Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Lester of Herne Hill Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Heseltine (Con)]

I have listened to the noble Baroness with interest and I wonder whether she has not caught up with the news that both Alan Johnson, a former Cabinet Minister in the Labour Government, and Liam Byrne, the very perceptive Chief Secretary who noticed that there was no money left, have said that in the circumstances of there being mayors they would be interested in a nomination. The fact is that creating the job of mayor has attracted a degree of interest at the very highest level in government and opposition politics. To me, one of the attractive ideas of a mayor is that it will be a ladder up which budding national leaders will climb on their way to another place, or it will be the opportunity for people who have served at the highest levels of government to serve their local communities with all the experience that they have gained in government, having ceased to be members of a Cabinet. That is an interesting evolution of our constitutional practices that would enrich the political process. I very much hope that my noble friend will resist Amendments 3 and 4 because—let us be frank—they are wrecking amendments.

This Government were elected on the basis that there would be a deal—I quote the noble Lord, Lord Smith—of a sort “unimaginable” to local government in his experience. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said on this issue, we have taken power away from local government decade after decade after decade without a referendum and without any sort of consultation; we did it because we did not think local government was doing a good enough job. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, rightly said that it was done by both parties and admitted that her party played a part. But her party never did anything to restore any of the powers that my party had taken away; it loved it, shared in it and wallowed in it, as it exercised the powers that we had extricated from local government into the hands of central government.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)]

Can the noble Lord explain what it is that is wrecking in Amendments 3 or 4?

[Lord Heseltine]

The first point on Amendment 3 is that it removes the nature of the deal with government that there will be a mayor. It is designed to remove that condition. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has a different version, which has another delaying process, about consultation. But what does that mean? It means referenda. It means consultation of one sort or another. This is a delaying process.

I have no doubt that noble Lords all over this House are fully aware that from one end of England to another local councillors, leaders and industrial partners from the local enterprise partnerships are way past the debate that we are having today. They are actually designing the deals that will make this a reality. In his speech last week, the Chancellor listed Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and the possibility of the West Midlands as being already in the process of evolving the most detailed proposals to put to the Government. The condition behind all that is a directly elected mayor, as the noble Lord, Lord Smith, said in this House not that long ago. It is a deal. He said: “We did not particularly like directly elected mayors but the offer was too good”. I therefore urge noble Lords to consider carefully whether we should be concentrating on whether there is a mayor, because there will be no deal in the circumstances we are talking about unless there is a mayor. What we should be talking about is how to ensure that the deal that is done is of the scale and level of imagination that meets the extraordinary offer that has been made.

I was surprised and disappointed when the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked: “How can one man, or woman, cope with such a situation?”. Look outside this country and show me one where there is any alternative form of local government except what the Bill is proposing. There are senators in America with huge power. Germany has the Länder and France the departments. They seem perfectly capable of handling this massive responsibility. Are the English so impoverished as people that we have no one in our country capable of being the equal of what every advanced economy seems perfectly happy to deal with?

Anyone who has looked at this legislation will know that this is not the creation of a dictator. The checks and balances that exist within the negotiation that has been concluded with Manchester, for example, are very clear. The existing councils that make up the combined authority retain very large powers. They are part of an arrangement with the elected mayor that provides very substantial checks and balances.

The heart of this matter is that the Chancellor, in arguing for his deals, is looking, as my noble friend Lord Deben said, for a range of men and women capable of exercising leadership and appealing to the local community across the board. That is what we hope to see. In doing that, there is an offer from government to transfer power in a way that is outside any experience that any of us have had, with the exception, partially, of London.

Those of us who care about this issue are very familiar with Leicester and Liverpool, both of which have Labour mayors. One is a former Member of another place and the other a council leader who persuaded his colleagues to allow him to become a mayor. In talking to those who hold this responsibility, I have learned that their experience of the change in stature that takes place when they are seen as being a mayor—an internationally understood and recognised position—is extraordinary.

I hope very much that we in this House can perhaps move on from the minutiae of the Bill to the implementation of the legislation at the greatest possible speed. I really hope that your Lordships will catch up with where local government and the local enterprise partnerships are already. They are making this happen now. It is an exciting prospect that I never thought to see happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I will address the noble Lord’s point shortly.

Amendment 4 would insert a new subsection into new Section 107B to allow the Secretary of State to refuse to make an order providing for there to be a mayor if the proposal put forward by the area does not provide sufficient democratic accountability, does not have the support of local authority electors or would risk the proper functioning of local government in the area. Not only is this unnecessary, given that the Secretary of State always has a judgment as to whether to make an order; it does not reflect the context in which the provisions of the Bill will be used: to implement bespoke devolution deals agreed with areas—to be precise, agreed with those democratically elected to represent the area and who are accountable to it through the ballot box. It would be quite wrong to have considerations for devolution deals that in some way sought to have the Secretary of State second-guessing those local democratically elected representatives, or turning discussion of the deal into some sort of tick-box exercise.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

Is the Minister saying, therefore, that the factors in proposed paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) in Amendment 4 would be irrelevant considerations that the Secretary of State would not be entitled to take into account?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I am saying that it will be an agreement between the Secretary of State and local electors that will determine what the deal looks like, if that helps.