argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord to reflect on the clear problem that could arise, which is that you might well have a mayor and a deputy mayor who do not get on. The mayor of course is elected with a popular mandate and so has a clear mandate to take office under the provisions of the Bill. It is important that the executive of the combined authority should operate smoothly, efficiently and with a sense of common purpose. Given the limited number of members of a combined authority, how does the noble Lord propose that a mayor should seek to build relations with a deputy with whom they may have little in common?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Bruce Joseph Grocott (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I hope that I am not misrepresenting the noble Lord, Lord Deben. I think that he said the British have an obsession with constitutional neatness, or words to that effect. That is rather odd coming from a Member of this House. The one thing that this House does not have is constitutional neatness; none the less it works pretty well most of the time. Certainly most of our dealings on constitutional matters show exactly the opposite, if that is an accurate reflection of what he said; we certainly are not obsessed with constitutional neatness. For example, we have accepted for a long time that the government of Scotland is different from other parts of the United Kingdom; this long predates the strong movement that exists at present for independence. But that is not the main point that I wanted to make I have great sympathy with these amendments, but only because they are trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, if I can put it like that. They all derive from a kind of fear or anxiety of this potential authoritarian figure without qualification or checks and balances that we are creating in the form of a directly elected mayor. As I have said several times, I infinitely prefer parliamentary systems to directly elected, presidential systems. These amendments express a recognition of what I have always feared about such systems: you elect someone and they can pretty well act in an untrammelled way for the next four, five or six years, or however long it happens to be. These amendments are designed to say, "Let’s be a bit worried about this now. Let’s write in a number of qualifications that ensure that the mayor is not in a position to do that" To that extent, I support amendments along the lines being proposed. But—and it is a colossal but—we must recognise that the system we have at present, both in Parliament in the House of Commons and in local authorities up and down the length of the United Kingdom, is one in which the Executive are subject to genuine, democratic checks and balances in the form of a council, or a House of Commons, that checks the Prime Minister or the leader of the local authority to make sure that they do not get too big for their boots, if I can put it in those terms. That is the joy of that kind of system. If, for some reason or another or for some ideological principle, we decide that it works well in the United States and we ought to do it here—or whatever the motivating factors are behind the obsession that all three parties seem to have with directly elected mayors—we certainly need to make sure that a directly elected mayor is subject to some kind of ongoing scrutiny, and checks and balances on the powers that he or she decides to exercise. So I support the drift of the amendments.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I would have sympathy with my noble friend Lord Grocott if the mayor were able to act in an untrammelled way. Coming back to the reality of the Bill rather than grand constitutional fears about what might happen if circumstances took a different course, new Section 107C says: "The mayor for the area of a combined authority must appoint one of the members of the authority to be the mayor’s deputy" In fact, the choice of deputy is very severely constrained. The deputy must be a member of the combined authority, which will limit the choice to a small number of people The issue before us is not a great constitutional principle of whether the choice of deputy should be constrained in a way that acknowledges the representative credentials of the combined authority—it is so constrained under the Bill—but whether there should be a further process, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, of consent by the scrutiny committee to the choice of one of those members as deputy. This is a practical issue, in my view, not a constitutional issue. The practical issue is that it is important that the mayor, who comes with a mandate, appoints a deputy with whom he or she gets on Those of us who have been engaged in these relationships all know that in practice a deputy mayor will not be appointed who significantly constrains the authority of the mayor, because the mayor is sitting there with a large mandate. There are checks and balances. The combined authority has significant powers to constrain the mayor and to agree the mayor’s actions. If the mayor does not get on with or have confidence in the deputy, what will happen in practice is that the mayor will rely on advisers rather than the deputy mayor. That is not a healthy state of affairs. The mayor has a mandate. The mayor is constrained in the choice of deputy to appoint only a member of the combined authority. It seems a constraint too far to require that choice to be agreed by the scrutiny committee. Of course, in the nature of the political relationship between the mayor and the scrutiny committee, the scrutiny committee itself may well be fairly hostile to the mayor. It is perfectly possible that that will be the position that the scrutiny committee takes.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): I would have more sympathy with that because of course that will be the colleagues from the executive of the combined authority agreeing. But there will still be an issue if it is not possible to appoint a member of the combined authority in whom the mayor has confidence. There are some practical issues here. The choice is already constrained. If you constrain it still further, that will not enhance accountability and democracy but may just oblige the mayor to rely on informal rather than formal officeholders.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, maybe I should know this, and I do not, but what provision is there without going via the courts for the public removal of a mayor who is regarded as underperforming in their duties? A lot of the Minister’s comments were about transparency, accountability and the authority and legitimacy that they get from direct election, and therefore that they must have a deputy who is aligned with their own views. I understand that argument, although I do not necessarily accept it. But at the moment, within Parliament and certainly within local government, most leaders—apart from having to win their elections every four years—may be required to stand for re-election annually for votes of confidence by their group. They can be removed if they are not regarded as performing appropriately On the assumption that a mayor may be elected only every four years or every five—we do not yet know, as we have not had that discussion—how is the accountability to the electorate to be exercised unless the Minister is willing to consider some sort of recall motion? It is clear that the combined authority does not appear to have any leverage over the mayor, in the way that a group would at the moment over the leader of their local authority. Maybe I should know this and it is in some subset of the briefing on the Bill but I cannot find out how, short of going through the courts, you could hold the mayor to account for their actions until that mayor stands for re-election, which may be four, five or six years down the line.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): But does the Minister agree that the leaders would have four-year terms unless their group decided that they were not appropriately fulfilling the functions for which they were chosen, in which case there would be either quiet or less-quiet discussions, and that person would stand down?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): I understand absolutely that it is a different ball game when corruption is involved, as with some of the issues associated with Tower Hamlets. I am not talking about that. My experience of both district councils and county councils is that there may be a regular turnover of leaders within the four years if they are not driving through the agenda on which their group fought the election and they have failed to deliver the manifesto. Leaders on Norfolk County Council, in that case from the opposition party, have been overturned. In my city council, the leader has to be re-elected each and every year and there is occasionally, if not regularly, a change of leadership in the course of that because the leader has lost the confidence of their group. That is perfectly proper and usually happens because the ward councillors, one-third of whom may have had elections each year, are getting that feedback on the door-step from their constituents In other words, there are quite effective, if subtle, ways of ensuring that the current leaders of local authorities continue to deliver their manifesto and carry the consent of their group, who are also regularly standing for election. However, as far as I can see, once a mayor has been elected, he or she is free from any such scrutiny, let alone from recall, by his or her electorate. The leader of a group is indirectly elected, and can be recalled by that group; the mayor is directly elected but apparently cannot be recalled by the electorate. Could the Minister help me on this?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Kenneth Woolmer (Labour, Centre-left): Can the Minister enlighten me on one point and agree with me on a second? First, when it is said that the deputy mayor must be a member of the combined authority, does that mean a councillor on one of the local authorities that comprise the combined authority rather than someone on the board, as it were, of the combined authority? Secondly, would she agree with me that, in practice, once one moves away from London, the number of local authorities that comprise the combined authorities is relatively small? We are not talking about 30 or more—in South Yorkshire it is four and in West Yorkshire five or six. It is inconceivable that an elected mayor could make an appointment without careful consultation and discussion with the leaders of that small number of constituent local authorities. In practical terms, the mayor would have to consult carefully, as he or she would consult carefully on any policy issues, because without that the mayor could not govern effectively. There is a degree, I think, of suspicion about the mayor. If a mayor is appointed, that person is not going to be dealing, in most parts of the country, with 30 or 40 local authorities. The proposal being put forward is unnecessarily cumbersome and flies in the face of the reality of how the mayor would have to work.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Kenneth Woolmer (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the noble Baroness. Am I right in understanding that it must be not simply an elected councillor but a leader of one of the constituent authorities? In practical terms, that means that a mayor would look extremely foolish if he or she selected somebody as a deputy who was not accepted by the leaders of a small number of local authorities.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): I will stop pushing on this point, but I have one last question that I am still not clear on. That may be because we have not yet got to the point about the length of the mayor’s term of office and the co-terminosity or otherwise of other elections. However, one could easily see a combined authority with, say, five bodies where one or two might be NOC while the other three, because their elections do not occur at the same time as the mayoral elections, might have leaders of different political persuasions so that none of the leaders was of the same political persuasion as the directly elected mayor. I assure the Minister that, as I am sure she is aware, that will happen. We have seen it between elections for local government and elections for MPs where we get very different results. Indeed, some people quite deliberately cross-vote to get precisely that outcome. I have seen that in Norwich on many occasions. What then happens if the mayor has no leaders politically sympathetic to the views on which he was elected?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am not sure whether I am going to be helpful to the Minister, but would it be possible that, between elections, the Secretary of State could remove all the functions from the mayor, so that they would stay with the combined authority members?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): That just illustrates the complexity of the matters that we are discussing. I refer to one matter that the Minister mentioned, when she said that the deputy mayor must be the leader of a council which is part of the combined authority. I am not sure whence that arises, as it is not in the Bill. It may or may not be the case that combined authorities consist purely of council leaders.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Kenneth Woolmer (Labour, Centre-left): That comes back to the clarification that we asked for—and we are getting a little lost in it. Is an elected councillor in one of the constituent authorities who is not a leader a member of the combined authority in the sense that it is being used? In other words, could a mayor choose somebody as a deputy who was a back-bencher in any of the local authorities, to put it simply, and not a decision-maker on the board of the combined authority? Would that be possible?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): That is a good question—particularly if there were no leaders in political sympathy with the mayor and therefore he or she had to scrabble around to find a deputy and had to go to a minority party, which might be very minority indeed.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): So the shape and construction of combined authorities may vary, but there will be a distinct membership, as the Minister has just confirmed, of the body defined in whatever way ultimately emerges as the combined authority. That much is clear to me —it may not be clear to others, but then so much of this debate is, I suspect, not going to be entirely clear to all of us. I think we can move on from that point, unless the Minister wants to come back.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the noble Lord. He will be less grateful to me when I say that I am afraid I do not agree with the amendment that his noble friend Lord Shipley moved in relation to the role of the overview and scrutiny committee in the appointment process; I do not think that that is a proper function for such a committee. We will come later, as the noble Lord has just said, to the functions of the overview and scrutiny committee, and it seems to me that its job should be to look at how the mayor and the combined authority are working, in terms of both looking at policy as it is made and looking forward to future policy. I do not think it appropriate for those committees to play a role in making the appointments, and we will not be supporting the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in that respect Between us, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and I led Newcastle City Council for something like 20 years—with varying degrees of success over time, no doubt. There have been many distinguished local authority leaders. Right now I am looking at a distinguished local authority leader taking his place on the Benches behind the Minister, who was herself a distinguished council leader. My noble friend Lord Woolmer was a distinguished council leader, although I detect a slight difference of opinion between us on some of these matters today—but then nobody is perfect It seems to me that those who see in the mayoral system something infinitely better than anything we have had before are making a great mistake. What worries many of us—certainly on the Labour Benches, I think on the Liberal Democrat Benches and perhaps in other parts of the House—is the enormous concentration of power which will be granted or withheld by the Secretary of State in a manner which diminishes accountability locally. For those reasons, we shall certainly wish to return to these matters.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): Much as I would like to be able to take decisions on behalf of the whole population of the north-east, I would not be able to do that. My view, which may be shared by others, is that we would much rather not have imposed upon us a requirement for an elected mayor for the combined authority which, as the noble Viscount well knows, would run from the Tweed virtually to the Tees and from the Cumbrian border to the North Sea coast—a very large area and somewhat different from some of those which have been mooted. Of course, the people will not be given a choice as matters at present stand. It will be a take-it-or-leave-it decision that councils or the combined authority will have to take on behalf of the people; otherwise, it is said, they will not receive the powers. That is part of the problem So far as the detailed arrangements are concerned, our amendments would deal with the situation where, by agreement or otherwise, a mayoral system is created within the combined authority area. We will need to return to some of these matters on Report. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this is a probing amendment in relation to the controversial proposal under new Section 107E to permit mayors to assume the role of police and crime commissioner. In fairness, this is not a case in which the Government are imposing that as a requirement—at this stage, at any rate—but it is an option on the table that the authorities in Greater Manchester have chosen to adopt, which is no doubt satisfactory at least to the police and crime commissioner in that area, since he has become the interim mayor of Greater Manchester. He is a very able person, and if we have to have somebody in that role I have no doubt he will do an excellent job However, the problem that may arise, and does arise in the case of the north-east, is that the boundaries of the combined authority include more than one police and crime commissioner area. In the north-east we have two police forces and two police and crime commissioners, one for Northumbria and one for Durham. The same difficulty may well arise in other areas, such as the West Midlands or the south-west. Not only may there be two or more distinct police forces with their own police and crime commissioners within the boundaries of a proposed combined authority; there may be police authorities and areas represented by police and crime commissioners which are only partially within a combined authority. There may be an overlap between the boundaries of a combined authority and police authority areas It seems that in that event, it would be inappropriate simply to consign all or part of an existing area to the responsibility of a combined authority mayor. Therefore, the amendment calls on the Secretary of State to propose alternative arrangements to meet these geographical difficulties, if I may put it in that way. I invite the Minister to explain how the Government intend to approach the issue and what kind of parliamentary approval would be sought. For example, would further amendment to the legislation which established the position of these police and crime commissioners be required? I hope the Minister can deal with that point today, but if not, perhaps it can be discussed before we reach Report. I beg to move.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Government Operations
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord. I apologise for omitting reference to two amendments in my name, which partially deal with the points that he has made—Amendments 31 and 32. The Bill permits the suspension of a mayor’s PCC role, and Amendment 31 would allow for any person who has had a PCC function delegated to them by the elected mayor to be suspended also. Similarly, where there is a disqualification of a mayor’s PCC role, the amendment would allow for the disqualification of any person who has had that function delegated to them. I apologise to your Lordships for not having referred to those points in my relatively brief opening remarks. I hope the Minister will be able to deal with them in due course.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-06-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I hesitate to disagree with my noble friend Lord Beecham, for whom I have enormous respect. However, my recollection of the police and crime commissioner thing is that, when it came to this House a few years ago, on this side of the House we all thought that it was a pretty bad idea. We were rather confirmed in that view by the fact that the percentage polled by these people in the elections was pathetic and they really have very little democratic legitimacy Certainly in my own area, the commissioner is seen to regard himself as a very big noise, to be driven around in chauffeur-driven cars at public expense, employing advisers on his behalf. Surely we want to get rid of all this. Surely, being able to transfer those functions into the functions of an elected mayor is something we should welcome. The whole point of an elected mayor is to bring a breath of fresh air into the democratic politics of local government. I have devoted not nearly as long a part of my life to local government as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, but I have done about 15 years of service one way or another on local authorities and I think the elected mayor idea has the potential to bring democratic life to big cities and to introduce a new style of politics. If we are to have elected mayors, the police and crime function naturally fits in There are obviously boundary issues that someone has got to sort to out, but that must be the Secretary of State—no one else can do it. The idea that everything has to be done by the agreement of existing authorities is a recipe for the status quo, and I feel that we are somehow on the wrong track.