Elected Mayors

Debate between Robert Neill and Peter Soulsby

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) on securing a debate on this important topic. It is perhaps rather sad that the debate is so sparsely attended, because localism and the role that directly elected mayors can play in it is a significant issue for many communities, and it perhaps deserves a better audience than we have managed today.

By the sound of it, there is a bit of a contest between hon. Members over who has been in local government longest. I can only say that I spent 16 years as a borough councillor. If I am allowed to count my eight years on the London assembly, I can nearly get to the 25 or so years that the hon. Member for Leicester South (Sir Peter Soulsby)—

[Sir Peter Soulsby]

Thirty.

[Robert Neill]

I cannot quite beat the hon. Gentleman. That would be difficult to do.

No hon. Member actually declared an interest in the sense of saying whether they had been a mayor. I should say at once that I have not been a mayor, although I have been the leader of an authority. The nearest I got was being a mayor’s escort once, and I hope that my wife did not find me too inadequate in that role. That, of course, was under a ceremonial mayoral system.

Although we can smile at the differences, some important issues arise here. Across the country, ceremonial mayors do a valuable job and are often entirely independent, non-partisan representatives of their community. They can be forces for cohesion and fine ambassadors for, and representatives of, their communities. Whatever changes are made, one does not want to lose that element of the equation. Equally, it is perfectly fair to say that there has been considerable debate, and that there is a strong case for considering the mayor as an authority’s directly elected political head and chief executive, as is the case elsewhere in the world. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle is therefore right to say that the issue can have a huge impact on local democratic life.

My hon. Friend raised a number of interesting points and asked a number of questions. I should make it clear that there has, of course, been some debate and consideration, and various alternatives have flown around in the air. Some are picked up and some are not, at the end of the day. The final decision on the detailed implementation of our commitment on mayors is yet to be taken, and we will announce that decision to the House in due course. However, the commitment, in principle, to the concept of directly elected mayors in England’s 12 largest cities is in the coalition agreement. As has been observed many times, we have said that we will create directly elected mayors in the 12 largest English cities, subject to confirmatory referendums and full scrutiny by elected councillors. I will address those two issues as I go along.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill]

The hon. Gentleman knows as well as anyone that there has been a great deal of speculation about all aspects of elected mayors and the broader decentralisation agenda. I simply repeat what the Secretary of State said, which could not have been clearer:

“Once we know the views of the people in those 12 cities, we will move on to the election of a mayor if people vote for that.” —[Official Report, 21 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 1117.]

Reference has been made to the 12 cities. Our commitment is to have mayors in the 12 largest cities, and there are different arguments about where they are. Some points have been well made in the debate about the type of city that has a sharp focus and a sense of identity. Equally there will be questions about whether cities have the size or position to take on the range of powers that may be available.

I shall not go into the argument about unitaries as opposed to two-tier authorities at this stage. It is another legitimate debate, and I do not hold a dogmatic view on it. I have experienced good authorities of both kinds. I remind the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) that what the Conservative party has always said on the subject—and what the Secretary of State was referring to in a very catchy reference he made to his attitude to local government reorganisation—relates to the situation under the previous Government, when unitary authorities were imposed on some areas by force, without the consent of the people in those authorities. There is a difference between unitary reorganisation and the present issue, which is about giving people in existing, well-established city authorities the choice on whether to have a directly elected mayor.

I draw the attention of the House to the Green Paper, “Control Shift”, that we published in opposition, setting out 12 potential cities that might have mayors. The Green Paper is referred to again in the coalition agreement. Those 12 cities are Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Coventry, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Nottingham, Sheffield and Wakefield. We did that on the basis that those cities are of a particular size, which we have calculated. We did not include the city of Sunderland, which is large, but which had a vote on a mayor in 2001. The people there took a view and rejected the proposal. So there is a logic to what we have proposed, and our thinking is that we would give people the choice in those 12 cities. We shall set that out in detail in the localism Bill, which was announced in the Queen’s Speech.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle referred to the possibility of extending the plan to other cities, but they can already have elected mayors if they wish. Under existing legislation, councils may choose to hold a referendum on whether to adopt the directly elected mayoral model, or they may resolve to adopt the mayoral model. We do not propose to remove that option. We also intend to keep the current arrangements whereby local people can trigger a binding referendum on whether to have an elected mayor for their area by submitting a petition to the council with the signatures of at least 5% of the area’s electors. I understand that there is such a petition under way in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

[Sir Peter Soulsby]

On the point about the opportunities open to local authorities under the existing legislation, as the Minister will be aware, non-metropolitan districts, and unitaries that were non-metropolitan districts, will be required to make a choice between a strong leader or an elected mayor before the end of this calendar year. Will the Minister go a little further than he has done and encourage them to take the opportunity to consider seriously the option of an elected mayor and perhaps, when they have examined it carefully, to take the bold step of adopting the model as of May next year?

[Robert Neill]

As I am a localist, I genuinely do not want to impose a blueprint on those local authorities, but the hon. Gentleman, who was himself a strong leader even before the term was invented—he was a very effective leader of Leicester city council under the previous powers—will be aware that arguments can be made in that direction. There is an opportunity for the case to be made by local authorities if they wish. Equally—this is the point that we are stressing—the decision should rest with the local people.

[Robert Neill]

I will consider my hon. Friend’s point. I point out that 5% would be about 4,200-odd people in Carlisle, but my hon. Friend knows the area better than I do, and I stand to be corrected. It is a moot point whether that would be an impossible threshold to reach. It is legitimate that there should be some form of threshold to provide at least some evidence of a genuine desire among the population to go down that route. There are some costs in a referendum, although that is not the biggest issue involved, so before embarking on one there should be some evidence of public support. It is possible to argue either way about the matter, and I shall think about my hon. Friend’s point.

However, it is important to be careful. There must be some safeguards in the process. I mention that in the context of the referendum in Tower Hamlets and the mayoral election there, which I believe everyone in this Chamber would agree was not the best advertisement for the mayoral model. The concern that I draw to my hon. Friend’s attention, and to the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), who made a point about the unlikelihood of extremists being elected—I broadly agree that the electorate are generally sensible enough to see through them—is that there can be a risk of manipulation of the petition for a referendum without some proper safeguards.

In Tower Hamlets, there were some 17,000 names on the petition, easily beating the threshold, but some 6,000 were ruled invalid by the returning officer because of various blatantly fraudulent devices that had been employed to get signatures. That may not be the situation in Cleethorpes, but in some parts of the country there is a risk of pressure from individual sections of the community that may propose a petition for not entirely cohesive ends. We have to have some safeguards, but I think we can keep an open, practical mind as to the best way of dealing with the matter.

A question was raised about the important issue of mayoral powers. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle made a fair point on that. It is important that elected mayors have all the powers that they need to lead and enhance the prestige of their cities. Mayors need to be able to make real improvements to the lives of those who live and work in their city, and to make an impact on the city’s economy and its capacity to act as an engine of growth more widely.

One of the reasons, but not the sole reason, why we proposed the 12 largest cities is that it so happens that they are all unitaries. Unitaries are not necessarily the only model, but it may be convenient, particularly at an early stage when people are not used to elected mayors, to have elected mayors in cities where the mayor has the whole range of responsibility for local government services; in that way, things could be more naturally concentrated in one person’s mind. We want to strengthen mayors’ powers, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set out the kind of powers we meant in a speech during our party conference. The hon. Member for Derby North helpfully quoted what he said, so I need not repeat the kind of areas at which we are looking.

We envisage that mayors will work closely with neighbouring council leaders on issues such as transport, the strategic approach to planning, and wider economic priorities. Of course, it is important to remember that all the great cities do not live in isolation from their hinterland, whether in economic, social or simply spatial terms. Whatever happens, mayor or leader, there has to be a system such that cities can work sensibly with neighbouring authorities. The alternative would involve exactly the kind of upheaval due to further local government reorganisation and changing boundaries that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had in mind when he referred to the armaments industry, if I can put it that way. We want to find sensible ways for mayors to work across boundaries.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle is a strong proponent of decentralisation, as was evidenced in his maiden speech to this House. He argued strongly that in order to improve local economies and education, we must decentralise, take decisions back to communities and allow local people to make local decisions—in simple terms, return power to people. I endorse those sentiments wholeheartedly. They form a vital part of the Government’s localism agenda. I would go further and say that creating mayors in our largest cities is a key vehicle for facilitating that much-needed decentralisation. The hon. Member for Leicester South, and my hon. Friends the Members for Carlisle, and for Cleethorpes, were hoping that the Government would endorse the idea of mayors. The Government have clearly indicated that, in the right place—it is for the people to choose what is the right place—directly elected mayors can indeed make a significant difference.

Several hon. Members raised the important issue of accountability and scrutiny. With power comes responsibility, and a crucial element of the elected mayoral model is strong and effective scrutiny of the elected mayor and his or her actions by elected councillors. Effective scrutiny will provide the means for ensuring that the electorate have detailed knowledge of their elected mayor’s policies and activities. Direct accountability and scrutiny will be enhanced by stringent transparency requirements. The Government have already announced their intentions in respect of publishing online any spend over £500. Clearly, that has to apply as much to mayor-led authorities as it does to any other authority.

The hon. Member for Leicester South made a point about the role of the back-bench councillor and ensuring that scrutiny is effective. I have a great deal of sympathy with his comments about the need to give back-bench councillors a real role in the system. I have heard from councillors of all political persuasions and none that they can feel—and perhaps, in effect, be—excluded from the decision-making process. That can happen under the leader-and-cabinet model as much as it can under a mayoral model. Whatever the system, we need to find some means of addressing that.

It is important, too, that scrutiny is genuinely effective and moves beyond post-event, post hoc scrutiny, which can be rather meaningless at the end of the day. It is important that, wherever possible, we give elected members the chance to have input in the decision-making process before decisions are completed. That is why, in the spirit of localism, we are saying that local authorities should have the ability to choose whether they stick with the leader-and-cabinet model or with a committee system. That is for them to choose, but either a leader-and-cabinet or a mayoral model can be made to work, provided they properly involve councillors. My London borough of Bromley, for example, calls its scrutiny committees “policy development and scrutiny committees”, which more closely mirrors what should happen, in terms of trying to involve members at an earlier stage of the process.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle mentioned councillor numbers and asked whether we would seek to reduce the number of councillors in areas where elected mayors are in place. Once again, I refer to the comments of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in response to a question on that issue. He stated:

“Decisions on the number of councillors in any local authority are handled by the independent Local Government Boundary Commission, in which process I have no role.”—[Official Report, 21 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 1116.]

That is the case; Ministers do not have any role in setting either the boundaries or the number of councillors under our current arrangements. If councils wish to open up the matter of the number of members that they have, they can ask the Local Government Boundary Commission to review the authority’s ward boundaries and number of members. They do that by direct application to the commission; the process does not involve the Government, and it is probably right that there should be independence in that regard.

[Sir Peter Soulsby]

On boundaries, can the Minister take this opportunity to confirm that the proposals that are likely to come forward for the 12 cities are likely to be based on the existing boundaries of those cities? There have been rumours that there may be extensive extensions of some areas. I do not expect that to be the Minister’s intention, but I would like to give him the opportunity to confirm that it is not his intention.

[Robert Neill]

The hon. Gentleman’s understanding is the same as mine. There has been debate outside this House—academics and others have suggested other things, such as regional mayors, city region mayors and so on—but I am happy to make it clear that our intention relates to the cities’ existing boundaries.

The commitment remains strong. There is a real case to be made for mayors, but the people of the cities ultimately must make the choice. There can be a great advantage in having a directly elected political leader of an authority; it can mean a sharper focus, a clearer line of accountability and a greater profile for the political head of the authority, and therefore for the authority and its services.

The issue of personality was raised. I mention it because we should remember that if a community decides to go down the route of having an elected mayor, the electoral process must include proper safeguards; I largely agree with the hon. Member for Derby North on that. Although personality is inevitably part of politics nowadays, I hope that that is kept in proportion because, ultimately, values are what count. The recent election in Tower Hamlets, in which the successful independent candidate, or certainly people linked to him, launched a libellous and wholly unfounded series of personal attacks on the Labour candidate, does not help the argument. We have to keep personality in proportion, and that comes back to the need for safeguards in such circumstances—in referendums, in elections for directly elected mayors and, once they are in place, in the scrutiny process. That is not a reason not to go down the route of having directly elected mayors, but we must bear it in mind when finding the right checks and balances.

Let me reiterate our commitment to having mayors in the 12 largest cities, subject to referendums and scrutiny of the kind that I described. That commitment will benefit those cities, helping to return them to their rightful place among the world’s economic powerhouses and, ultimately, helping to improve the lives of the people of this country.