Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I want to support the view which has just been expressed by my noble friend Lord Shipley and to make a particular point about the process that we are now engaged in. This is an important issue of principle; in this Bill we are being asked to support a very novel procedure for which there is no precedent. I do not have a problem with major reforms, and indeed sometimes I feel that your Lordships’ House is not sufficiently radical, as other Members may be aware. But on this occasion we should pause and think carefully about what we are doing. I draw the attention of noble Lords to the recommendations made by the Constitution Committee, which says at paragraph 15 of its report:

“Although these proposals are the development of an on-going process started in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, we note that they are being taken forward very quickly. There has been no green paper, white paper or draft bill for pre-legislative scrutiny”.

That lays upon us particular responsibilities. When, in the normal course of events, we have had a Green Paper, White Paper and even discussions between the two Houses in a Joint Committee of a draft Bill, obviously such important and valuable proposals that we have before us could be examined in considerable detail.

However, it is an unfortunate fact that shortly after a general election when there is a change of Administration, they want to get going on new legislation very quickly. That is understandable, but it lays upon this House a special responsibility, particularly when a Bill comes to us first. Again, these are new procedures and the Constitution Committee is echoing concerns that we dealt with on Monday when we were looking at the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

Paragraph 14 of the Constitution Committee says:

“One result is that local government in England is likely to become more complicated, as different combined authorities receive different packages of powers. This is a significant departure from past practice which has operated on the basis of a finite number of different council models. The Bill, by contrast, creates the possibility of bespoke arrangements for each combined authority. It might be argued that the proposed system is a paradigm example of demand-and-supply devolution, responsive to local needs. On the other hand there are real concerns about the complexity of the system that may result, and the degree of asymmetry which these changes may bring about. In particular, there is a potential for a significant divergence between urban and rural local government arrangements”.

We on these Benches very much welcome the statement constantly made by the Minister that these are bespoke arrangements, but there are potential dangers of confusion, not least in terms of the way in which the people of the areas concerned will view these new authorities. How precisely the relationship between the combined authority and the mayor will work out in practice is critical to that confidence in the new system. It is extremely important that the deputy mayor should at least be seen to be representing the confidence of choice of the wider group in that area, which is currently represented by the constituent authorities.

I entirely endorse the general concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and hope that the Government will think very carefully indeed about these arrangements before Report.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that the Government will in fact do exactly the opposite. That last speech explains why I am so much in favour of what is being proposed. One of the problems with Britain is that we mistake neatness for civilisation. We constantly think that if we get everything in the same sort of box we can then defend it. I want to compliment the Government on producing something that is designed to meet the needs of particular places and which will, in fact, be different from one place to another. There is an idea that it will cause confusion—but confusion for whom, and between what? It will not concern people in one place that, if they stood outside these shores, there would be a difference between their position and some other people’s position. Inside, there need be no confusion whatever. It seems perfectly reasonable to say that this is a good answer for a particular place. The Government may have the answer wrong but one cannot argue that the reason they have got it wrong is that it is different from the answer somewhere else. I believe very strongly that it is sensible to do what we are doing.

On the issue of the deputy mayor, the idea that you elect a mayor and then have a situation that makes it difficult for him to have a deputy mayor with whom he or she works is rather odd. I would much prefer to have the system that is being proposed, and if it is argued that we have not done this before, thank God, because we have not been very successful with what we have done before—so let us not be too pusillanimous about doing something new.

We should look at any of the successful cities in the rest of Europe—it is about time that we learnt from the rest of Europe instead of constantly telling them that they should listen to us. The British seem to have a very interesting one-way system: we know it all and tell them, and if they happen to have something that is more successful we complain about it. I want to learn from the rest of Europe because I think there is a great deal to learn. One thing is the way they organise cities. The urban success of most of the countries of Europe compared with us is very notable. Part of that is because we have been foolish enough to remove the local powers of finance and the rest. I accept that; I fought against it and lost, but that is one of those things.

Another part of it is that we have lost the historic position of quite distinguished individuals becoming, in a real sense, representative of their cities. It is suggested that they did that without all these powers; the noble Lord opposite made that point. But we live in a different world. I think that they did it by having those powers, whatever the law said. It is remarkable: if you look at some of the powers that these individuals used, they were very much closer to what is being presented now.

I hope that we will give this a fair wind because we need to give real expression to the feeling of place that, I am happy to see, is growing in our great cities. There has been a gap and I want that gap filled. The way to do that is to let people feel that this is their place. Let us do it differently, so that it fits each of them. Let us not be afraid of real experiment. In particular, let us not muck it all up by insisting that the elected mayor has somebody that they do not want as deputy mayor because that happens to fit some particular view of how you should run a democracy.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope that I am not misrepresenting the noble Lord, Lord Deben. I think that he said the British have an obsession with constitutional neatness, or words to that effect. That is rather odd coming from a Member of this House. The one thing that this House does not have is constitutional neatness; none the less it works pretty well most of the time. Certainly most of our dealings on constitutional matters show exactly the opposite, if that is an accurate reflection of what he said; we certainly are not obsessed with constitutional neatness. For example, we have accepted for a long time that the government of Scotland is different from other parts of the United Kingdom; this long predates the strong movement that exists at present for independence. But that is not the main point that I wanted to make.

I have great sympathy with these amendments, but only because they are trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, if I can put it like that. They all derive from a kind of fear or anxiety of this potential authoritarian figure without qualification or checks and balances that we are creating in the form of a directly elected mayor. As I have said several times, I infinitely prefer parliamentary systems to directly elected, presidential systems. These amendments express a recognition of what I have always feared about such systems: you elect someone and they can pretty well act in an untrammelled way for the next four, five or six years, or however long it happens to be. These amendments are designed to say, “Let’s be a bit worried about this now. Let’s write in a number of qualifications that ensure that the mayor is not in a position to do that”.

To that extent, I support amendments along the lines being proposed. But—and it is a colossal but—we must recognise that the system we have at present, both in Parliament in the House of Commons and in local authorities up and down the length of the United Kingdom, is one in which the Executive are subject to genuine, democratic checks and balances in the form of a council, or a House of Commons, that checks the Prime Minister or the leader of the local authority to make sure that they do not get too big for their boots, if I can put it in those terms. That is the joy of that kind of system. If, for some reason or another or for some ideological principle, we decide that it works well in the United States and we ought to do it here—or whatever the motivating factors are behind the obsession that all three parties seem to have with directly elected mayors—we certainly need to make sure that a directly elected mayor is subject to some kind of ongoing scrutiny, and checks and balances on the powers that he or she decides to exercise. So I support the drift of the amendments.