Devolution: English Cities

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, like other speakers I begin by congratulating my noble friend on his report, not only for what he concludes but for the way in which he has described the journey he made in getting to those conclusions.

Before going on, I should declare an interest. I am chairman of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership; I have represented the area I live in in the European Parliament and have chaired a number of businesses there. This is relevant to what I am going to say, because I am sympathetic towards and a supporter of my noble friend’s concerns, but I will focus for a moment on places such as Cumbria, which are not in a city or its direct economic and social hinterland. This is because I do not want them to fall between the gaps which the project, as described by the noble Lord, might lead to.

First, I go back to cities. I spent 10 years in the European Parliament about 20 years ago. I was struck then by the vigour and profile of the great European cities when set in contrast to our cities. They seemed to have an identity and confidence which went beyond that of the country in which they were situated. What struck me at the same time was that when the European political institutions made overtures to the great cities of this country such as Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool, they appeared to be rebuffed by the United Kingdom Government in London. I think the reason for that was a fear of some kind of independent supranational attribute that might be generated by participating in all this.

This is a matter that does not really concern the younger generation, given that they are so much less worried by matters of nationality and jurisdiction. For them, Berlin, Lisbon, Munich, Madrid and Milan are simply places to go to and places where football is played. I do not know whether any of your Lordships noticed but, during the recent UEFA Champions League final in Madrid, everybody went to Madrid, not to Spain.

In some ways, perhaps the most prominent of all cities in Europe is London; it is, after all, one of the great global cities. For many people from abroad, it is almost a detail that London is in this country. The point of London is that it is a global city and one of the financial capitals of the world. As an aside, we ought to be aware that in this age of telecommunications, the financial centre can move from London just as the centre of European finance moved to this country from the Low Countries in the late 17th and early 18th centuries; indeed, it moved there from southern Germany and northern Italy. We should not take for granted any of the characteristics which are successful in this country. We should remember that the vanished pomps of yesterday are,

“one with Nineveh and Tyre!”

It seems to me that during the 20th century our great cities lost the domestic, commercial and political provincial dynamism—and I use the word “provincial” in an approving and not disparaging sense—that created Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Glasgow. We can see this elsewhere in the world, including in China, which, whatever its other problems, displays dynamism. Where there is such dynamism, there is civic pride, energy and commitment. That is what made these cities great in the past, as can be seen by looking at what remains. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, is quite right to want to re-instil this into our country, but it has to be recreated; it cannot happen by itself. It is no good to declare ourselves optimists and assume that that will lead to a better tomorrow. There has to be substance, vision and detail to enable us to get there.

As I said in my opening remarks, this is not for everywhere. In particular, there are two areas we need to consider in this context. First, in this country there are a number of large but nevertheless smaller cities, relatively speaking. I am thinking of places such as Preston and Bolton, which are in the solar system of great metropolitan cities but tend to be overshadowed by their bigger neighbours. They are proud places and they offer a lot of potential.

Secondly, there are areas such as my own, Cumbria, which is sometimes described as the north of the north. It has half the land mass of north-west England, is at the centre of Britain and has a population of about half a million. It is not part of the economic system of any of the great metropolitan cities but is nevertheless affected by them, and by Scotland. I would like to put on record that the development of the Borderlands growth deal is an important initiative because, while we are all in the United Kingdom, England and Scotland are different countries. This initiative transcends the border, and there are not very many that do. In Cumbria, we look to the north of England, London and Europe, which is, at least for now, very important for our domestic market. Independent analysis carried out by the LEP shows that the impact of no-deal Brexit will be very serious indeed, as was corroborated by a separate piece of work carried out by the CBI.

One aspect of the report that I found most interesting was the chapter written by Tony Travers, outlining the history of local government. Things change as the world changes and, as a number of speakers have said, we are in the middle of a revolution and so things are going to have to change. The question is how. The experience we have had in this country appears to suggest that we tend to start with structures but that that will not necessarily lead to a successful result. I sense that we are seeing the beginning of a change of approach: we are starting with function. If we can change the place in the system of governance where decisions are made—and make sure that changing it does not merely mean decentralisation by moving Whitehall somewhere else but moves decision-making nearer to those who will be affected—that will encourage participation and civic pride in the communities that are going to benefit. If we can do that, it will in turn generate dynamism, regrowth and prosperity and will encourage able people from all walks of life to become engaged.

In the north, we see that the Government are now trying to re-engage through their Northern Powerhouse 11, as opposed to the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, to which Cumbria LEP is fully committed as a full partner. The very different members of the group have very different contributions and have a different emphasis on what they do. Nevertheless, it is an important initiative in which I hope that all those engaged, from the smallest to the largest, will be treated equally, in the same way that Austria and Germany sit on the European Council as equals.

Changes appear to be happening, and they are happening incrementally. It may well turn out that change of this sort will be more successful than the imposition of structures from outside, from Whitehall. Form follows function, and if functions change then I believe that the appropriate form will follow and change with it. I hope the report by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, is an important milestone on the road to rebalancing the ways in which things are done in England.