Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 44F very briefly. We had a helpful debate last week about the nature of a combined authority which had close to it less populated and rural areas that nevertheless were part of the urban area in terms of service provision. What we have here is a form of words which I hope the Minister may find helpful, in that it enables maximum flexibility but protects the rights of rural areas. It is a statement of principle about the opportunity for local authorities, which are not part of a combined authority but may be close to it, to enter into collaborative working arrangements with a mayor or other appropriate governance structure which operates in a city or metropolitan area. I hope the Minister finds it a helpful amendment because it is a statement of principle and would enable rural areas to feel more integrated, rather than taken over by urban areas. I hope she is able to think about this amendment and that we can pursue the matter further on Report.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 44H, 44J, 44K and 44L are in my name. They are probing amendments, and in speaking to them I am very proud to declare an interest as a member of Cumbria County Council. I speak to these amendments with the full support of the Labour leader of Cumbria County Council, Stewart Young. I very much hope that the outcome might be some kind of constructive cross-party—I emphasise that—dialogue between the county council, the generality of local government in Cumbria and DCLG Ministers about how best to streamline what are really cumbersome arrangements for local government in our county in the wider public interest.

We desperately need a simplification of the present structures to provide better value for money at a time when things are very tight and will possibly get a lot worse; to make local government more effective at doing its job with limited resources; to improve democratic accountability and closeness to the people for the entirety of the services that we deliver; and, most importantly in the context of the Bill, to enable the people of Cumbria and the new authorities in Cumbria to seize the opportunities for devolution of power from an overcentralised Whitehall that the Bill is all about.

The amendments are to Clause 10. We are quite far along in our deliberations but it is the clause that justifies the inclusion of “and Local Government” in the title of the Bill because it widens the scope of what we are talking about from what I think in reality initially started out as a big cities government Bill into something that can transform local government in many of our smaller city and county areas. I remind my Labour colleagues that I think this is in line with the party policy at the last election, where we stressed the importance of devolution to county regions as well as city regions.

Clause 10 does not seek to impose a single model on local authorities, and that is very welcome. That flexibility is right but the aim of the amendments in my name is to remove what we in Cumbria believe will be an insuperable obstacle to the necessary transformation of structures; that is, the requirement in Clause 10(3) that regulations can be made,

“only with the consent of the local authorities to whom the regulations apply”.

This requirement for local government unanimity—in my view and, I venture to say, in the view of many people in Cumbria—gives far too much weight and leverage to what I would describe as the forces of small “c” conservatism. I hasten to add that the position I am putting forward is supported by many large “C” Conservatives in the county. This is not a party issue; this is a view that unites people across the parties in my county council.

My amendments try to offer a number of options for what could take the place of Clause 10(3) to facilitate the creation of new single-tier councils in what are at present two-tier local government areas. I emphasise that in Cumbria that would not necessarily be a single, unitary council but it would be a streamlined model of authorities. In our view, substantial consensus in the community would be necessary to support such a measure but not unanimity, which experience has shown over 25 years—it has been 25 years since this was first discussed—is impossible to achieve. I am putting these amendments forward as options. Some are mutually contradictory. We are interested to hear what the Government think and whether they are prepared to move on this question.

--- Later in debate ---

I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, in terms of the things that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, that there are governance issues there. He said that there was confusion and that power needs to be as close to local people as possible. One thing that could happen is that you could devolve from county down to district. There is nothing stopping that, and it would be within the remit of a devolutionary-type Bill that that could happen.

[Lord Liddle]

Could I just make clear what I thought I had made clear in my speech? I was not saying that the only model that was possible was a unitary authority for the whole of Cumbria.

[Lord Scriven]

I understand what the noble Lord says, but the Bill says that when there is disagreement you would be pushing for unitary authorities or an authority—one or more—in an area where that might not be needed. That is what Amendment 44L would dictate would happen if there was no agreement. It could be one unitary or two or three unitary authorities within the area. The principle of having an amendment that forces unitary authorities on areas that do not want them is not in the spirit of how I see devolution.