Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Tope Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Lords Chamber

The areas where it is believed that there is further scope for devolution to London are skills, employment, housing, health, crime, community safety and criminal justice, and of course business support. It is suggested that, as in Greater Manchester, a London package should include devolution to London of identified budgets to provide a genuine “common front door” via the LEP’s London business growth hub. I beg to move.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I added my name to this amendment but, sadly, too late to get it printed on the Marshalled List. As a long-time London councillor, I am more than pleased to support the purpose of the amendment which, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said, has come from London Councils. I am very grateful to the noble Lord for describing the briefing so fully. At this time of night I am certainly not going to repeat all that, but I would like to emphasise some of it.

At Second Reading, I made particular reference to the position in London. As currently drafted, the Bill clearly does not fit with the unique structure of London government. However, that is not, in itself, a reason why we should not enable further devolution to London and within it and the Bill does not quite meet that. In response to me at Second Reading, the Minister said:

“London boroughs are absolutely not precluded from coming forward with their ideas for devolution”.—[Official Report, 8/6/15; col. 717.]

I am sure that she intended to include the Greater London Authority as well as the London boroughs. It is all very well to say they will come forward with their proposals for devolution. As the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said, they have been working on this jointly for some time now and will come forward with proposals. However, the proposals may well reach agreement, not just between the boroughs and the GLA but with the Government as well, but if the legislative structure is not there to enable them to be put into place, it is going to be a very frustrating exercise. The Bill is the obvious opportunity to ensure that the legislative framework is there to enable that further devolution to happen in London.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, made a couple of specific references to what the GLA and London boroughs have in mind. I will repeat it specifically, because I want the Minister to assure us tonight, either that the legislative provision is already there under existing legislation or, if it is not, that they will seriously consider ensuring that there is provision in this Bill. This is an opportunity we have to take. Specifically, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said, they want provision to enable a joint partnership between London boroughs and the mayor. This is not just permission to co-operate. They can do that without permission. It is to have the governance arrangements necessary to implement that.

Secondly, we are already familiar with a lot of joint working between a number of London boroughs, but we are talking about the creation of joint partnerships between them. Again, we are not simply saying, “It is a good thing; get on with it”. That is happening already and has been for some years. We are talking now about the creation of the necessary statutory governance arrangements to make it happen.

This is the legislative opportunity to do this, if that provision is not already there. London Councils and the GLA, on whose advice I act, do not believe it is. If we do not do it in this Bill, it is a missed opportunity. It is quite likely that there will not be another opportunity in this Parliament and there is no reason at all why London should be left out of the move to devolution simply because it has a different structure to the rest of the country.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I am very happy to use this probing amendment to set out how I see the position in relation to London. I did indeed say at Second Reading that there was nothing to preclude London boroughs or the GLA from coming forward. Perhaps I will expand on that slightly this evening. It is for the London mayor and the boroughs to continue to work together and to agree proposals, which the noble Lord tells me are ready, for greater devolution of powers to London. These could include provision to transfer public authority functions to a joint committee of councils or the establishment of a joint board between the boroughs and the mayor. We will consider whatever the mayor and London boroughs wish to propose, and no doubt they will be making a strong case as to how any proposal they make would provide better outcomes for Londoners. As with any other area, we are ready to have conversations with them, and look forward to those proposals coming forward.

The amendment, however, would turn the process on its head, because it would be the Secretary of State who kicked things off with his report. This is not the approach that we want to follow, as I am sure noble Lords will have established by now, because we believe that such an approach is far less likely to deliver genuine and effective devolution that will improve to the greatest extent the outcomes places face and the economic performance of particular areas.

I hope that on that note the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.