Devolution in England
Debate between Robert Neill and Lisa Nandy
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer). I agree with his analysis of the right approach to Greater Manchester, but I will come back to that in a moment.
First, let me address the broad thrust of the report, with which I very much agree. It is an excellent report, the Chair of the Select Committee made an excellent speech on it, and I struggled to disagree with anything in it. I hope that all parties will take the report on board.
We have a real opportunity to create a cross-party consensus on this matter. All too often in this House, devolution is spoken of in terms of legislative devolution —of votes for laws and structures. That is critically important, but without significant fiscal devolution, it is effectively meaningless. If we can get around that point, we would have a sensible basis on which to build. We need to recognise that this Government have done a lot already. I congratulate the Secretary of State and his team—I might be seen as being a little biased here—on having reversed what was nearly a 50-year trend of centralism.
The hon. Gentleman made the point that, when he was elected, there was much more control, and that is true. I was first elected to a London borough in 1974—I would like to think that I lied about my age, but I did not. By that stage, power was already being removed, and that had been a process throughout the post-war period. Therefore credit must go to this Government for having reversed that trend so significantly. I am talking here about the power of general competence, removing capping and replacing it with the consultation of residents via a referendum, which is an important step forward, and breaking down ring-fencing. Those are important and significant changes. I particularly welcome the further steps that were taken around devolution to Greater Manchester. I am a little disappointed that one or two Members were carping about the approach.
I am a firm believer in the idea that, from the point of view of local government, the first thing to do is to get the power devolved. For heaven’s sake, do not worry about the detail until the power is devolved. It is the tendency to allow the best to be the enemy of the good that has bedevilled local government in its relations with central Government over the years. It has been all too easy for the civil servant or the Minister, with every respect, to be told, “The local authorities cannot agree among themselves, so it is better that we keep the power centrally.” The same is said to Members of this House. However, if the principle of devolution and the transfer of power and finances is agreed, local authority leaders have the ability, with good will and common sense, to sort out the exact arrangements for themselves. In that respect, the leaders of all parties in Greater Manchester have been markedly more pragmatic than those in this House sometimes show themselves to be through the arguments that they deploy.
Lisa Nandy
Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me, as somebody who is a Member of Parliament in Greater Manchester, that the public might also be involved in the conversation between local authority leaders and the Government that he has talked about?
Robert Neill
Local authority leaders are elected via their local authorities. We can talk about the time frame for having a directly elected mayor, but I am afraid that we are again allowing process to get in the way of the principle of fiscal devolution, which is the most important thing. When one looks at local authority systems in other countries where there is significantly more financial devolution, of which France is a very good example, the public participation at elections is significantly higher because people realise that their vote makes a difference. That is the main objective that we should be aiming for.
As a Greater London Member of Parliament, I also welcome the devolution package that was announced by the Chancellor and the Mayor of London. It does not go quite as far as the Greater Manchester package, but it is extremely valuable. It is worth noting that it was a Conservative Mayor and the Labour-led London Councils that agreed, in a pragmatic fashion, on a set of 10 principles for how London local authorities would use the extra devolved powers and the even greater devolved fiscal power that was recommended in the London Finance Commission report, which I hope will be adopted by the next Government—I hope of my complexion—in the next Parliament. Again, the hugely important point to make is that when local government is pragmatic, it delivers better.
The Prime Minister gave me hope in his speech in June. The Financial Times reported him as saying that
“devolving power and money from Whitehall to the cities…is the future. The debate now is about how far and fast it can go.”
I hope that in the next Parliament, we will see a significant increase in the amount of public spending that is devolved. We have made a valuable step, because some 70% of council income is now raised locally. That is a big improvement on where we were. However, council income is not the same as total spend.
That is why the pooling arrangements between health and adult social care in Greater Manchester are an important step forward. Anyone who has served on a top-tier authority, whether it is a county, a unitary, a London borough or a metropolitan district, will know that adult social care is one of the principal cost pressures. The ability to align it more closely with the health service makes obvious sense financially and in terms of better and more effective service delivery. As has been observed, local authorities are often better placed to nuance the delivery arrangements to reflect the needs of the population.
The Chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee made a perfectly fair point about where we should go from here. I think that we should start to look at the further devolution of property taxes. That is the most obvious thing to do. We have made a start with the local retention of the increase in the business rate. He was kind enough to make observations about the methodology that was put in place. He was perfectly right that we always envisaged the methodology as being capable of improvement and refinement. It would be easy to increase the locally retained share. I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State talked at the Local Government Association conference last year about raising it to the high 80s or 90s. The Prime Minister has spoken in similar terms. Personally, I hope that we will move to make all the additional business rate retained in the next Parliament. We should aim, within not too short a period, to re-localise the whole of the business rate.