Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it is a great pity that these proposed changes have come forward very late in the day. Certainly, for some of those not caught up in regulatory reform, we will have to unpick some of the intricacies of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. Even with the aid of a Keeling schedule, that takes some time. I perhaps go further than the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and say that, rather than preserve some right to have a further debate on Wednesday, we should be entitled to come back to this at Third Reading if necessary. A lot of new stuff has been introduced. I would certainly like to take the opportunity of reading what the noble Baroness has said on the record so that we can get our minds round all that. It is not absolutely clear in every respect As I understand it, in terms of the key provision, Amendment 62 will provide a fast track to the establishment of a combined authority. Amendments 63 and 64 concern the removal of geographical restrictions on EPBs and combined authorities, and Amendment 65 covers changes to existing economic prosperity boards. We see the benefits of being able to move more swiftly perhaps than circumstances hitherto have permitted, but we need to stand alongside that a caution about not abandoning parts of that process which have made a valuable contribution to the judgments that have been made today Amendment 62 would provide an override of the existing requirements of Section 109 to undertake a review and prepare and publish a scheme for combined authorities, which I think the noble Baroness confirmed. That would seem to reverse the current process so that the initiative is with the Secretary of State, who still has to make a judgment about whether a change would improve the exercise of statutory functions in the area. We have had introduced—I think for the first time in our consideration of this Bill—administrative law and what that requires in terms of consultation and other matters. I am bound to say that we need a little time to fully understand what all that entails. Even under the amendment, "the Secretary of State must have regard to"— perhaps the Minister can expand on that obligation—a Section 109 scheme if one has been published. If not, what is to underpin the Secretary of State’s judgments? The Minister went through a range of issues in making her presentation. We would certainly like the opportunity to study what is on the record in that respect There is the prospect of the Secretary of State consulting persons he considers appropriate, "if any", and the constituent councils having to agree. But it is unclear what analysis or review the Secretary of State will look to in making that judgment. What is to stop the fast-track approach becoming the norm? Perhaps that is what is intended. Will the Minister confirm whether that is the intention in this regard and that the previous or existing process will now be replaced in total by this fast-track process? Clearly, some further information will come when we get the report of the DPC. We cannot reasonably conclude our deliberations without sight of that report and advice Amendment 63 deals with EPBs and Amendment 64 with combined authorities. They appear to address the same issue of geographical restrictions on what can be included in an area. For example, for combined authorities it relaxes the current requirements that the local government areas of a combined authority must be contiguous and that no area not in the combined authority can be surrounded by local authorities that are. As I think has been confirmed by the Minister, this would appear as a "doughnut" formation, or as a combined authority formed from areas that are geographically quite far apart. However, in applying the new rules, the Secretary of State must have regard to the likely effect of the new arrangements on the exercise of equivalent functions in any adjoining local government area. We have no detail on how this test is likely to be applied; perhaps the Minister will say more on that Generally, some flexibility on the geographical construction of the combined authority should be welcome, provided there is protection for those authorities that might be surrounded, for example. Given that we are on Report, I was about to say that this would perhaps have to be sorted out in another place, but on reflection I do not think that that is right. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is right that we should have a further opportunity to pick up these important issues on Report or at Third Reading. They may be fairly brief amendments, but they touch on the processes that have operated hitherto. To clarify: we are not trying to make life difficult in this respect, but we need to understand the detail of what is proposed and the safeguards that will be there to balance the speedier process that these amendments seek.