Queen’s Speech

Lord Lennie Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lennie (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly about devolution in England, particularly the devolution in the north-east of England that is almost upon us. Before I do so, I want to introduce a commercial for the north-east. The Great North Run will take place on 11 September this year. It is a half marathon and a fundraiser. I will be a starter and, I hope, a finisher too. If any noble Lords want to make a contribution, particularly those who might be interested in becoming the next Lord Speaker, I have a webpage, and cash is also acceptable. I am running for St Oswald’s Hospice in Newcastle, so all the funds will go there.

Back to devolution. History was made on 15 May this year when the North East Combined Authority, consisting of seven authorities in the north-east, voted to agree the deal with the Government that will see an elected mayor in exchange for the transfer of a range of powers on transport, economic development, skills and so on. It was not quite a unanimous vote—that would indeed have been a historic day—but it was a very high majority vote, and I shall say no more about that. The important point is that it will allow the north-east region to begin to compete for global investment and funds that it has simply not been able to in the past. I remember that when the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, was Business Secretary, he used to say that when he went on trade missions batting for Britain, London would be there batting for London, Wales would be there batting for Wales and Scotland would be there batting for Scotland, but no one was there specifically batting for England, let alone for any of its regions.

My view is that city regions are the future in this country and probably worldwide, and they will be the powerhouses that drive the economy. They will be competing for global funds on what will hopefully be a more level playing field than before. However, that has significant constitutional implications. Our constitution is in a state of change, and we have heard many speakers talk about that in this debate. We are not clear where it is going to end up. That will depend partly on whether deals can be done, agreements can be reached, people accept terms of trade and so on.

I recall being at a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on devolution before the last election that was attended by the then Leader of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Hague. He said that there would be a constitutional convention looking at the implications across the whole of the country. When pushed to say when that might happen, he was vague. The only thing he said was that it would not happen before the election. That election was some time ago now, but there is still no sign of that necessary constitutional convention being established to provide the intellectual rigour, which was talked about in an earlier speech, that is necessary as we go through the process of constitutional change. We need to know where we intend to end up as a nation, rather than ending up there by some sort of default process.

The north-east is a resilient place. Cars are now built where coal was once mined. People sail and surf where ships were once launched. Newcastle United has been relegated—it will be back. Sunderland is to be congratulated, as is Middlesbrough: Sunderland survived and Middlesbrough got promoted. It sticks in my craw to say that, but it is a fact. We are an export region—that is what we do. We make things and sell them abroad, mainly in Europe but across the world. However, for the last 10 years or more, our major export has been talent from the region, which leaves because it sees that it has no long-term future in the region. It comes south, goes abroad and worldwide, and the loser overall is the economy of the north.

The success of devolution will in part be measured by whether it can help to reverse that trend and stabilise that region, and see that the talent that is in the north and that comes to the great universities and places of learning there, where skills are developed, stays in the north and in the north-east. You can expect the term “devo-more” to be part of the future political lexicon for many regions across England, particularly in the north.

Perhaps the Minister will address two questions in his summing-up. First, do the Government have plans, even possibly a date, for when they will fulfil their prior promises about a constitutional convention? Secondly, we in the north-east want Heathrow built—we want the link. We were told that a decision would be made in the summer. Could we fix on the 24 June as a good date for an announcement on that issue?