Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

Scott Mann Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett]

That emphasises my point. As much as the Bill may offer a form of devolution, the truth is that whenever financial decisions are made by the Treasury, true devolution will not be achieved. That is what should be in the Bill, and that is why the point I am making is so important.

My third reason for why the Bill is not satisfactory refers to something that is happening at No.11. It was announced at conference that business rates are to change, which must be a good thing, but, as always, the devil is in the detail. No clear announcement was made about how the redistribution between richer and poorer councils would take place. Some £26 billion is collected in business rates, £2 billion of which goes to Westminster council. We need more information in the Bill about how such a scheme will work. Let me say to Members, many of whom represent suburban areas in London, seaside towns, rural communities, shire districts, market towns and all the wonderful places that make up England, that they should be seeking answers to these questions. The Bill is silent on all these matters.

Fourthly, the Bill threatens to do a great disservice to the very backbone of England and English democracy. It is a puzzle to me why a Tory Secretary of State should ignore this. The market towns, the county villages, the shire counties, the county towns, the suburbs and some of the smaller freestanding cities are the backbone of England—the great cities are wonderful, but they are not the backbone—and they have been offered a second-class form of devolution. Why should that be? I was once privileged to lead the great city of Leeds, which is one of the most powerful economic and cultural engines in the north, and even in England. Indeed, the renaissance of English cities, mostly under Labour control, has been one of the great successes of the past 20 years—I have always thought that this should be added to the checklist of the enduring achievements of Labour in government—but this Bill risks neglecting all the areas that are not in those great urban centres. The potential for growth and enterprise lies elsewhere in England, which is a rich, diverse country that we all love. The Bill is almost silent on the matter. The Chancellor’s ambassadors who were running around the country did not bother to call in to the market towns and the shire towns of the country; they went to the big cities.

The bottom line for me is that the same powers should be on offer to both urban and rural areas of England. For example, whatever powers are available to metro mayors to raise business rates—by the way, it will not be possible to raise business rates unless an area has a metro mayor—should also be available to the smaller towns and the rest of England, too.

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman should be aware of the recent Cornwall deal, which deals with the very heart of the rural communities; it is not all about the big cities. The Prime Minister himself delivered that deal to the very rural area of Cornwall.

[Jon Trickett]

As everybody in local government knows, the truth is that the Treasury deals with the big cities. The big cities are where the glamour is and where the general direction of this Bill is. Other areas have been left to the lesser actors within the Government. It may be that, in some areas, the best way to promote connectivity and economic growth and to establish devolved institutions that reflect the identities and culture of the locality is to have a combined authority. Let me take Yorkshire and Humber as an example. My own view—I am not going to impose anything because we do not believe in imposition—is that Yorkshire has the strongest identity and is the most obvious economic unit. It is a great shame that the Government’s consultation process did not allow ordinary citizens of the county to be engaged in a debate about the county’s own future.

As with other proposals in the Bill, the only people excluded from having a view are the electorate themselves. That brings me to the final weakness in the Government’s proposals, which is their complete failure to consult the public, businesses and the wider civic society. What happened to the big society? Leaders of councils from all parties have basically had to enter negotiations with the Treasury, and we all know that it is the Treasury and not the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government that is conducting these negotiations. The leaders have all entered into the negotiations with a gun held to their head. They either do devolution Whitehall’s way or it will not happen at all.

Council leaders have had to do the best they can for their areas, but it is noticeable that they and others are beginning to become more vocal in their concerns about this whole top-down process. For example, the great newspapers of the north-west, including the Manchester Evening News, The Bolton News, the Wigan Evening Post and the Oldham Evening Chronicle, have taken an unprecedented united stance in campaigning for a fair devolution deal. They are asking not only for the necessary funds to make devolution a reality, but for no more closed-door decision making. A basic flaw of the Bill is that there is no list of the powers that central Government seek to devolve. That is because, in reality, the whole agenda is being driven by Downing Street.

Let me briefly return to my opening remarks about hubris. It sounds like we all believe in devolution, but Labour are determined to make it happen. We will seek to work with those of other parties and those of no party who share the same objective. The past few weeks—I have spoken to leaders about what has happened over the past few weeks—have seen the demeaning process of the Chancellor’s emissaries dashing round the country meeting leaders in private, attempting to strong arm local councillors into so-called devolution deals for which there is as yet no statutory basis. I am sorry to say this but the Secretary of State, as charming as he is, has been little more than a passive observer. He was not even in the room. I fully understand why councillors will engage in these negotiations, and indeed some progress has been made—it is right that I should acknowledge that. However, we are not convinced that the Bill incorporates all the necessary safeguards to be supported in its present form, and that it is sufficiently bold or radical in resolving the English problems.

--- Later in debate ---

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

On 16 July this year, an historic devolution deal for Cornwall was signed off by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the heads of Kernow clinical commissioning group, Cornwall Council and the local enterprise partnership for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. As the first rural authority to be granted devolution, Cornwall has been given the ability to franchise its bus services. It has also been given intermediate body status for EU funding and, crucially, greater powers over the health and social care agenda.

For years we have had nationalists in Cornwall calling for a Cornish assembly, blaming central Government for mismanagement and complaining about decisions being taken in London. I am proud to say that within weeks of securing a blue Cornwall and a Conservative majority Government, we put together the largest devolution package Cornwall has ever seen. This is in stark contrast to Labour’s centralisation under unelected regional assemblies. Placing power squarely in the duchy allows Cornwall to take control over its own destiny, meaning that the people of Cornwall will have a greater say over their own affairs, and rightly so.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am pleased to hear what the hon. Gentleman is announcing about Cornwall, but will he tell the House whether the Government insisted that there should be a mayor?

[Scott Mann]

That was not the case, no. The powers were devolved to Cornwall Council, to the local enterprise partnership and to the business community.

I welcome the prospect of every local authority in the UK having the same powers that Cornwall now has. Local MPs, local councils and local business leaders will of course know what is best for their areas. It is my hope that this deal will empower local communities and make local authorities more accountable. There have long been calls in Cornwall to pull up the hypothetical drawbridge over the Tamar and to cut ourselves off from Plymouth and the rest of Britain. We can rightly be proud of our heritage, traditions and culture, but we do ourselves and our young people a disservice if we continue to navel-gaze. Our young people deserve better than that.

The nuts and bolts of the Cornish deal revolve around three main areas: buses, the European spending programme and the NHS, and I shall now address the issues involved. Cornwall’s transport network has been dysfunctional for years. The train services rarely meet up with the bus timetabling, and the bus network is very fragmented. My area of North Cornwall has no train services, and my villages have a less than satisfactory bus service. Under the stewardship of Nigel Blackler, we will be implementing a smart ticketing service and a more integrated network. I am confident that we will deliver that very well.

In the past, Cornwall has been seen as an economically deprived area. We have received two rounds of EU funding through convergence and objective 1. The last round of the European spending programme was set to deliver 10,000 jobs, but it delivered only 3,500. The constraints that the European Union placed on the spending, together with a lack of any coherent strategy, led to a woeful return on the investment. Economic development has never been well delivered by bureaucrats, by local government or by the European Union. I believe that by placing the funding programme with the local enterprise partnership, we will have business leaders searching for value for money, working with colleges on vocational training and ensuring that every penny is diverted to business from business.

Cornwall’s health services and social care providers are spread out and not working together. Many cottage hospitals in North Cornwall feel that they are under-utilised and could be providing more. Although the NHS is geared up around the primary care provided through the Treliske and Derriford hospitals, our GPs and services in the community are not being utilised to their full potential. I am in no doubt that handing this matter over to the Kernow commissioning group will help in the delivery of the service. However, as Superman’s father famously said on Krypton:

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

The Cornwall deal asks leaders to deliver. It seeks inspiration, job creation and innovation. I say to the leaders of Cornwall Council, the local enterprise partnership and the clinical commissioning group, “Now is your time. Show us your skill. Show us you can deliver for Cornwall and I give you my word that devolution will not stop here from this one nation Conservative Government.”