Local Government Reform

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I apologise for not having turned my mobile phone to silent earlier in the debate. It was actually the leader of the council on the phone, who was no doubt going to tell me. “Don’t say that, under any circumstances.”

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) on initiating the debate. I was going to say that it is timely, but it is one of those subjects that we debate about every six months, coming to similar conclusions and perhaps not advancing as much as we would like. We ought to congratulate the Minister, and both the present Government and the coalition that preceded them, on advancing the localism and decentralisation that those of us who have served on councils have encouraged. In my 26 years as a councillor, whatever Government were in power, there was more and more centralisation, and we railed against it to no effect. We have now got a reversal of that, and we should congratulate the Secretary of State and his predecessor for the work they have done on that.

If the Government believe, as they clearly do, in the process of devolution—and to some extent in elected mayors, though they do wobble on that occasionally—they have to grasp the nettle and move forward. I have some sympathy with what my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell said when he spoke about having a county mayor. The problem, of course, is that counties such as Yorkshire and my own county of Lincolnshire are somewhat large. Lincolnshire is 75 miles from north to south, and the connection between, say, Gainsborough in the north and Spalding in the south is somewhat tenuous, both in their local economy and in the fact that, in all honesty, people in Gainsborough rarely, if ever, go to Spalding, and vice versa, nice though those towns are.

My preference is for unitary authorities across the board. Personally, I would have them headed by elected mayors. We should not be frightened of the elected mayor process, as other Members have said. It is a form of direct election in which, as with the referendum and so on, the voters give a clear answer; it is black and white. I think that is to be encouraged. I know people will draw comparisons with the police commissioners and say that we should look at the terrible turnouts, and that nobody really knows who the commissioners are and so on, but it is early days yet. I genuinely think that the police commissioners have a role to play, though I would not be opposed to transferring their powers to an elected mayor.

There are problems with that, of course. My own county of Lincolnshire is actually served by two police forces. Unfortunately, those of us in the north of the county still have the relics of the County Humberside scheme—we have Humberside fire and Humberside police and so on, but that could be corrected relatively easily. I think we should move forward on that. We are moving forward in the sense that we have the Greater Lincolnshire devolution deal, which the local authorities have signed up to, although there are reservations about the role of an elected mayor. As I said, I am personally very much in favour of an elected mayor, and I hope the Government do not wobble on that. One or two of the authorities are wobbling, mainly because the consultation came out with more or less a 50:50 decision.

The reality, of course, is that such consultations are pretty meaningless. How many real voters actually took part in the consultations? Yes, there was the chamber of commerce and the institute of this, that and the other, but the reality is that they do not engage the average voter. Why should they? The man and woman in the street want the bins emptying, the streetlights going on and the potholes filling. They want an efficient local authority. The structure of the authorities is completely irrelevant to them, though of course they want to be able to influence the outcome, particularly in relation to the setting of council tax.

The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) made a point about having more regular elections. Personally, I have always been in favour of election by thirds. I recognise that does mean that there cannot be a clean sweep and people cannot make a sudden change, but in the past one of my arguments has always been that having elections every year is actually good for local political parties. Across the political spectrum, we struggle to maintain interest in local elections and local parties. The local parties are a vital part of the structure of our democracy, and I do not think we should lose sight of that.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Is that not a party political argument rather than a local government argument? Is the problem of electing on thirds not that, a couple of months after an election, people are immediately looking to the next election, and long-term strategic decisions that may be controversial at the start but have a long-term effect do not get taken?

[Martin Vickers]

That is certainly true, but the opposite of that is that local authorities are constantly looking over their shoulders at the electorate—and so they should. That is the whole point of accountability. The one thing that perhaps weakens the argument about the importance of keeping local parties involved is that we now have more elections, because we have police commissioners, and under my system we would also have elected mayors, so there is a constant move toward elections. Personally, I think we should give local authorities the option of having elections not by thirds but by halves every year or two years. That might be a sensible way forward.

Mindful of your comments of wanting to get other speakers in, Mr Howarth, I will not dwell on the matter too much further. I like the idea that my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell put forward of having the chairman or chief executive of a clinical commissioning group as some part of the structure. I also draw attention to the role of local enterprise partnerships. Yes, they have grown and are playing an important part, but they suffer from a lack of accountability. If we had cross-border unitary authorities, it would be useful to transfer some if not all powers from the LEP to the unitary authority.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Parish and town councils are there to serve local people; they should have transparent arrangements and be accountable to local people. That can obviously be done through the ballot box and through parish polls. Generally, when there is an issue of standards, the person with that issue can seek redress through the monitoring officer of that local authority, which is usually the principal council for that area. That said, my hon. Friend makes an important point and the arrangements in that regard are something that we constantly look at. We will continue to do so.

Let me mention an issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes, who welcomed the devolution agenda and having a strong and accountable elected mayor. I reassure him that there is no change in policy in that regard. The choice about whether a local area wants an elected mayor is very much one for that area, but when significant and ambitious powers are to be devolved from Whitehall and from Secretaries of State, who are currently accountable in the Chamber to Members of this House as the local representatives, we— understandably, in my view—require a strong figure who would be locally elected and locally accountable.

[Martin Vickers]

I welcome the Minister’s comments. Does he agree that if a combined authority for a county is created without an elected mayor, the meetings of the combined authority will lack the necessary coherence? Individual council leaders go to those meetings with a mandate to look after their area; supporting a road improvement scheme 50 miles down the road rather than one of their own is very difficult, unless somebody is overseeing the whole project.

[Mr Jones]

Consideration needs to be given to that role, as it does to adequate scrutiny arrangements in that regard. Any combined authority consists of constituent members who will be there not only to provide advice and support to the mayor, but to scrutinise their work. Ultimately, however, the mayor would be accountable to the people, which is the most direct form of democracy.

I turn to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight; we have had many discussions about the situation on the island, which is unique compared with many of the places elsewhere in England. I certainly undertake to have another meeting with my hon. Friend’s councillors. It is important that we retain a dialogue about what happens going forward on the island, but I reassure him that this Government do not mandate devolution deals for areas. We listen to what local areas put forward and then consider whether that is an acceptable proposition for the Government to undertake. I say to my hon. Friend that we should keep that dialogue going. I know that the Isle of Wight is speaking to the other local authorities in the Solent area, but it is a choice for the Isle of Wight whether they want to—