Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral Combined Authority (Election of Mayor) Order 2016
Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I was interested that at the beginning we were talking about Tees Valley, but for the Liverpool city region we talk about the Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral Combined Authority. I cast my mind back to the coalition Government, when the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I argued for the Liverpool city region to have that title, as it wanted. The then Secretary of State was adamant that this was not going to be the case. The then Minister said, “What’s in a name? If you want to call yourself the Liverpool city region, feel free to do so, but the official title will be the Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral Combined Authority”. Perhaps we could revisit that at some stage.
Lord Storey
Names are important to localities. Names are places.
I want to pick up on the point made by my noble friend Lord Shipley. I am sure the Minister is familiar with the Public Accounts Committee’s Cities and Local Growth report. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, rightly said, it is really important that we get accountability and scrutiny right. To reiterate the points that have been made, because I think they need underlining, the report says about the current arrangements with the combined authorities:
“We are not confident that existing arrangements for the scrutiny at local level of devolved functions are either robust enough or well supported. Robust and independent scrutiny of the value for money of devolved activities is essential”.
The report also says, on local scrutiny:
“Where powers, responsibilities and funding are devolved from the centre, it is vital that there is adequate local scrutiny of these devolved activities”.
I know that there will be independent scrutiny of the metro mayor, but I cast my mind back to when Liverpool decided to go for an elected mayor. Does the Minister know that the Mayor of Liverpool decided to abolish scrutiny and that, at a stroke, scrutiny was abolished? Before that, scrutiny was carried out by a councillor from a minority party who was on the payroll. Presumably, that member might have been looking over their shoulder and thinking, “Well, I’m on the payroll. If my scrutiny offends, will I still be on it?”.
It is vital that any scrutiny is completely separate and independent: it should not be the preserve or appointment of the metro mayor, and the person doing it should be independently appointed according to the Nolan principles so that they have the freedom to act and to scrutinise. I hope that the Minister will confirm that scrutiny arrangements will be robust. Indeed, this important report says the very same thing about the support needed for scrutiny.
The Minister referred to consultation with residents. Can she tell us how the city region is carrying out such consultation? I am a Liverpool resident and have not at any stage been consulted. I have not seen a website, a leaflet or an advertisement in the local newspapers. I would be interested to know how consultation is taking place.
My party and I have always been in favour of elected mayors, not for districts but for conurbations. The name is not important—what is in a name? It is not about whether it is a leader or a mayor. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, rightly said, it is about the responsibilities that such a person has; it is about their functions; and it is about the finance and the funding that are made available. I hope that we might also look back at the situation we are now left with on Merseyside. In Liverpool, we could have a Lord Mayor of Liverpool, a Mayor of Liverpool and a metro mayor of the city region, which is a bit confusing. Would it not be a good idea to have leaders for all the districts and a metro mayor in their own right?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Yes. We can argue about more so, but I do not think it is one or the other. We must have both. Practically all noble Lords made the point about overview and scrutiny arrangements. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked whether the mayor could possibly abolish them. All combined authorities, including mayoral combined authorities, must have one or more overview and scrutiny committees and an audit committee to hold both the mayor and the authority to account. We will be bringing forward an order for Parliament to consider regarding overview and scrutiny arrangements for combined authorities.
I will outline what the obligations are under the combined authorities. They must establish at least one overview and scrutiny committee. This will be chaired by an independent person or a member of a constituent council who is not of the political party of the constituent councils. Their role will be to review and scrutinise decisions made and action taken by the mayor and the combined authority. An overview and scrutiny committee may require the mayor, the members and officers of the authority to attend and answer questions before it. This requirement must be complied with. They can call in decisions and recommend that they are reconsidered or reviewed, during which time a decision cannot be implemented. Further provisions to strengthen the role of overview and scrutiny committees will be made through secondary legislation and the orders giving effect to devolution deals.
I turn to the audit committee: we have spent quite a lot of time discussing both types of committee during the passage of the Bill. The combined authorities must also establish an audit committee, which must include at least one independent member. It can make reports and recommendations to the combined authority on financial affairs, risk management, internal control, corporate governance arrangements, and the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the use of resources. Further provisions to strengthen the roles of audit committees will be made by order.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
It says that the chair could be an independent person or a member of a constituent council who is not of the political party of the mayor.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I am making the assumption that they will be appointed in the usual way that public appointments are made in local authorities, in accordance with Nolan principles.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I have a slight correction on this. In those cities with elected mayors—that is, Liverpool—those elected mayors are not councillors. They have to give up their local council position when they become the elected mayor.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, first, I apologise for having to leave during Second Reading; I had to shuffle out with a really bad back. I have no problem with the name—as the song says, “What’s in a name?”—but the hallmarks of devolution must be three important pillars: powers and responsibilities; resources and fiscal autonomy; and accountability. When the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, came to Merseyside following the Toxteth riots, he was given the title Minister for Merseyside. He was able to lead that first stage, the beginning of the regeneration of Merseyside, because he had the resources and the power to do so. That is hugely important.
I wind the tape forward and look to a period before combined authorities when on Merseyside we had what was called the Merseyside co-ordinating committee. It was made up of the leaders of the Merseyside authorities from Labour and my party. There were no Conservatives. There was real leadership among that group. We wanted to have a tram system. The Labour Government at the time would not give us the resources or the powers, and the ill-fated tram scheme never happened because we lacked those opportunities.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, that cities can be turned around, even if they have not got the resources or powers, by sheer determination of leadership. Leadership is a very important part of that equation. You only have to look at how over the past two or three decades Manchester has turned itself around, often against imposition from central government, by the sheer dogged determination of the leadership of that city.
Again, it surprises me a little that Manchester chose not to have an elected mayor for the city. For the combined authority, a sort of agreement has been reached. It surprises me that a Conservative Government are not in favour of democratic accountability or of letting the people decide—oh, sorry; there was that bit about mayors in the manifesto, that well-read document that we all got copies of, and which we all debated and discussed. That surprises me.
One can look around and see numerous examples littered around, not just across the world but across the UK, where there has not been political accountability, and we have seen the excesses caused by the corrupting influence of that power. You only have to look back to the 1960s and 1970s and what happened in the north-east, where there was not proper accountability. You only have to look more locally, recently, to see what happened where there was no proper accountability. Therefore in any proposals there has to be good accountability. I will end by reminding noble Lords that Disraeli said that lack of accountability would lead to the death knell of democracy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have made various points on these amendments. Amendment 14 was also touched upon, so I will touch upon it but not delve too deeply into it, because we will discuss it later on.
Amendment 3 would insert a new clause into the Bill for the devolution of powers to combined authorities, enable the Secretary of State to refuse to make such an order if he considers that specified criteria are not met, and prevent the Secretary of State requiring a combined authority to elect a mayor. Amendments 9 and 10 seek to require that the Secretary of State must be satisfied that the local government electors of the area of the proposed or existing combined authority have been consulted by the appropriate authorities on the area’s proposal to adopt a devolution deal with a mayor.
While we certainly share the aim of devolving powers to combined authorities, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to include these provisions in the Bill. The provisions in subsections (1) and (2) of the proposed new clause are broadly consistent with Clauses 5 and 6, but there are critical differences. First, the proposed new clause provides for “any functions” to be conferred on a combined authority. Our policy is certainly to devolve wide-ranging functions, and indeed the Bill provides for any functions of a public authority to be conferred on a combined authority. However, I suspect that to have simply “any functions” is too broad.
Secondly, subsection (3) of the proposed new clause is not necessary. The Secretary of State always has a judgment as to whether or not to make an order. More importantly, specifying criteria in this way risks creating a tick-box exercise. It does not reflect the context in which the provisions of the Bill will be used: that is, to implement bespoke devolution deals agreed with areas.
On each of the criteria specified, subsection (3)(a) of the proposed new clause would require the Secretary of State to consider that the democratic accountability is strong enough to support the devolution of powers. This is clearly important, and it will be an important part of the consideration by the Secretary of State when negotiating and agreeing devolution deals with individual areas, and when considering laying a draft order. Clearly, Parliament will consider the issue very carefully when deciding whether to approve the draft order. For example, a central part of the Greater Manchester devolution agreement is a reformed governance system. The agreement stated clearly:
“Strengthened governance is an essential pre-requisite to any further devolution of powers to any city region”.
At this point I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Smith, whose work on this over years has got us to the point where we are, as well as the work done by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and of course my noble friend Lord Heseltine—although the noble Lord, Lord Smith, steered this so beautifully through Greater Manchester. He is absolutely right; it was not because we were of the same party. We worked together as different parties. There was a period when the AGMA, as it was then, was hung, but largely we have worked together for the betterment of the city, which is why we got the trams; my noble friend Lord Heseltine saw that there was leadership in Greater Manchester.
However, to get back to these amendments, it would be wrong to present the considerations as a box that needed to be ticked. Subsection (3)(b) of the proposed new clause would require the Secretary of State to consider the level of support from local government electors. The Government are keen to consider proposals for the transfer or devolution of powers, supported by the appropriate strong and accountable governance. I consider the approach in Clauses 5 and 6 of the Bill to be preferable. These require that all appropriate authorities must consent to any devolution or transfer of powers before it can be made. Therefore, the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, about anything being imposed—and any other suggestions about anything being imposed—are quite wide of the mark. Nothing is imposed on anyone, or any local authority that does not want it.