Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield Combined Authority (Functions and Amendment) Order 2020

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Friday 24th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not sure how to follow some of the speeches that have been made so far. They have certainly been diverse and entertaining—at times. I welcome the order and congratulate all those who have been involved in the very difficult negotiations around the establishment of the new combined authority. In particular, as my noble friend Lord Adonis mentioned, I praise the hard work of Dan Jarvis MP as the Sheffield City Mayor in pulling people together and finding a way forward. I hope that this is an initial step and that there will be further devolution of more power and more resources, perhaps to a bigger authority covering and combining more of Yorkshire in the future. But it is a step in the right direction and we should welcome it for that reason.

As the Government move further in this direction—rightly, in my opinion—to create more and stronger voices around the country, we can reflect on the fact that over recent months in both the West Midlands and Manchester we have seen the benefit of having strong local mayors who can speak on behalf of their region at a time of national crisis. We should encourage this development of stronger voices throughout the whole country to diversify political debate away from your Lordships’ House, the House of Commons and Whitehall and into the regions and, of course, already, the nations of the United Kingdom.

However, we also need to have more energy in pushing this agenda—more ambition, perhaps. I welcome the fact that the Government are committed to more investment and diversification of jobs and institutions around the country, in particular to the north. Alongside that, there should be stronger recognition of the need for devolution of political power, so that power is diversified around the country and people are not just allocated benefits from Westminster and Whitehall but can take control of their own destiny and speak for themselves.

In line with that, I again urge the Government, as I have in the past—I recognise that this may now be in the longer term, since they have taken a stance against this in the short term—to look ahead and move away from a situation where those who speak for and work with the nations and regions of the country inside the UK Government are diversified between a Scotland Office that is largely redundant, a Wales Office, a Northern Ireland Office and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The creation of a proper department of the nations and regions of the United Kingdom—a fourth great office of state with a powerful seat at the Cabinet table—would be a far better position for the nations and regions to be in, in terms of dialogue with central government. It would also be better for central government to have to recognise the importance of the different parts of the United Kingdom.