Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield Combined Authority (Election of Mayor) (Amendment) Order 2017 — House of Lords, 2017-03-16
Topic: Government Operations
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I first draw the attention of the House to my entry in the register of Members’ interests and declare that I am an elected councillor and a vice-president of the Local Government Association This is one of a number of statutory instruments that we have been considering over the past few weeks in your Lordships’ House. I should first say that I welcome further devolution, although I have concerns with all these deals about the level of funding provided. This order puts the election for the mayor back by one year. There is also an issue about the patchwork nature of the deals and, as many other noble Lords have said today, about the lack of any coherent framework for devolution in England. That is something that we should all be concerned about. In some areas, the devolution deal seems to have progressed well and important powers and functions have been devolved to the combined authority. In other areas, this has not been the case. In county areas in particular, a directly elected mayor perhaps does not feel right. My noble friend Lady Hollis referred to this as a particular concern. There is certainly a question over how these mayors fit in to the vision of future devolution in England. The Government have still been unable to explain their obsession with directly elected mayors—perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, will do so now I lived and worked in the east Midlands for many years, I know Lincolnshire very well and I entirely agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. It is a rural county and I just do not see how a mayor would work there at all. The Government should recognise that each area is different We need a coherent framework for devolution. The Government should set out what they mean by it so that there can be a proper debate and discussion in England about what it will be. Years ago we used to have things called Green Papers, which would come along and set out the Government’s thinking on where they would like to go and invite that sort of dialogue to get local government and people engaged. That is certainly something that the Government should do. I am also aware that there have been a few changes in the department in recent days. I do not know whether that will have any effect on what will happen, but certainly the Government need to think long and hard about the whole question of mayors and why we have to have mayors in an area if that area does not want one As I said, huge changes have taken place in recent years. We have police and crime commissioners, which were referred to, who can now take over the fire service. We have the combined authority models, with or without directly elected mayors. This is not very joined up or coherent. In my view, it is not the best way to move forward There is a problem here. A contradiction arises with the drawing of quite artificial boundaries in the spirit of trying to put together a combined authority when they do not necessarily mirror community identities. There has of course been the legal action from Derbyshire referred to by a number of noble Lords. Councillor Anne Western is someone I know very well. I regard her as a friend. She is a very competent leader of the county council. I have known her and worked with her for many years. There is no question that she is pro devolution and believes in the devolution of powers from Westminster to communities. Equally, I agree that the consultation was not organised very well. I agree with the comments of my noble friend Lord Blunkett. I do not particularly agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven; I think that some of them were designed for the front page of the Sheffield Star. We need to look carefully at where we are going with these devolution deals We need a proper framework. The Government need to come forward with one now. This is not the only place where we have problems. Other parts of the country have problems with these deals. The Government need to set out what they see for the future and how they are going to get there. That would certainly help the situation we have here today.