Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Functions and Amendment) Order 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-12-21
Topic: Housing
Nicholas Bourne (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate very much indeed and will seek to deal with the points that they raised. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, raised some points about funding which I will try to deal with. First, in relation to housing, he will appreciate that the £300 million fund for housing is to kick-start housing projects that would otherwise be difficult to fund. Much of the money will be recycled in so far as it is money for rent to buy, for example; that is part of the answer. The money within the order—the £30 million per year for 30 years—is of course not the sum total that is being spent on the northern powerhouse. For example, £500 million of investment has gone into infrastructure projects such as the M60, the A66 and the M62; money has been spent under the Weller review of skills; money is going in to schools’ strategy, and so on. Much is happening with the money referred to in the order. I echo the congratulation of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, of the local authorities concerned and those in Manchester who have been driving this forward with considerable enthusiasm. It is an object lesson in how these things can move forward successfully I turn to points raised by the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Kennedy, about electoral arrangements, electoral fraud and how we deal with it. Whether it is in Old Sarum, Slough or elsewhere, I do not think anyone would suggest that a single political party has the monopoly of right when it comes to fraud or benefiting from it. It happens across the piece and, where it does, even on a small scale, we want to deal with it. It is in that context that the report appears in today’s Times. I confirm that the electoral arrangements for Manchester and the other devolution deals that are going forward will take place in the traditional way, without innovative arrangements I turn to comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and thank him—and, indeed, the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Kennedy—for the general welcome he gave to the draft order. I can confirm that the arrangements that we put in place are subject to the openness that the noble Lord referred to: that is part and parcel of what we are seeking to do. We will honour those commitments. An order relating to overview, scrutiny and audit, which he did not mention but covers some of the same territory, is currently before the House and is to be debated early in the new year. He fairly raised a timetable for remaining deals that are going through. One exists in the department which I have seen, if I am not mistaken, so I will endeavour to circulate it to noble Lords so that they are party to the same information that I have somewhere The last major issue raised was about Sheffield by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. As I understand it, there has been a court judgment this morning that indicates that further consultation is necessary—a court case brought by Derbyshire. It has not stopped the deal going forward, but it means that it may be subject to delay. We will obviously want to study the judgment before coming to a considered conclusion—it happened only a couple of hours ago—but I will once again endeavour to ensure that noble Lords who participated in the debate are updated on it and will place a copy in the Library as well, if I can With that, I thank noble Lords, who have been very supportive of the draft order and commend the regulations.