Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Seventh sitting)

Neil O'Brien Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 30th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Rachael Maskell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We want communities to be involved in their own destiny before there is any ink on the paper. That consultation and working through the stage of each process to bring the CCAs together is also important. That is why we want that process to be embedded in the Bill.

We have recently been through a local government reorganisation in North Yorkshire, and that has been quite a painful process for many of the district councils as they have come together to form the new North Yorkshire County Council. York was part of the initial consultation and because we had a voice, we were able to stake our claim not to be brought into that authority. We argued that we had our own identity, going back to King John and the charter that established York as a city. If we had lost that identity, we would have lost a significant place on the global stage. The original proposal was for York to disappear and to be replaced by a North Yorkshire East and North Yorkshire West model. If the identity of such a significant city had disappeared, there would have been no heart to Yorkshire, nor any identity. That is why I am glad that we had proper consultation about that process, and that is why it must be replicated in this legislation.

To Labour, the people’s voice really matters, and we want to see people’s voices coming through so that they are involved. Nothing in a Government agency should be superior to those we represent. I trust that the Government will reconsider the amendments and see the opportunity that they present to them, if not to the people.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I echo the comments from those on the Opposition Front Bench about the quality of the debate on the first day of line-by-line scrutiny. I hope to continue that tenor and interesting dialogue.

We completely agree with much of what Opposition Members have said, which is why we have provided for exactly what they want in the Bill. Let me expand on that. In the levelling up White Paper, we announced a new institution that we believe can provide the strong leadership and effective and coherent collaboration needed for a strong devolution deal in certain circumstances. This new institution is the new combined county authority model, referred to in the Bill as a CCA.

As Opposition Members have said, the appropriate circumstances for that model is where a county deal covers an area with two or more upper tier local authorities. Those upper tier local authorities will be the constituent members of the CCA. Although we have not yet of course established any combined county authorities, because we are legislating for them here, we need to look to the future, as Opposition Members have said, and anticipate a scenario where an established CCA wishes to change its boundary. Since there is no benefit in a shell institution existing in perpetuity, it is only right that the legislation provides for such an institution to be abolished.

Wherever a CCA is planned to be established, its boundaries changed, or is to be abolished, we absolutely want to see the local public being consulted on the proposal, but the amendments are unnecessary, because the requirement for a consultation on a proposal to establish, amend or abolish a CCA is already provided for in clauses 42(4)(a) and (b), and 44(3)(a) and (b). Those provide an opportunity for local residents, businesses, organisations and other key stakeholders to have a say on the proposal, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley pointed out. A summary of the consultation results must be submitted to the Secretary of State alongside the proposal and have regard taken of it.

There is a further safeguard in clauses 43 and 45, which provide that the Secretary of State has to undertake a consultation before creating, amending the boundary of, or abolishing a CCA, unless there has already been a consultation in the affected areas and further such consultation would be unnecessary. That will ensure that there has been sufficient public involvement in the consideration of whether it is appropriate to establish, change the area of or abolish a CCA. As such, I hope that I have given sufficient reassurance that the amendments would be purely duplicative for the hon. Members to withdraw them.

To touch on a specific point, the hon. Member for Nottingham North talked about initiators of devolution at the centre, we are the initiators of the devolution process in one sense. However, we are not the initiators of devolution deals for particular places. Ahead of the levelling-up White Paper, we called for expressions of interest, and we only move forward—we can only move forward—with a devolution deal if it has the support of locally elected leaders. In that sense, we are not the initiators; it takes two to tango, and that is the nature of devolution. In this Bill, it comes with what I hope for Opposition Members is sufficient requirement to engage in deep public consultation, and for that consultation to be listened to properly, as said by various people.

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for colleagues’ contributions. They were good ones. Briefly, the example given by the spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, was a salutary tale. Again, there is the idea that something so significant might be engaged in by only 1% of the population; if that is where we end up with these structures in future, it would be really problematic and almost undermine their ability to perform from the outset.

On the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central, I have not quite found the right moment in the debate to talk about integrated care systems, but that is a good example of another very significant body that will have to engage with the county combined authorities in some way. The footprints do not sit elegantly, and they do not in life—I understand that. It is easy in countries such as the US perhaps, where they have defined, existing state borders—okay, everything can fit elegantly around that, but it can still get confusing at the margins.

There is a challenge there, but I think that it gives greater strength to the case for public involvement, rather than saying we ought to sit here with a map and carve things up. The people who know that best and how the sensible natural geographies work are the general public. The answers lie there, and it happens naturally—people know at what point they start to look, say, northwards to the hospitals in the north of the county, rather than to the one in the south, as happens in Nottinghamshire. That is a strong case for greater public involvement.

I am, however, reassured by what the Minister said about the provisions in clause 42(4)(a) and so on—the hon. Member for Keighley mentioned them, too. The reason for the separate amendment was my concern for the process to be one that happened not as an ABC condition right at the beginning, but as a co-equivalent term of engagement. Clearly, from what the Minister said, the intent is not to come alongside a proposal: “Have you brought your consultation with you? Right, that is ticked, therefore it is done.” On that basis, I will not press my amendment to a Division.

I will finish on the point the Minister made about initiating devolution. I am not sure that I quite agree with what he said. First, of course the centre is the initiator, in the sense that we could not have these bodies if we did not have the Bill, and we could not have the Bill if a Minister of the Crown had not presented it—so the centre is the initiator in that sense.

Also, I love the idea that the Government’s view is that local communities of a natural geography would come together to ask for county combined authorities and, most importantly, the powers that come with that, and the Government would respond on the quality of that application, but the White Paper already tells us the 10 areas that the Government are prioritising. That is “initiating” in any sense of the word; those are the areas chosen and the geographies for those areas have been chosen. There is no sense that this is a “come one, come all” process, as the Prime Minister has previously said— come to him or the Minister with ideas and “We will give you the powers you need.” That is not what is in the White Paper—it is very clear who it is who is being called forward. So I challenge the Minister’s point on that, but I am grateful for the comfort he has given on the amendment and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Farron]

This is important because the suspicion of many people is that this is a back-door way of circumventing district councils. We have been through reorganisations in much of the country, and for those places that have escaped somehow, such as Lancashire for instance, the Bill is a way of making sure that they all behave themselves and come under an aegis of an organisation set up by the Government.

In many cases, there is great value in two-tier authorities. If we believe in devolution, it should be knitted together and initiated from the grass roots and not from Whitehall down. If the CCAs are the building blocks through which levelling up is to be delivered, that must be done on the basis of an accurate analysis of the respective needs and desires of the communities involved. Independence in this context applies to the assessment of the value of the boundaries and the nature of the CCA. That is vital, particularly to put at rest those who may fear that CCAs represent a back-door way of scrubbing out the powers and relevance of district councils, even parish councils. I hope that the Government appreciate that fear and seek to address it.

[Neil O'Brien]

In my earlier comments, I set out the CCA model and talked about the rationale for it. Some areas that we are discussing a devolution deal with are considering adopting that CCA model. But even with those first areas, it is highly unlikely that the deals will be negotiated, announced and implemented via secondary legislation, and CCAs established and up and running within the 12-month period of this Bill receiving Royal Assent. That would render the report’s evaluation no different in 12 months’ time from today.

Opposition Members rightly want to have a debate in Committee about the CCA model. I have said a bit in our previous sessions about why we are doing it, but let us take the discussion a bit further. The purpose of the CCA model is to make devolution practically possible in two-tier areas without requiring unitarisation. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale talked about districts coming under the aegis of a CCA, but that is not quite right. It could easily be that only top-tier authority powers are devolved to the top-tier authorities in a CCA. If they do not want to, the districts may choose not to take part. They are not having their powers or responsibilities changed, but the difference is that they are not able to veto their neighbours from getting devolution or making progress.

I am perfectly happy to stand here and make an argument about fairness, because I do not think it is fair that one district can veto progress for a large number of neighbouring districts and boroughs for top-tier authorities, particularly if it is not being forced to do anything, as is the case under the Bill. It is simply unfair for such a district to be able to stop their neighbours going ahead.

The Opposition sort of alluded to the practical reality in that although I would not rule further mayoral combined authorities in the future, in a lot of a country that currently does not have a devolution deal, the CCA model will be the practical way of delivering that. In practice, if we do not have that model, we will just not make progress. I can think of one area that we currently discussing that has a very, very large number of district councils, and it is exceedingly unlikely that we would be able to agree a sensible agreement if every single one of them were given a veto.

In a sense, the amendment is to push us, not unreasonably, to talk about the whether the CCA model is the right one. The proposed evaluation is in one sense called for so that we can now discuss whether this is the right thing or not. I think we have been clear. There is no back door. I am standing here telling Members why we are doing it right now and what it does and does not mean. We will discuss some of the nuances when we consider further clauses, and we absolutely have to get that right. However, the amendment and the evaluation proposed would essentially not add anything to our conversation this morning, whether one believes that the CCA model and the removal of that veto is right or not. That is why I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

[Alex Norris]

I share a lot of the views expressed by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale about districts, which we will have the opportunity to discuss further in the debates on future amendments. I also agree with what he said about parishes. I hope the Bill is the single biggest step forward for parish and town councils in terms of the community powers that they can exercise, closest to the lowest possible level, to give communities a real say in what happens in their area. The Bill does not currently say that but we will seek to add it in due course.

I have a number of points to make about what the Minister said. I appreciate his candour, which reflects well, as it would be easy for him to obfuscate. I take him at his word, but I am surprised that there is a sense that within a year of the Bill achieving Royal Assent, which itself is some months away and probably nearer to Christmas, we will not have had any future deals agreed under these provisions. That genuinely surprises me, and I suspect it will surprise quite a few people who are currently negotiating such deals. I understand that the Minister has May 2024 in mind for elections; that timescale does not give us an awful lot of time, which poses its own desirability problems.

I disagreed with the Minister’s point that rather than this being about circumventing districts it is about making combined authorities possible without requiring unitarisation; that is not quite right. Deals have been made that involved district councils and they did not require unitarisation; they required consensus and understanding. I do not think it follows that it is either what is in the Bill or unitarisation, which leads to the point about districts not losing power. We will test that later, but I am glad that the Minister has put that on the record because it is important.

The Minister made a point about fairness, which I understand. He alluded to an example in which a deal with perhaps 15, 18 or 20 partners could not go ahead because one partner was able to say no to the whole process; I agree with him that that is probably not a good thing. Possibly, that is a point about fairness, but there would be other ways around it, such as to allow districts to exit a process and others to carry on. Again, there are benefits and disbenefits to that. Rather than a single district being able to veto the whole process, it could be done by a super-majority, given the significant nature of the decision.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

The hon. Gentleman has touched on a really important point. He has encapsulated in a very neat way what we are trying to establish here, which is the ability of districts to participate if they want to and not to if they do not want to.

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful to the Minister, but I do not think that will be the effect of the legislation. The reality is that a combined authority area can be formed for the area that includes the district council, whether it wants that or not. Indeed, the district council will have limited say. I do not want to prejudge the discussion we will have when we come to clause 16. It is welcome that the Minister has nailed his colours to the mast, but the reality is other mechanisms could have been chosen. The Government have chosen this mechanism, so it is right that we probe it. We have been able to do that and, as I am at risk of moving ahead of the discussion, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 8

Constitutional arrangements

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Norris]

I share my hon. Friend’s view. That point was made very clearly in Tracy Brabin’s evidence. Having said that we in this place have an interest in constitutions and the rules of the game, my strong belief, as someone who wants to see change happen in my community and to see my community improve in a vast range of areas, is that form should follow function. What are we trying to get out of these bodies? The structures—the bodies and committees that need to be in place—should then flow from that. I strongly believe that the people best able to decide that will be those who operate locally in the combined authorities.

The Government have to set the broader parameters, but I am hoping to hear from the Minister that those are likely to be de minimis involvement and that, instead, they will positively cut the link and allow county combined authorities to drive action forward without worrying about that tap on the shoulder telling them that even though they said they wanted to do that, they cannot.

[Neil O’Brien]

In our response to this amendment, it is crucial that we hold in our minds the distinction between local standing orders for combined authorities on the one hand and the statutory instrument setting out things such as voting arrangements on the other. It is essential for the stability and the establishment of combined authorities that things such as voting rights can be set out in secondary legislation to ensure a stable institution. Of course, the CCA can set out its own local constitution by itself, but those two things are very different.

We have talked already about the county combined authority model; clause 8 is vital to permit the effective operation of a CCA. Before making regulations under this section, the Secretary of State needs the consent of the constituent councils and, where it already exists, the CCA. In other words, the arrangements cannot be imposed against the local area’s will.

To answer the point made by the hon. Member for Nottingham North, the clause closely mirrors the provision for combined authorities, which has supported the establishment of 10 combined authorities, each approved by Parliament. In this instance, “constitutional arrangements” means the fundamental working mechanisms of the CCA, including things such as its constituent membership and voting powers. It is vital that those things are set out in secondary legislation and approved by Parliament. That ensures that CCAs are stable institutions with good governance, in line with agreed devolution deals. It is only right that the core design and operating model of the CCA, such as the constituent membership and the voting arrangements on key decisions, remain in line with the devolution deal agreed by Government and local partners at the outset, with the secondary legislation establishing the CCA being approved by this Parliament.

A CCA can set out its own local constitution or standing orders with additional local working arrangements. It might, for example, set out meeting procedures, committees, sub-committees and joint committees of the CCA. That is done locally, at the right level consistent with our position on localism, and does not require secondary legislation. The Mayor of West Yorkshire pointed out that they were making changes to go from one to three scrutiny committees, which is quite right.

The amendment is really inappropriate and potentially quite dangerous to the devolution process. It is inappropriate because it would allow a CCA to change elements of its constitution that are rightly approved by Parliament and part of the initial devolution deal agreed by all parties locally. It is unnecessary because all the other elements of a constitution can already be changed by the CCA locally. I hope to have given sufficient explanation for why we will ask Members to withdraw amendments 16 and 17.

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for that response. I take slight exception to the idea that the constitutions cannot be imposed without will. Yes, of course, all the members of the county combined authority will have had to have signed up to it—I understand that—but it will presumably be an indispensable part of the wider package, so we would be asking for local areas to turn down possibly many millions of pounds’ worth of funding, plus transport powers, extra housing powers and powers on skills, because they do not like the shape of the constitution. Of course they are not going to do that. I would not characterise that as them entering into it with the freest of free wills.

[Neil O’Brien]

Perhaps it would help if I were to expand a little. If I were a local government leader considering joining a CCA, I would want to know that the key arrangements for it, such as voting arrangements, would be stable over time and could not suddenly be changed by a potentially transient majority of local authority leaders who are members of it. To be honest, if I felt that that could happen to my local authority, I would be wary about signing up to a devolution deal on that basis. That is why certain core functions of these things are rightly set in secondary legislation, while other elements are rightly for local decisions so that they can make arrangements work for them and make things work locally.

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful to the Minister. I understand that, but I would like to know that local authorities will not fall victim to a one-size-fits-all arrangement. One could argue either way, which is fine.

The Minister’s point about local standing orders has addressed most of my concerns. He said that the arrangements remain in line with the original deal, but that cuts both ways. If he is saying no to local variation but yes to the idea of local standing orders, that must also mean that the Secretary of State will not make such changes. If we start to see variation between those deals, that becomes challenging, but I am getting ahead of the amendment before us. I am grateful for the clarification on local standing orders, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 9

Non-constituent members of a CCA

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Farron]

This is the third sitting of line-by-line scrutiny and the Minister is yet to accept an amendment, but I have noticed that his tone has been positive and he has engaged with everything that has been put forward, which is very welcome. The tone of debate on all sides has been really positive and constructive. The Government Front Bench has not been dismissive—I am grateful for that; I have been impressed. This amendment seems to be one that he could accept, so I wish he would.

I have a few observations, a couple of which are key. First, it is very important that CCAs, indeed all local authorities, should be engaged and listen to chambers of commerce, trade unions and other community groups. It is vital that they do. There is a slight worry that all this looks a little bit like what happened post the abolition of metropolitan counties in the 1980s, when counties were effectively stitched together afterwards, partly by people who were not elected at all.

The people on the CCAs as non-constituent and associate members may be wonderful people whom we should be listening to, but there is a mechanism for them to become full voting members of the authorities if the elected members choose to give them that right. We are therefore looking at the possibility of having not a version of democratically elected local government, but in essence a quango. I am not sure that we need more quangos; we need more democracy. If devolution is to take place, it needs to take place on the terms of the community to which power has been devolved.

That is part and parcel of the Bill, however, and the Government are quite explicit about this: it is part and parcel of a movement towards devolution and a change in the relationship between Whitehall and the regions, sub-regions and nations of the United Kingdom. It is therefore worth bearing in mind that what we have seen already—the combined authorities, the unitary authorities and potentially now the CCAs—is in effect a scaling up of local government. It might be argued that it is the professionalisation of local government—there are all sorts of ways in which it could be advocated as a positive thing. I have my doubts.

One of the areas I have doubts about is diversity. That is why I think the amendments are important. For example, Cumbria—the centre of the universe, or the centre of the United Kingdom actually: if we draw a line from the Scilly Isles to Shetland, the middle point is at Selside, just north of Kendal, and it is important to say that—had something in the region of 300 to 350 elected members on the two-tier local authorities pre-reorganisation, and roughly 100 post reorganisation. Some people might say, “Good; that’s saving money” or, “Fewer politicians; that’s a good thing,” but what it actually means is that those people who are part-time politicians—most have other lives and other responsibilities—have to do three times more work.

The observation from across the country, not just in Cumbria, is that when we do that, we push out certain groups of people—we limit the number of people who are able to take part in local government. It therefore tends to be older people, with time on their hands, and the men who stay behind. Anecdotally, looking at the people who have chosen not to put themselves forward to the new unitary authority, they are principally people with caring and childcare responsibilities, people in full-time work, and more women than men. They are the ones choosing not to go to the new world of the unitary authority.

That scaling up of local government, making local government less local, in itself has a tendency to be bad for diversity. That is not the Government’s intention—I am 100% sure that it is not—but it will happen, I am certain. That is why the amendment is important and an easy one for the Government to accept.

[Neil O'Brien]

Let me start by gently taking issue with something the hon. Gentleman said: that this measure is very much like the abolition of the metropolitan county councils. I argue that it is almost diametrically the opposite of that abolition; it is restoring a directly elected and directly sackable leadership for a strategic area.

[Tim Farron]

The reason it reminds me of that is that once those county councils went, there had to be a stitching together of some kind—so Tyne and Wear went for the Passenger Transport Executive to run the Metro, the buses and all the rest of it. The people on that body were not directly elected, whereas the people who ran it when there was a county council were—that was the analogy, but I take the Minister’s point.

[Neil O'Brien]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for taking the point, because I agree with the tenor of the argument, that we do not want to have major strategic decisions made by a quango. That is what we spent the past eight years fixing—starting in the coalition years, in fairness. We are on the case with his concerns.

Let me take a step back for a moment and set out what the clauses are doing. Clause 9 provides a flexible framework for combined county authorities to appoint non-constituent members, who are representatives of a local organisation or body, such as a district council, a local enterprise partnership or health body. Clause 10 provides for CCAs to appoint associate members, who are individual persons with expertise, such as a local business leader or an expert in a particular policy area.

Combined authorities have appointed commissioners with specific expertise to focus on a challenging local policy area and drive change—for example, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority appointed Dame Sarah Storey as a commissioner on active travel. It is a way of bringing in experts and other institutional stakeholders locally to complement the core of, ideally, directly elected local leadership so that everyone works together as well as possible.

It is only right that those nominations, or appointments, are the decisions of local leaders, who best know their areas. The clauses set out transparent processes for the nomination and appointment of both types of members. For a non-constituent member, the CCA designates the local organisation or body as the “nominating body”, which then selects a person to represent it at the CCA. It is for that nominating body to make that decision. For example, the CCA might designate the district council as a nominating body and then the district council selects its leader, for example, as its non-constituent member representative at CCA meetings—ex officio, as it were.

The clauses provide a way for local experts and key stakeholders to have a seat at the table of a CCA, bringing their local expertise and knowledge to facilitate better action to tackle local challenges. Those are vital public roles and transparency on them is equally vital. That is why clause 11 enables the Secretary of State to make regulations about the process of designating nominating bodies, the nomination of non-constituent members and the process of appointing associate members. We expect that all appointments of associate members will be undertaken through an open and transparent process, of course.

By their very nature those roles will be public roles—for example, a public body such as a district council nominating its leader to a role in another public body. In the Bill’s spirit of localism—a key word—this is a matter to be decided locally by the CCA and nominating bodies. They are independent of central Government and it is right that they make the decisions about how and with whom to collaborate.

The amendments seek annual reporting regarding the persons selected by the nominating bodies to be non-constituent and associate members. The Government do not believe that they should prescribe to CCAs that they should be informing Government of the specific make-up of their non-constituent and associate members. As with all good public bodies, a CCA should promote equality and diversity in the organisation. What is more, non-constituent and associate members are only one part of the membership of the CCA. The amendment calls for a report on one group of members of a CCA and does not reflect the CCA as a whole, including its constituent members, which is slightly odd. It is also slightly concerning that, as the hon. Member for York Central mentioned, the amendment mentions only some but not all of the protected characteristics. That would open up some potential legal questions that I am not really qualified to opine on.

The core point is that non-constituent and associate members of CCAs have an important role to play, but the amendment is unnecessary. It fails to consider the independence of CCAs and nominating bodies and does not reflect the fact that the positions of associate members and non-constituent members will, by their very nature, be public; these are not secret roles. I hope that the hon. Member for Nottingham North will agree to withdraw the amendment.

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful to hon. Members for their contributions. I agree with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, who expressed the hope that we are not establishing a quango. We are definitely establishing a new class of leadership, however, and it is less local and less directly accountable.

I am slightly disappointed by the Minister’s response, because I did not get a sense—

[Neil O'Brien]

I have to take issue with the hon. Gentleman’s comment about the process being less local. If I think about the devolution of powers over a number of things that are already done through combined authorities, such as the devolution of adult skills spending, if an authority is not in a CA, that decision is made in Whitehall. The decision is made here. In the combined authorities, such a decision is made more locally, for example by the West Midlands Combined Authority, which I visited the other day. Such authorities are making better decisions; because they are more local, they can create the co-ordination between local colleges. I take issue with the idea that decision making is less local as a result of what we are doing for devolution.

[Alex Norris]

The Minister is of course right that such decisions are more local than central Government, but that goes back to my argument on the first set of amendments. Having told people that communities will get the power to shape place, if what comes through the process is devolution to a new level of politics consisting of politicians and public figures who are further way from those people than their local councils, I do not think we will have passed the localism test. That may be a point of difference but that is certainly my view.

I had hoped to hear the Minister offer a slightly stronger commitment from the Government that the new bodies really ought to represent the communities they serve in terms of their make-up. I am surprised that was not said. We were left to believe that the make-up was for local decision making. Just as in the Health and Social Care Act 2014, I fear that we will end up with Schrödinger’s localism: when there is a difficult decision to be made, “That’s a local decision”; and when the decision is something that the Government want to reserve to themselves, “Of course we have to set the rules of the game, because otherwise it is dangerous”—as the Minister argued in response to the debate on the previous set of amendments. The Government are in danger of falling into some cakeism, but I hope that is not the case.

[Neil O'Brien]

This is an opportunity for me to repeat that, like all good public sector bodies, the CCA should promote equality and diversity within the organisation and it is for the CCA to do that locally. On the point about cakeism, these are two very different things. In the case of the voting arrangements for a combined authority, allowing them to be changed locally by a transient majority might cause a lot of local authorities to simply not join in the first place.

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying that; I would never want to misrepresent what he has said. On the second point, we are likely to test it considerably over the next however long.

I struggled with the Minister’s criticism that the amendments excluded the constituent members of the CCA. That would be a valid criticism had he put in a provision that included them, but he has chosen not to. Similarly, his criticism that I have not included all the protected characteristics would be valid had he put in a provision covering them all. I do not believe that he wants to do those things, so I think that was slightly unfair. On the question of legality, he has access to more lawyers than I do, but I spoke to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission and it did not have a problem with this, so I do not think legality would be an issue.

I am willing to accept the Minister’s point about non-constituent members, pertaining to amendment 18, in that, as he says, they are appointees of their own organisation. I remember chairing my health and wellbeing board and my discomfort at the fact that it fitted the characteristics the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale described more than it ought to have in a community that was very diverse, but when it came to trying to do something about that, the point was made to me that the board members were representatives of organisations, including the police, the council, the universities and so on, which themselves had diversity challenges that led to that common challenge, to which there was no elegant solution. On that basis, I will not press amendment 18, but amendment 19 involves choices—direct choices—whereby a county combined authority decides who to put on. I want to know whether we are trying to address inequities or just repeating the same failings. That is an important point of substance, so I will withdraw amendment 18 and press amendment 19 at the appropriate time. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10

Associate members of a CCA

Amendment proposed: 19, in clause 10, page 10, line 3, at end insert—

“(5) “The Secretary of State must publish an annual report on the associate members appointed to each CCA. This report must include:

(a) the age of all associate members,

(b) the gender of all associate members, and

(c) the ethnicity of all associate members.” —(Alex Norris.)

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to make the age, gender and ethnicity of associate members of CCAs publicly available.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Farron]

I will be brief, given the time. Personally, I have no problem with asymmetrical devolution. A contrived central devolution is perhaps why Lord Prescott’s proposals in the ’90s and noughties did not work and were not popular. I have no problem with asymmetrical outcomes, but I have a serious problem with asymmetrical autonomy. Each community should have the same access to powers, even if gained in a different way. This is an important probing amendment, and I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say. For example, a rural community such as Cornwall, Northumberland or Cumbria should not have a Mayor forced on it if it does not want one, yet it should still have the same access to the same levels of power that the Government are offering through devolutions to those communities that do have a Mayor.

[Neil O’Brien]

The amendment brings us to a series of other amendments bound together by a particular philosophy encapsulated in the statement by the hon. Member for Nottingham North that the default should be alignment. The amendment is a particular and bleak way into this philosophical debate, and amendments to some later clauses—in particular amendment 26—make the Opposition’s position much clearer: that things should move in lockstep and that there should be more one-size-fits-all.

Fundamentally, we pretty profoundly disagree with that philosophy for a number of reasons. Devolution agreements should be different in multiple different ways, because there are different local wants. Simply, the point of devolution is that different people in different places want different things, and devolution makes that possible. Pragmatically, there are also different readiness levels. In some places, a process has been going on— for example, the Healthier Together work in Greater Manchester, which had been going on for a decade before health devolution in Greater Manchester. Also, different places are set up with various partners that they work with at different readiness levels.

On a pragmatic point, my great fear about adopting the one-size-fits-all, lockstep approach of the convoy moving at the speed of the slowest is that we will just not make significant progress. Were the hon. Gentleman to find himself in my place and I in his, he would discover that he could not make much progress in getting Whitehall to devolve powers. That is no small thing—to ask the elected Government of the day to give up control of the things for which they will be held accountable by the electorate to local politicians, who in many cases may be of a different political party. That is no small thing to agree. If it were said that a power could not be offered to a particular place unless it was offered to all—like the most-favoured-nation principle—I promise that devolution would grind to a halt extremely swiftly.

There is a framework. The basics are set out in the levelling-up White Paper, but variation is intended. Variation is a feature, not a bug of our devolution agenda. We believe in localism, in particularism, and in adapting things to the particular needs and particular local politics of different places—I agreed at least partly with what the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said, which in some ways chimed with our view of this.

The hon. Member for Nottingham North asked us to explain why that might be so, in particular in relation to the amendment, which is about membership. Simply put, there might well be different numbers of members in different CCAs. We could have one with two members or one with a lot of members. Or we could have ones where the members were relatively similar authorities, or one where one member had radically different characteristics from the others—we might imagine a load of urban authorities and one that was more rural, or something like that. However, this amendment is the start of a series of amendments, so I will not labour the point at this stage.

Something else that the hon. Member for Nottingham North said that chimed with me and stuck out was that the centre should let go. That statement is very much our intention, in practice, with the desire for uniform devolution. We do have to let different places do different things because, fundamentally, they have different priorities. One place might care a lot about housing issues, but another might care about its innovation strategy. These things should be different, reflecting different wants.

To recap why we still want voting arrangements, for example, to be in secondary legislation, it is not primarily us in central Government that that arrangement is protecting; it is protecting local leadership from someone joining something only to find that they have been stitched up and then have their powers taken away due to a particular alignment of local leaders. Some things must be certain for local leaders and should be locked down and made safe for them in order for them to make progress, but in other ways there should be diversity, variation and localism.

This amendment represents just one aspect of that philosophy in practice, and we will talk about it again under other amendments, but the Opposition spokesman called on me to be direct, and I will be. There is just a difference in philosophy here about how we should approach devolution.

[Alex Norris]

There is a difference of philosophy, but the Minister slightly misrepresents the point I am trying to make, or perhaps I am not explaining it well. Our intention is not, as he characterises it, a lockstep, one-size-fits-all movement forward or, as he says, that the convoy must move at the same speed; it is that divergence, where it exists, should be the choice of the local community, not central Government. That is what we have today. The Minister is reserving for himself the ability to pick and choose who the Government feel is able and willing to exercise certain powers in certain ways in certain contexts. I do not agree with that, and that is the difference.

We are not saying that the settlement will be the same in every part of the country. The Minister says that this is a feature rather than a bug. I agree with that, and that is the point that we will be probing in subsequent amendments. We do not need to fight things out on constitutions at this stage. We will need to return to that, but on the principle that we are not saying that one size fits all, rather that the Government should not get to pick the winners. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Miss Dines.)