Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-10-14
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): I will start by breaking the habit of a lifetime and agreeing with some of the contribution made by the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). I also urge the Secretary of State not to get too carried away with identity, and I will let him into a secret: I am a proud Mancunian by birth, and also a proud Dentonian. I suppose I am a Greater Mancunian, because I was born two months after the local government reorganisation. Many of my constituents will have allegiances to their old historical counties. Someone who lives in Denton and Audenshaw in my constituency is Lancastrian, but someone who lives in Dukinfield is from Cheshire and proud of it. Someone who lives in Reddish, Heaton Chapel or Heaton Norris in the Stockport part of my constituency has dual identity, because they started off in Lancashire in the 20th century, and were transferred to Cheshire when the area became part of Stockport county borough. People identify with their old historical communities as much as they do with the reality of local government administration on the ground I disagree with the hon. Member for Bury North in that when the Government of the late Baroness Thatcher abolished the old Greater Manchester Council—along with other metropolitan county councils and the Greater London Council across the river from here—she did not do so to create a patchwork of unitary government. The then Government recognised that it was impossible to create unitary government in the metropolitan counties because some functions had to be carried out at county-wide level. We ended up with a hotch-potch of joint boards: the Greater Manchester passenger transport authority, Greater Manchester waste disposal authority, Greater Manchester fire authority, and Greater Manchester police authority. There were still functions at county level The difference was that in many respects those bodies were less accountable than the old Greater Manchester Council which, for all its faults, at least had directly elected representation. The problem with joint boards—we see this today with Transport for Greater Manchester—is that although they include councillor representatives, the district councils do not hold those councillors or that joint body to account. In some respects, having some level of direct accountability at city region level makes sense My concern is about the accountability of the individual. I accept that the mayor will be accountable to the electorate every four years in local elections, but the difference between the London model and that proposed in Greater Manchester is that a small Assembly at London level holds the Mayor of London to account. It has a call-in procedure and can question the Mayor, but I do not see where that function lies in the Greater Manchester model. I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State say that he expects the call-in procedure and key procedures on cabinet decisions at local government level to apply to the mayoral model for metro mayors, and I look forward to him fleshing that out Part of the problem with a combined authority—certainly the Greater Manchester model—is that each of the 10 council leaders in Greater Manchester will have an executive portfolio. They are the Executive, and there is nobody to hold them to account. There is no clear process to call in cabinet decisions that affect one or more metropolitan districts in Greater Manchester.