Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral Combined Authority (Election of Mayor) Order 2016

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Grand Committee

[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?

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, it might surprise some people in the Room that I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said. I was in local government for 25 years and a council leader before I arrived as an MP in the other place. I am in favour of decentralisation and devolution, but I have three main concerns.

The first is on democracy. It is quite strange that we are imposing a mayoral system on the people of Merseyside without even asking them whether they want one. I would have thought that with the Government’s commitment to localism the very least they should have done is give the people of Merseyside the opportunity to say whether they wanted a mayoral system. Quite frankly, we have gone past that, but I remind the Committee that the proposal does not have consent and people are suspicious about how it will work out. It would have been much better had we sought the agreement of the people of Merseyside before we entered into this arrangement.

The second concern is about accountability. The lessons from Liverpool are that great thought needs to be given to accountability within the new mayoral system. I find it strange that in Liverpool the mayor, who obviously has the powers of the mayor, is also leader of the council and the person who decides who goes on what committee, and I understand that to a great extent he is selecting councillors. That is appalling, quite frankly. To put that level of power in one individual is unacceptable, and I hope that the Government will look at the situation in Liverpool. When they are building a system for mayors in Merseyside and Manchester, they should make sure that proper scrutiny and accountability are built into the system.

I listened carefully to the Mayor of London when he made his last speech in that capacity and said that he believed that the system was open to corruption. He had obviously identified gaps in the system and wanted it to be strengthened. I hope that the Minister can say something about that today but that she will also go away and think about the sorts of powers that individuals will be given. If there is not adequate scrutiny, we will have a corruption problem in time. I hope we will address that.

My final concern is about funding. I think that people are expecting—and the Mayor of Liverpool has made great play of this—extra resources to come to the region if we have a mayoral system. We know that some of the biggest cuts that have taken place in public expenditure have been in Merseyside and Manchester. If the Government want to succeed in regenerating the north-west, and to use the mayoral system in Merseyside and Manchester to achieve that, they will have to provide some extra resources, because quite frankly they will be doomed to fail unless they have adequate resources to deal with the problems of the north/south divide and the infrastructure that needs to go in.

I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about High Speed 2. I said in the other place when it was announced that I would be more likely to travel in the TARDIS from Manchester than on High Speed 2, because I do not believe it will ever get to Manchester. A lot of credibility needs to be built up by the Government. I hope that they will provide the extra resources that will be needed to make sure that the mayoral system is successful in Manchester and Merseyside. I wish it well and I hope we can address some of the issues I have raised.