Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Functions and Amendment) Order 2017

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Beecham

Monday 24th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I thought the Minister might have made a glancing reference to the present editor of the Evening Standard for his contribution in a previous life—well, not quite previous life, but shortly to be so—as the author of what is described as the northern powerhouse. Some of us, however, might regard it as something of a northern poorhouse in large parts of the area where there are very significant social problems.

The noble Lord referred to the consultation process, and it is certainly true that there was a process. I am not sure whether he is delighted with the response because, out of the 2.16 million people resident in the area, a grand total of 511 responded to the consultation—that is to say that there were 511 responses, although that does not necessarily mean 511 different people, since some of them may have replied to more than one of the propositions. It is not a matter that has apparently elicited any great enthusiasm in the area, although that does not necessarily disqualify the substance of the regulations from approval.

I would welcome comment on a specific issue. Paragraph 2.6 of the report that accompanies the order states that the Act will be amended to,

“provide that the Secretary of State may by order make provision for any function of a mayoral combined authority to be a function exercisable only by the Mayor and such an order may confer ancillary powers on the Mayor for the purposes of the exercise of general functions”.

On the face of it, that appears to give the Government the right to prescribe extra powers to the mayor without the agreement of the combined authority. Will the Minister say whether that is the case or, if not, assure the House and indeed the local authorities that that power is not to be exercised by the mayor without the consent of the combined authority?

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I have raised this question before, but I do so again in the hope that this time the Government will listen. If one investigates these orders, in every case local authorities are being given powers that devolve to them choices and decisions that are more suitable for people living in the area. However, the other characteristic is that they enable local authorities to think in a much more holistic way to bring together housing, transport and planning. Yet as far as I can see the Government themselves are not learning their own lesson about how they do things in the centre. We still do things in the centre in precisely the siloed way that we are trying to avoid when it comes to devolution. We are about to have a general election, and this is an ideal moment for the Conservative Party, as represented by the Minister, to say that in future it will reorganise government so that government thinks in a non-siloed way.

I was rather unhappy with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, which were a little curmudgeonly. After all, many of us have been looking for devolution for a long time. We thought that that was the essential way to reconnect politics with people; what they see in their locality matters a great deal. However, when we started to think about it we recognised that there was not much point in doing that if we merely replicated the siloed system at the centre. If in this most recent essay in better democracy we come to the conclusion that holistic thinking is the answer, should we not learn that lesson ourselves at the centre?

I hope that my noble friend will be able to say that he will take from this House the message to those concerned with the production of election manifestos—I hope the party opposite will do the same—that we all ought to be concerned with holistic government. If we have started to think in that way in relation to local authorities, we should do it at the centre was well.

[Lord Beecham]

Does the noble Lord agree that restoring the regional offices of local government, which the previous Conservative Government instituted, would be a helpful way of achieving the objectives to which he referred and with which I concur?

[Lord Deben]

I do not really want to politicise what is, I think, a generally accepted view about one successful and agreed part of the devolution proposals that we have at the moment. Let us keep to where we can be united and seek to get this Government and this Opposition in their various forms at least to agree on this simple concept. Let us have holistic government and not divided government.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Beecham

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords—

[Lord Deben]

I will give way to the noble Lord but I want to tell him a personal fact. When I was the Secretary of State responsible and worked out the lowest number of houses we needed, what did the Labour Party do? It denied that that was the number needed. Indeed, when the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, came in, he reorganised the figures to cover up the fact that I was right; we did need those houses. I do not think that the Labour Party, the Conservative Party or indeed the Liberal Democrats had anything to trumpet about in the past. We now have a Government who are actually trying to do something about it.

[Lord Beecham]

I do not for a moment disagree that insufficient numbers of houses were built, in particular council houses, under the Labour Government, but the massive investment in the condition of the housing stock under that Government should not be forgotten.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I am so pleased to be on the same side as the noble Lord who has just spoken. It seems a frightfully good word, it says exactly what we mean and it would be very nice if more of our legislation used language which we understood. “Rogue landlord” is a very good phrase to use because it is very important to underline how disgraceful some people are in their treatment of other people in this crucial part of their lives. My only objection is that the word is not used more frequently within the Bill, because there are several references within it where a reminder that this is a rogue-like activity is very necessary.

My only other objection is that “rogue” has a certain rather light touch—it is not as nasty as a number of other words that were used. Perhaps if we had to change it, we could go through the list that the noble Lord has put forward and choose something that is thoroughly more unpleasant than the word “rogue”. However, I cannot imagine why anybody should start this very serious debate off with a discussion about the word “rogue”. This is one of the best things in the Bill. I may have to draw my noble friend’s attention to a number of other things later on as requiring significant amendment, and many things are left out of the Bill that I would like to see put in, but the one thing I certainly would not like to see left out is the word “rogue”.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand why the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, would not wish to be considered to be a member of the “Liberal Demotic Party” but we have more important things to discuss in the 14 groups that are before us. I trust that the noble Baroness will deal with the matter briefly, and then we can get into the substance of the Bill.