Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield Combined Authority (Functions and Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Friday 24th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD) [V]]

I do not profess to be an expert on anything in your Lordships’ House, but I know a little about combined authorities, having been one of the leaders of the first combined authority, Greater Manchester. The trail-blazing deal that we negotiated with the Government has made real changes, especially in health and social care. Sometimes when we talk about local authorities, combined authorities and city regions, we seem to forget the real changes we can make to real people’s lives. I know that in Greater Manchester people’s health and social care is better because of the combined authority.

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, is quite right that there has been a bit of a tour de force today ranging from HS2 to women having their head chopped off a few centuries ago. The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, is right that one Yorkshire would be the preferred option, but sometimes in life you do not get your preferred option, so I welcome this order, with guarded support for Sheffield.

Noble Lords need to understand some of the difficulties that we found and I find with combined authorities. That is the price of them. The price of devolution is elected mayors. That can be a real issue. I understand the principle of elected mayors: they are there to take the rap and to make the tough decisions. They are accountable to the people and can be thrown out. In theory, this is an excellent strategy, but in practice, it does not work because many combined authorities of whatever political make-up are one-party states, so the elected mayor does not have autonomy or the ability to override the eight or 10 Conservative or Labour leaders because he knows that he may not get support to be mayor again. Have the Government given any thought to making the price of devolution—an elected mayor—non-political? If you were to take the politics out of the elected mayor, it would alleviate a lot of Members’ concerns expressed today that this is just another tier of government and another tier of bureaucracy. An elected mayor who is not politically connected could make real differences to real people’s lives. I hope someone gives some thought to that.