Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

Of course, I entirely accept that the Government have concerns about that, believing that district councils could outvote the others or perhaps even have a veto, but these are issues that can be resolved. We note that in Clause 11, there are already powers for the Secretary of State to make regulations. I simply propose to the noble Earl not only that he accepts the amendment, as I hope he will, but as he has very generously offered us a round table to discuss many of these complicated issues, that that could be added to the list of things we look at. I hope that the very simple solution to all the concerns people have expressed about district councils is accepting Amendment 71.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, it is late. I will try to be quick. I want to pick up what the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred to as “operation blank cheque”. The bit of the Bill that we are looking at here and that my amendment refers to is described in a sub-heading as “Functions of CCAs”. It consists of 15 clauses, 11 of which start with:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision”.


What is different about the other four? Well, in those, the same words appear but they are not the first words. The problem is that there is a concept, an idea, floating around, but with such a lack of precision that it is extremely difficult to pin down what we will get at the end of the day. My Amendment 116A amends Clause 30, which does indeed start with:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision”


and deletes subsection (4), which would suspend the operation of political proportionality.

I very strongly agree with all the other speakers in what has been said so far and support their amendments, but regarding this amendment, what is Clause 30(4) designed to achieve and why should it achieve it? The Local Government and Housing Act 1989 was not actually the original legislation. There was some preceding legislation introduced by Mrs Thatcher, who was fed up with Conservative councillors in opposition complaining to her about another large party, which shall be nameless, taking not just majority control but complete control of the committee system. That led, in their view, to serious injustice. Mrs Thatcher was persuaded of that point and the rules were introduced. Liberal Democrats at the time were strongly urging the same course of action. It was designed to stop an undemocratic abuse of majoritarian rule.

There would have to be a strong reason for suspending that in this arrangement. It will be a complex situation. We have enough experience here to know that getting a group of district councils and a county council together is not an afternoon’s walk in the park but a complex job, and the last thing that anybody needs to upset that applecart is the idea that there will be unfair or disproportionate representation, or “My council’s view is going to be squeezed out because of a distortion in the system.”

Others have spoken eloquently about that, but I just want to pick up the point about associate members. These are the individuals who can be appointed to join what are joint committees. This clause relates to the constitution of joint committees. It will have county councillors and district councillors. It may have associate members and they may have a vote in certain circumstances. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, pointed out that there is no limitation on who that could be.

We used to have an institution called aldermen. The majority party would appoint a sufficiently large number of its supporters to ensure that it never had any difficulty in the chamber in passing its budget or anything else. Quite rightly, the institution of aldermen has long since been consigned to the dustbin. However, we have got it back here, with associate members. It will be explosive if you mix that in with the complexity of getting district and county councillors around a table taking decisions.

My question to the Minister is: in what circumstances could doing that enhance the Government’s proposal for CCAs? It is one of the many occasions when Ministers decide the regulations, but there is no indication of what factors are to be considered which might justify having any confidence in this proposition. Should not the factors that the Secretary of State considers at least be in the Bill; for example, “The Secretary of State cannot exercise Clause 30(4) unless the following conditions are complied with”? The noble Earl might like to suggest those conditions, those limitations or constraints, because on Report, I would want to include them in an amendment.

Of course, this is not the only clause that I might have made this amendment to: Clause 28(5)(f) is another where proportionality is being suspended—or may be if, at his complete discretion, the Secretary of State decides to do so. I want to hear what the Minister has to say about why he thinks that it is necessary or even slightly advantageous. If he has a plausible reason for that, will he go on and accept that it has to be codified or constrained in some way? If he cannot do any of those things, will he please accept my Amendment 116A and delete subsection (4) from Clause 30?

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I will not speak for long. This has been a very important debate, and very positive: across the Chamber, Members are in agreement that we need clarity from the Government about what they are proposing regarding the constitution of the CCAs.

There is one element that has not yet been raised. Where the constituent members are not equal in size, is that to be reflected in the constitution of that particular CCA? I will give an example that was raised in earlier groups. I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, about Devon. It has a county council; Plymouth is a unitary, as a city; so is Torbay, as a unitary district. Those three are very different in size, population and economic geography, which we talked about earlier. Are they equal members with a similar number of voting rights? As the Bill says, they can each nominate at least one, but will there be an expectation that they be proportionate to their size and responsibilities? That is not clear and needs to be clarified by the Government before we get any further.

Then there are the non-constituent members. I agree wholeheartedly with Amendment 71 from the noble Lord, Lord Foster: the easy way forward is to say that district councils are democratic bodies within the CCA and have a right to be full members. As I have said just now about constituent members, CCAs can and will have to decide proportionality, and they could do that with regard to the districts. It makes good sense.

Frankly, as somebody who has spent most of my life as an elected person, I find it insulting that a democratically elected body such as a district council is aligned with other non-constituent bodies and put in the same category as local business groups, chambers of trade or trade union bodies, which are not elected by the public. I can see why you would want other groups to be associated with the CCA, but, if they are not democratically elected and therefore democratically accountable, they should be in a different category.

This leads me to associate members. I personally think that they should not exist and I shall leave it at that. Why should they? Somebody tell me. Get individual, unaccountable to anybody—nobody needs to know who they are; perhaps they are somebody’s mate—on there to stuff the numbers the right way. It is just not acceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I think the answer to that is yes. CCAs can distinguish between associate members in that way. But they would need to justify to themselves why they were according that difference of treatment. Circumstances would dictate a different course in different circumstances.

I come back to saying that the CCA may wish to maximise the input of associate members by allowing—

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

I appreciate the Minster’s reply, but if I could press him a little more, does he see any way at all in which we could differentiate what he is suggesting from the traditional role of the aldermen?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, has stumped me there. As I am not totally familiar with the role of the aldermen, and I am sure he is, I had better write to him on that point, if he will allow.

The point I was seeking to make is that the CCA would in some, if not many, circumstances want to maximise the input from associate members by allowing in certain circumstances those associate members to vote on such matters. The amendment would prevent that happening and could risk undermining the combined county authority’s ability to work in collaboration with local experts who can contribute positively to the working of the CCA.