Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Woolmer of Leeds Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a brand new Bill, starting in this House and in its first day of Committee. Pretty well everyone in the House will recognise that the arguments and points that have been made so far are very old arguments from discussions that have been had in local government and related matters for as long as any one of us in this House has been involved in such matters. That is not to be disparaging at all, because they are extremely difficult questions about local authorities’ powers and boundaries, and about the balance between central and local government. There will never be a neat, easy solution to these issues, and to that extent I very much agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, said: we cannot be too prescriptive.

My two noble friends seem to have been arguing in diametrically opposed directions, although I am sure they will find a way to finesse those arguments. I have more sympathy with the view of my noble friend Lady Hollis. I am not sure that I would want to see concentric circles, but I can certainly see the case for a focus on a city region with substantial powers. The other view from my noble friend Lord Liddle was more of a wider, unitary local authority. The scope for discussion in Committee will be pretty wide-ranging.

I am here to make a very simple point at this stage. I broadly support the Bill’s intentions, as everyone else who has spoken does, but the odd thing about it is that although it is in many respects very generous to local communities in devising and determining their own proposals for what form devolution should take, the one respect in which it is extremely prescriptive and in no way allows any local diversity or difference in circumstance whatever is in the first phrase of the Bill’s title: that whether you like it or not, mate, you will have a directly elected mayor. Surely there is a choice to be made here. I make no bones about it and it is an argument that I will develop at the appropriate point. I do not like the idea of directly elected mayors. I am happy to say that whenever the people of Britain have been asked to express their views on these matters in local referendums, they have been more inclined towards my view than that of those who wish to prescribe directly elected mayors.

I put this simple question to the Minister: why, for most of the contents of the Bill, is there is an acknowledgement—entirely in line with what most speakers, but in particular the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, have said—that different circumstances apply in different parts of the country and that you will never quite be able to determine from Whitehall precisely what form devolution should take, except in this crucial respect? I am not randomly picking out one particular aspect; the Bill is largely about providing for directly elected mayors. It is the first part of the Bill; it is there in the title. Why on earth can there not be a lack of prescription in this area, particularly in view of the repeated expression of view from people, when they are asked, that they are not at all keen on this form of local government?

[Lord Woolmer of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the Bill. I listened with great interest in particular to my noble friend Lady Hollis about concentric circles. The Bill is prescriptive in some important respects. It refers very early on to “a combined authority” and a mayor of a combined authority, which appears not to allow for a more complex arrangement of functions between local authorities that might wish to be part of more than one combined authority. That appears to be inconsistent, first, with the Bill and, secondly, with having a mayor of a combined authority. Those are matters that no doubt we will turn to again later on.

I wish to comment briefly on the position in Yorkshire with regard to rural and coastal areas and the complexity of the arrangements. A noble Lord is present who is a former leader of Sheffield City Council. I am sure that he will contribute during the Bill’s passage. There is a very strong case for making the two conurbations of South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire into a combined authority, leaving North Yorkshire, the East Riding and Hull Humber to decide separately what they want to do. There is a case for the two metropolitan areas of West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire to combine together to rival the strength of Greater Manchester.

Of course, the truth is that in Yorkshire, as in many parts of the country, the strength certainly of West Yorkshire is that it has North Yorkshire to its north and South Yorkshire to its south. Without them it would be a much diminished conurbation. Therefore, of enormous importance to the future development of West and South Yorkshire are the arrangements for North Yorkshire, East Riding and Hull. It would be enormously damaging to the Yorkshire region if North Yorkshire, East Riding and Hull did not have strong combined-authority or local-authority powers—many of the powers that the conurbations seek.

There is an understandable temptation for rural areas such as North Yorkshire to want to remain independent, but noble Lords may be surprised to hear that there is a lot of discussion in North Yorkshire about the merits of coming much closer to West Yorkshire, East Riding and Hull. One of my concerns about the Bill is that the understandable haste to have mayors alongside these strengthened devolved authorities will make more difficult the gradual bringing together of parts of Yorkshire. Once you have a mayor of South Yorkshire and a mayor of West Yorkshire, they are not likely to want to go in with North Yorkshire. If North Yorkshire had a mayor, it would be much more reluctant to give that up and combine with West Yorkshire. Therefore, in our later discussions on the Bill I will counsel that there is a disconnection between granting more, genuine devolution to parts of our local areas and necessarily divorcing that for a while from mayoralties, not because mayoralties will not come about but because once you establish a combined authority with a mayor it will make bringing authorities closer together all the more difficult. It will depend on working together, not being part of a community together.

My view from the conurbation of Leeds and West Yorkshire is to recognise wholeheartedly the importance of strong devolution in our rural and coastal areas, but Yorkshire without its coastline or its dales and moors would be greatly belittled. I would like to feel that the Bill will enable all parts of my region to be strengthened and even, although this will probably strike terror into the hearts of people at the Treasury, offer the possibility of moving towards a Yorkshire region, because that makes enormous sense. If we can countenance, as we have, a semi-independent Scotland, why should we resist a strong Yorkshire? Just because regional devolution was originally a Labour idea and got kicked into touch, I hope that it will not necessarily be kicked into touch on ideological grounds. There would be an enormous amount to be said if it was. To secure that would require statesmanship and long-term strategic thinking but would result in a devolution to that part of England that would, in my view, be greatly welcomed in large parts of that great county but would also lead to a viable, vibrant and strong economic and social community.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for the points they have made, particularly my noble friend Lord Heseltine, who appears to have answered most of them right at the beginning.

Amendments 1 and 2 would insert two new clauses placing statutory duties on the Secretary of State to provide reports to Parliament setting out his strategy for ensuring devolution opportunities are available across England, and annual progress updates. I agree that there are merits in the Government being clear about what the devolution offer is to all areas and about future devolution agreements between local areas and the Government following local areas developing their proposals.

We have set out, not least at Second Reading, our broad strategy for devolution in England. Our intention is to ensure that there are devolution opportunities available to all parts of England, including rural and coastal areas, counties, towns and, indeed, cities. Many noble Lords have alluded to this. We also want to ensure—and I can give noble Lords this commitment—that no one place will be prioritised over another. Rural, city, coastal—we want to hear from all areas with their proposals. We want to hear from Norwich just as much as Nottingham, and we want them to tell us how it might work. We are not going to prescribe. I should have perhaps asked between Second Reading and now whether noble Lords who are making suggestions about certain areas speak for those areas—I do not know, and I am not assuming anything—but we want to hear from those areas about how they see devolution working. I cannot stress that enough, really.

As some noble Lords have said, some of the existing city regions include large rural and coastal communities; for example, as the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, the Sheffield city region has rural communities within and around it, including the Peak District; and the North East Combined Authority includes Northumberland. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, also made a point about areas being forced into hooking on to other areas. The Bill does not force anybody to do anything; it enables areas to do what their ambitions are. We have been clear that our approach is for areas to come forward with proposals that address their specific issues and opportunities. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, mentioned business clustering, which is vital for growth. Clustering is what leads to growth and supply chain enablement. The Bill is enabling legislation which will provide the legislative framework to give effect to the different aspects of devolution deals—and they are different—and we are listening carefully to debates on the Bill to ensure that it does this.

Turning back to the specific amendments, I agree that it is important that Parliament should be able to question and hold the Government to account, both on their pursuit of devolution and decentralisation and on the progress being made in those areas that have agreed devolution deals. There are already mechanisms, such as Parliamentary Questions and debates, by which Parliament can ask Ministers to account for anything within their remit. These are opportunities that both noble Lords and Members of the other place rightly take regularly.

I was asked about our response to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. We intend to respond in full before the end of Committee stage. But as that committee recognised, the Bill is an enabling Bill providing the primary legislative framework needed to deliver the Government’s manifesto commitments in full. It also made a point about ensuring that the overview of scrutiny—something which I know that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is keen on—is effective, independent from any majority group on a combined authority and transparent. The Bill provides powers for us to make provision about all these matters and we are very interested in hearing views from all concerned about how the scrutiny could be as effective as possible.