Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle Upon Tyne, North Tyneside, Northumberland, South Tyneside and Sunderland Combined Authority Order 2014

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Grand Committee

The combined authority should be seen as a means to an end, not an end in itself. It is an opportunity for a transformation in the quality of economic development in the north-east. I am delighted that the Government have responded in the way that they have in bringing this order forward, and I wish Simon Henig and his colleagues all the very best in taking forward this important development.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, strongly welcome the draft order. I agree with every word that we have heard from both the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. It is a tribute to the noble Lord’s leadership—this was one of the five key recommendations that arose from the north-east economic review—that we are in the position that we are today. There has been a lot of discussion on the way, and I hope that discussion is now at an end; as the noble Lord has said, the combined authority is a means to an end. It has to achieve real outcomes, and for that it has to work with a clear understanding of its remit, with clear joint working with the local enterprise partnership and with the support of all parts of the north-east combined authority area, both rural and urban.

I thank the Minister for what she said and particularly for having issued guidance on the issue of transparency and membership, following the discussion that we had about greater Merseyside, West Yorkshire and Yorkshire. I am particularly pleased about the specific draft order because it represents another step in the gathering pace of devolution and decentralisation in England, and because combined authorities provide a structure within which that devolution and decentralisation can be achieved. There are now several combined authorities in place deriving from the legislation of 2009, and I am really very pleased that that has been achieved. It is very welcome because, as so many local authorities now realise, sharing power can drive faster and more sustained growth, both in the functional economic area that they are part of and in their own council area.

I shall not repeat here some of the things that I said about greater Merseyside, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire, except to say this: I think it will be important for this combined authority to demonstrate clearly its capacity to cover rural as well as urban issues, to work very closely alongside the LEP and to include opposition political parties at every level in what must be an open decision-making structure. This is because we know that councils working together will achieve more than if they just compete with each other. Investment and risk can be shared and co-ordination can be more effective.

More broadly, I have every confidence that combined authorities will prove a success in taking on greater powers. That leads me to suggest two ways in which further devolution might start to be considered.

First, once they are working effectively, the next step for combined authorities might be to secure London-style powers in transport and strategic planning, among other areas. It is hard to see why London should have a different set of powers from other cities or why the combined authorities may have slightly different powers and responsibilities from each other. The right way forward seems to be to move towards a common approach.

Secondly, other major natural sub-regions do not have a combined authority and could benefit from having one, or at least a more formal structure for collaboration. I hope that the Government will now encourage this as we move on from the combined authority orders that we have had in recent weeks.

I will make one final, important point. In all that I have said, the role of the local enterprise partnerships will be essential to the success of the combined authorities. They must have a clear strategic purpose and a clear leadership role, and they must remain at the heart of delivering economic growth in their areas.

As in Greater Manchester, the LEP and the combined authority each has a key role to play in driving jobs and growth. The same can be true in the other combined authorities, in particular in this one, and I wish it every success. As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, made absolutely clear, a combined authority as a structure is a means to an end, but not the end in itself.

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, believe that what we are considering today is a very significant and welcome development, and echo the comments that were made on this by both previous speakers.

This combined authority brings together authorities of a distinctive part of the country, which have a common heritage. In many ways it is the core of the north-east and, if we go back even further, of the kingdom of Northumbria, although that covered a much wider area. It has a very strong industrial vocation, which it has had since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and still has a manufacturing and industrial vocation today, as well as many of the related skills of those sectors. Certainly the area covered has an economic coherence, which is important when we are talking about a combined authority, one of the main objectives of which is to be the promotion of economic development.

This move can also be very significant as regards transport, which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Adonis. To pick up on a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, it is good that in the combined authority we are bringing together urban and rural areas, particularly on transport issues. The authority will be able to make a success of bringing closer to the Tyne and Wear conurbation, through transport infrastructure, what we think of as the outlying areas of the old Durham and Northumberland coalfields, which are perhaps not classically rural, but which have become semi-rural today. There is a real need for people there to be able to access easily and successfully the conurbation itself.

The authority is an excellent basis for co-operation with the economic forces within the area. Certainly the authorities concerned are used to working with both industry and representatives of employees’ trade unions. It was the area where the regional development agency was the most successful and where good relationships, despite the change, have already been established with the LEP to try to promote the economic development of the area as positively as possible.

I very much echo what my noble friend Lord Adonis said about the excellence of universities in the area concerned. Again, they have a tradition of working together and of working with the wider community, in particular as regards research and development, looking for advantages for the local and regional economy as well as the wider economy.

I, too, echo what was said about the welcome investment we have seen, particularly the recent announcement about Hitachi. My only slight reservation here is that while I am delighted that Japanese investors have seen the potential of the north-east, I still urge British investors to look closely at the region, perhaps more than they have done. There is still a bit of a psychological north-south gap in that respect. It always seems to me that British investors do not fully appreciate what a great place the north-east is in which to live and work, and the fact that it has a positive trade balance and great economic assets and potential which need to be exploited.

I am glad that the council with which I have been most associated in my career, Gateshead Council, is a key part of this organisation. I always like to pay tribute to it at every possible opportunity; I happen to think that it is the best council in Britain. It has a proud record as a public entrepreneur, working with private industry and being very outward-looking in order to promote the regeneration of the region. I believe that the combined authority, too, will be able to work alongside the private sector and make a very successful public/private partnership. Very often, we see these two things as opposites, but I know from my experience that it makes huge sense for these sectors to work closely together for the future benefit of the region.

I conclude by again wishing this project every success. I hope that it will co-operate with neighbouring areas, both to the south on Teesside and to the north in Scotland—where I hope it will be able to continue to do so following a successful no vote in the Scottish referendum later this year. I am sure that, given the outward-looking nature of this enterprise and of the councils and the people involved in it, it will have every success. I think that this debate today, with the warmth of the tributes that have already been paid to the project, is strong evidence that that will be the case.