been some change in attitude in respect of these deals with the change of government.

The report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee raises a number of concerns, as my noble friend Lord Beecham and others have said. One or two of them are becoming recurring themes, which is not a good place for the Government to find themselves in. A concern raised before on other orders is the question of consultation done over the July and August holiday period. Whatever it is you want to get back, that is not the best time to consider consultation. Often people, especially those with families, will go on holiday once the children are off school and come back some time before September. If you want a meaningful response—a good number of responses—that is just not the best time to do it. I do not understand why the department insists on conducting consultations over that period; I suggest that we should never hold consultations then.

Will the Minister respond to the comments in the report about what would appear to be the selective approach to reporting results of the online survey? That is a serious criticism for the committee to raise. What does he say to the other criticism in the report, which compares the views taken by the department of this order and of the West of England Combined Authority Order? It turned that whole question on its head when it suited it in respect of this order. That is also a serious point for the committee to raise, not one the Minister should be happy about and something that he should not allow to happen in future.

It is probably not fair to say that there is a democratic deficit here, but it is fair to say that democracy is getting out of step with the services being delivered. There are four tiers of local government, it is not clear who does what, we have a patchwork around the country and there is the question of locally elected councillors and a mayor elected over a very wide area. That does not give continuity between the elected members and the services delivered.

With those contributions, I will leave it there and look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate on the draft order in relation to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. I will do my best to cover the points made, and will take the contributions in the order in which they were made.

I turn first to my noble friend Lord Lansley, whom I thank very much for his support. I take his point about broader working outside the combined authority with, in this case, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex and so on. That is incumbent on the authority concerned and I am sure it will bear that very much in mind. There was a recurrent theme picked up first by my noble friend about the various tiers of local government. It is certainly something that we need to watch like hawks. The point subsequently made by my noble friend Lord Tebbit about shared offices and shared officers makes a lot of common sense. I know that a lot of local authorities do that and is certainly something encouraged by the department and the Government at large. It makes a lot of sense, and I am sure that this authority and others will bear it in mind.

I turn to my noble friend’s point about paragraph 4 of the Schedule and the balance of power in a combined authority between the mayor, officials and elected members, a point subsequently raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. I think the balance is right. The mayor does not have an overriding right to say, “We will do this”, but the mayor’s vote has to be included in the majority. That is carefully crafted: balances on these things are important.

I turn to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, who raised some strategic issues about the operation of combined authorities. Indeed, they operate in a strategic way. They are not in competition with local authorities, they are looking at issues of strategic importance. He will know that the Government are not imposing these authorities on people. That is not borne out by practice or even by the contributions to the debate. He will know from the experience of his authority that it can walk away from this. That is why Northumbria—Newcastle, Tyneside and Durham—does not have a combined authority. Some people did not want an elected mayor; there were differences of opinion between different parts of the area. The point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, illustrates this: Norfolk walked away because it did not want an elected mayor, for whatever reason.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

The reason was that we do not want a swagger mayor of the 1970s Heseltine model. We want greater collaboration in the same way as, when Great Yarmouth was under stress, our chief executive in Norwich worked as chief executive for Yarmouth as well. That is the sort of collaboration we want—by consent and bottom-up—that will allow us to build the sort of economy that is to the advantage not just of the region but the country as a whole.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I appreciate what the noble Baroness is saying, but I am not sure that that was the result of a thoroughgoing consultation—picking up points made by other noble Lords. Whatever the reason, it illustrates the point that the Government are not in a position to impose these deals.

The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, made points about Huntingdon—a gem of a town; I know Huntingdon and Godmanchester very well. Of course, it had to be a part of this process. If Huntingdonshire, as an authority, had not wanted to go ahead with this, it would not have been a part of it, and I suspect the deal may well have fallen apart. I shall say something later in relation to points made by quite a few noble Lords about the consultation exercise.

My noble friend Lord Tebbit made some telling points about the common sense of having shared officers and shared officials and ensuring that we are getting value for money where we have more than one authority. I am sure that that makes a lot of sense and that his cogent and authoritative voice in Bury St Edmunds will always make sure that that authority’s interests are taken account of, as they will be, I am sure, in any devolution deal.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, is obviously in close liaison with my noble friend Lord Tebbit. I shall be watching them for shared coffees on these issues as they go forward. I take the point she makes that an elected mayor is not something that all local authorities want, but it is not something that is imposed. Some authorities have come forward without an elected mayor model, Cornwall being the example to look at. The Government are not saying that there have to be mayors in all situations. Where people do not want mayors, they do not have mayors.

I will write more fully on the Explanatory Memorandum, which has been raised in relation to the consultation and other matters, and I shall write to all noble Lords who have participated in the debate and place a copy in the Library. I shall not go into all the details of the consultation that took place, except to make two points. This has been the best response to consultation of any that we have had so far. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. He knows what I have been saying in relation to the Neighbourhood Planning Bill about best practice when consultations take place. This consultation took place over six weeks, so it was not the normal short planning period of 21 days. It was a more thoroughgoing consultation, and some of it was online. Those are factors which have to be borne in mind, but I will cover the points about the results. There were two polls: an Ipsos MORI general poll—the main poll, as it were—and an internet poll. Without pre-empting what I am going to say in the letter, I think the internet poll would be a little self-selecting, whereas the other poll may not be. I will try to cover that in the letter that will come round.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised an issue about general competence. I think this would mean general competence over the designated functions that they are receiving. She also asked about other issues that may be coming forward. There may well be some others. Housing, for example, is not covered in this order, and that generally finds its way into orders of this type, so that may well be coming forward, but I think the bulk of the transfer of functions is in this order.

I think I have covered the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. He always starts off by saying how much he supports something and then comes with a long list of reasons against it, which is like wanting his cake and eating it. I suspect the Labour Party says, “You’ve got to be in favour”, but the noble Lord thinks of all the things he wants to say that indicate concerns about it. I understand them, but overall he seemed to be saying that this is a good thing. It is not imposed. I think it will be successful. No doubt as we go forward there will be lessons that we can learn. With that, and picking up any points that I have missed, particularly on the Explanatory Memorandum, I commend this order to the House.

Motion agreed.