Finance: Fiscal Devolution

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I was waiting for the last part of that sentence. I am sure that all noble Lords will bear the noble Lord’s expertise in mind, should a commission be established. I think that, once we have the outcome of the Scottish referendum, all parties and all people who are interested in constitutional change in the UK will want to revisit the issue. The exact way we do it is also something that I think all the parties are thinking about as they draw up their manifestos.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government seem to be extraordinarily complacent about the response to increasing demand from our great cities for increased powers. The Minister said that it was all too complex, and then his noble friend from the Liberal Benches produced the usual note of cynicism that people never fulfil their promises when in government. I assure the Minister that we intend to have a thorough examination of the powers to allocate greater resources to our cities and regions, very much in line with the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine. Does the Minister agree?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I am always pleased when the Labour Party rethinks its policies. However, the premise of the point that the noble Lord raised was misguided. This Government, through the city deals, has devolved significant funding to the major cities for the first time. As I said earlier, with the growth deals which we announced at the beginning of this week, £12 billion is being devolved to the LEPs from what were central government allocations. This is a very big shift of economic and social decision-making going down to the cities and regions.