West Midlands Combined Authority (Functions and Amendment) Order 2017

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Rooker

Thursday 30th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Hodgson, both referred to the consultation process. I do not really want to make an observation on that, but consultations are wondrous things, are they not? They are often prayed in evidence. The figure that the Minister gave was, I think, that 777 people or thereabouts had agreed with the proposals. What that represents as a proportion of the West Midlands would barely be able to be determined on a quite sophisticated computer—it is a very, very small proportion of the population of the West Midlands. Having said that, I find myself impressed at the idea that as many as 777 people agreed with the proposal—when I for one find even these orders extraordinarily complex—and had weighed up these issues and thought that, on balance, it was a good system to introduce.

On the question of intelligibility—there are a lot of things that I am not keen on, including the point implied by my noble friend Lord Snape—let us get it down to punter level. I lived just outside the area, but for someone living in the West Midlands area who is faced with a problem involving housing, transport or jobs, is there a simple guide being proposed by the Government that tells them whether to go to their directly elected mayor—even though the people of Birmingham voted against a directly elected mayor, as we know well enough—or to one of the members of the combined authority or to one of the constituent boroughs? Any democratic system, in my book at any rate, needs to be as intelligible as possible, and I am not at all sure about this new structure. It took the Minister, who understands these things, 10 minutes of speed-reading to refer to just these orders. The punters need to know what they are buying.

That brings me to my last point: has anyone worked out the cost so far of reaching the stage that we are at now? I dread to think how much it cost to produce these documents before us—I imagine quite a bit of ministerial and Civil Service time, not to mention the time spent by the local authorities themselves, who have had to submit evidence and attend meetings. And of course there is the cost of these elections, when they take place in May. Some indication, along the lines of the request of my noble friend Lord Snape, would be helpful for us to know precisely what sort of figures we are dealing with.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I will briefly follow up on a couple of the points that have been made. I declare an interest in the sense that I live in the total area, as I live in Ludlow, in Shropshire. I will be amazed when the people of Shropshire wake up on 8 May and discover that they will be sending the combined authority what will be a few tens of thousands of pounds—they are not involved in the election of the mayor, because the mayor is only for the metropolitan county area, which is the old seven councils. I wish it well—do not get me wrong—but the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, mentioned the variety of the area, and I think that we do need to exploit the assets of the area.

For example, there are 326 local authority areas in England, and their density of population varies from 9,000 people per square kilometre to well under 100 people per square kilometre—as it is in Shropshire. Of the 326, Shropshire lies at about 312; in other words, it is an incredibly sparse area. What that tells me is that it has land for development. We do not need to rip up the countryside to use the land for development, and therefore there is potential in this area—the motorway links are not brilliant, by the way.

I do not know what the local authorities will do about this. The bosses who run Shropshire are not very keen on factories coming into the area. I once raised the issue at a public meeting, as I think jobs and manufacturing are important. In the area of the old seven councils—where I lived and worked and I also represented the area, so I know what it is like—it is not easy to put a factory on a greenfield site. You cannot do that in the Black Country; you can use brownfield sites, but you are absolutely limited for modern, technological industrial undertakings and you cannot do it in the old way. I just want to put that on the record.

On consultation, I have not seen anything in the local papers about the effect of this. I remember that the issue of consultation was raised about three orders ago. I hope that we are not playing with fire, because the body is being set up and it will perform its functions from 8 May.

My final point is that, in the West Midlands, we miss figures of substance, if I can put it that way.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Rooker

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

I am a long way from reaching Amendment 32, but I shall certainly look at it in good time. Before we get to any question of consulting the people on an agreement, which was the thrust of the comments of both the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, it has to clear the first hurdle of being passed, or I should say approved, by both Houses of Parliament. We need to know what happens if one House says yes and the other no, because it occurs to me that there is a considerable possibility that the House of Commons, with a Conservative majority, might well, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, agree to approve the Prime Minister’s recommendation. There is also a considerable possibility that this House, not being so bound by recommendations of Prime Ministers of whichever party, will decide that it does not agree with the recommendation made by the Prime Minister and the Government. That is the question: what happens if one says yes and the other no?

That is the first hurdle that would have to be cleared before there can be a referendum, but there is another. New paragraph (b) says,

“the Prime Minister has obtained authority to put it to a national referendum”.

That would require a Bill and an Act of Parliament. That is the second hurdle that would have to be cleared by the House of Commons and the House of Lords before we could reach the third stage, which is the referendum itself—new paragraph (c) provides that it should have been,

“approved by such a referendum”.

I say to those who have spoken so far that unless there are rather better answers to the question, particularly about the two Houses—

[Lord Rooker]

On the issue of the two Houses, I agree with the amendment, although I will vote against it.

[Lord Rooker]

No—the amendment’s flaw is: are we seriously going to attempt to send an amendment to the other place that requires the accession of some 15 to 20 Conservative Members of Parliament to vote with the rest of the Opposition to keep it in the Bill? That is the only audience we have. It is not ourselves or the people; it is the 20 Tories in the other place who would be prepared to vote for what we send. They are not going to vote for this, so why are we going to try to send it there?

[Lord Grocott]

After the best part of 40 years over which my noble friend and I have been in Parliament, we do not disagree on much. I am delighted to see that we clearly do not disagree on this amendment either. In the absence of any satisfactory answers to the questions I have put, I hope that the House will decide against the amendment, should it be put to a vote.