Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me as tail-end Charlie in this most stimulating debate on an issue close to every heart in the House.

Four summers ago a French woman in Gloucester came and asked for some work experience, and I asked her to do a report on our city—all the things she found most impressive and most disappointing—and make recommendations on what we could do to improve. She did so and it was a very good report, but she ended with a question: who was in charge? I explained the role of our city council, responsible for some of the services, the city council leader, responsible for its strategy, and the chief executive for its implementation, with a similar arrangement at shire hall with the county council responsible for other services, the fire and rescue services funded through the shire hall, the constabulary partly funded there, with political responsibility moving to a newly elected PCC, adding that health was a bit more complicated, with three NHS trusts, a local commissioning group, NHS England and so on. She interrupted me and said, “You see I’ve asked many people this question, Mr Graham, and no one knows the answer. In my town in France the person in charge is the Mayor and everybody knows that, everybody knows his or her name, the buck stops there and we vote for them or against them every few years.”

I thought of answering with a description of checks and balances, influence and power, consensus versus pocket dictators and so on, but it would not have answered her question. This Bill does, however. It gives, not for the first time because our municipal statues and histories tell us it was once so, real power and accountability to local areas and individuals. The story of Austen Chamberlain’s time as Mayor of Birmingham alone should inspire devolution and belief in local solutions for local issues.

The question is equally relevant for our counties as for our cities: who is in charge of Gloucestershire? Who is responsible for an overall strategy for our county? The answer of course is no one body. There are lots of different institutions with lots of different strategies, but there is no one who can pull the whole thing together and, for example, allocate resources between police and hospitals, which are of course funded from different central Government silos. If business rates are to be retained, business should have a say in how they are reinvested. That does not happen at the moment.

I believe we can do things faster and better. I trust this Bill and I trust the people of Gloucestershire to make the best decisions for our county. There will be issues to be resolved. Mayors, executive mayors and counties are not in our DNA at the moment but we will find a way through that and this Bill is the start of what could be an exciting process.