English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill (Fourth sitting)

Vikki Slade Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th October 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

The public rightly expect that mayoral strategic authorities will have access to the expertise they need, that they will work with businesses and other stakeholders, and that mayors will work full time to deliver for their communities. Mayoral strategic authorities will undertake critical new functions, including a stronger set of planning, transport and skills powers and, increasingly, police, fire and public health duties. The authorities will also represent their region in engagement with national bodies, and undertake joint working with partners. It is simply not realistic to expect a single mayor to do all that on their own.

The appointment of commissioners will be a local decision and no additional funding will be provided. I will gladly take Members’ questions now, but when we discuss schedule 3 in four groups’ time, I will expand on some of the checks and balances we are introducing to ensure that commissioners add real value to local decision making. I commend clause 9 to the Committee.

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

The name of the Bill promises devolution and community empowerment, yet a number of its clauses cause the Liberal Democrats some concern, and this is one. A key principle of democracy, local or national, is to have elected people—Ministers, Members of Parliament or councillors—delivering for the people who elect them. It makes little sense that a mayor of a combined county authority or combined authority, with dozens or scores of skilled constituent councillors and council leaders beneath them, might instead choose to appoint a commissioner to such an important role.

We heard in oral evidence from Councillor Bev Craig about the model used in Manchester, where the leaders of the constituent councils perform one of the portfolios. That strikes me as much more appropriate in a large strategic authority, where each of those individuals has skin in the game. There is no reason why a mayoral authority should not operate in the same way as large unitary authorities do. Mine represents more than 400,000 people and does not require a commissioner to look at planning, although it does have a head of planning—a paid member of staff. Policy decisions have in the English system traditionally been made by politicians, so I struggle to see why creating a new layer of authorities, further away from people, should take away the principle that such decisions should be made by elected people.

Some have suggested that there are not enough constituent council leaders in some areas—perhaps areas that have only three or four council leaders. There are some incredible deputy leaders and portfolio holders. There may be a case for drawing from a broader pool, but suggesting that those people are not sufficiently qualified in understanding their area or area of expertise could damage the respect that council leaders have in their area, as well as the connection between a constituent council and the strategic authority that sits above it. If we want constituent councils to drive better strategic decisions and better strategic outcomes for all residents, it would be much more sensible to give those individuals a real role in the authority. Given the way that additional responsibility allowances are scheduled, that can be a lot cheaper, because the Bill does not provide for people to have the double allowances that we already have in other parts of the system.

If we bring in external individuals as commissioners, there will be few checks and balances; they are not democratically accountable. The mayor may well be able to remove them, as is detailed in the Bill, but the public cannot remove them. Fundamentally, the people who are making policy decisions should be able to be removed by the public. They should also be held to the standards regime, as well as the other elements of conflicts of interest and financial declarations that councillors must follow.

I think that is all I want to say, but I feel really strongly that a model is there, such as the one in Manchester. We have heard about London evolving over time, but we have some great models running in the country. To me, it seems a sensible way forward to look at what they are doing in Greater Manchester, which is already incredibly successful.

[Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)]

As the hon. Lady refers to Greater Manchester, I am minded of the role that Chris Boardman has played in Greater Manchester in rolling out active travel. He is unelected, and I think it would be a shame if we could not take advantage of such a person’s expertise. Does she accept that is a risk with what she proposes?

[Vikki Slade]

There is a role for experts, but the role of the commissioners, as they are seen through this lens or this organisation, is far better suited to people who are elected. Councils around the country, including Manchester, can appoint individuals to do specific roles for a specific period of time, but the role of commissioner lies in those strategic decision-making pieces that are integral to their shape, and they ensure that an individual cannot independently run a fiefdom. I think it is really important that there are local people who are accountable. There is nothing to stop an organisation from appointing an individual expert, as they do all over the country, but they do not need to be called “commissioners”.

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

With your permission, Sir John, I will make some references to schedule 3 as well as clause 9, just to do it all in the same place. I will start by responding to some of the hon. Lady’s points. She raises some valid concerns. I will just give the perspective of someone who lives in quite a fractious combined authority area. I think my combined authority board currently has two Conservatives, two Lib Dems and two Labour—that is not enough people, so it must be 3:3:2, but I cannot remember which way around.

We also have the Manchester system at the moment, whereby different people hold different portfolios, which has led to a lot of politicisation. We have a Conservative mayor now, and we previously had a Labour mayor, but under both there was a lot of game-playing going on and a lot of difficulty, so I think it would be helpful for the mayor to be able to appoint commissioners just to get on with delivering their strategy. They are directly elected, and although I disagree with my mayor on a lot of things, I accept his mandate. It may well be helpful for mayors across the country to be able to deliver the strategy that they have stood on.

My concern relates to the relative sizes of combined authorities in a uniform approach to commissioners, and whether we can look at how to deal with that. To give an example, Greater Manchester has 3 million residents; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough has around 1 million. Similarly, the Greater Manchester combined authority has 3,500 staff—or 4,600 if you include Transport for Greater Manchester—while Cambridgeshire and Peterborough combined authority has 139 employees, according to a freedom of information request from March 2024. The difference in scale is significant, and obviously the amount of work for commissioners to oversee is therefore significant.

I do not want to put the Minister on the spot now, but could she write to me at some point to give context on whether the Government have considered modifying the number of commissioners that a combined authority mayor can appoint with respect to that variance in size, or perhaps the allowance payable to those commissioners, so they would be more part time in smaller authorities? I note that amendment 293, which we will discuss later, relates to allowances, and I can imagine that the Government want to allow flexibility so that local areas can do what is best for them, which makes perfect sense.

Within my area, if commissioners were paid at director level, that could cost well over £1 million. Senior officers can earn in excess of £100,000, which is a significant sum, and it is more than mayors themselves or many Government Ministers earn. That may well be appropriate in London, where it works and seems to be doing a great job, but London is a lot bigger than some other authorities. I thank the Committee for listening to those thoughts, and if the Minister could give some clarity on how we can deal with some of those issues, I would be really grateful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Siân Berry]

I had not previously heard the Conservatives’ argument on this issue, and I have to say that I disagree. The Minister said that the original intention of the policy was to allow for a wide range of precepting, and if there is one thing that directly elected mayors are really accountable for, it is the level of precept that they set.

I am in favour of creativity in conversations with the electorate about what initiatives, appropriate to the local area, might be funded by precept on a short-term basis or just in the local area. The way that the provision is set up allows mayors to be properly accountable for that. I worry less about it resulting in huge tax rises without consent, because consent is built in at election time.

I appreciate the concerns about austerity continuing in councils that are underneath and part of the combined authority if mayors are taking up available taxpaying powers. In every debate in this Committee, I would love to bring up the fact that all this reorganisation is happening in the absence of an end to austerity. The Government need to provide more funding to local councils so that this is not all being taken in council tax, which is a very unfair tax.

[Vikki Slade]

I have no principled objection to the mayor setting a precept. I found it confusing when I heard Mayor Houchen explain how he had a zero precept. How does anything get done? Where does the money come from? [Interruption.] I am sure he has a salary, and I am sure he has an extensive office that is paid for by someone. I accept that the principle of a precept is, in some respects, self-limiting, but what bothers me is that the combined authority mayors have no referendum cap, unlike upper-tier, lower-tier, police and crime or fire authorities.

It is fire authorities I particularly want to speak to, because although some Government amendments have been tabled on the role of the mayor in terms of fire and rescue, there is almost silence in the Bill about the role of the fire and rescue service, while embracing it completely and almost making the whole service disappear. I am really concerned that fire authorities are already desperately under-resourced. Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service gets £1.76 a week per household. It has desperately been trying to get a 20p per week increase, but has been told, “No, you can’t have that.” There is nothing in the Bill that protects and ringfences any money for fire services, whereas there is more talk about police services. I am looking for some reassurance and commitment about how fire services funding will be properly resourced and ringfenced to make sure that no area suffers as when we had those horrendous wildfires, where fire services had to beg, borrow and steal equipment.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

We are all hugely sympathetic to the funding of fire and rescue—as we see climate change, the imperative of fire and rescue services is key—but it is outside the scope of the Bill. We believe that we have the balance right between allowing precepting powers for mayors and allowing democratic accountability by which the electorate can hold any mayor and politician to account.

Question put, That the amendment be made.