Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-13
Topic: Government Operations
Bruce Joseph Grocott (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful for a fair amount of what the Minister said. My Amendments 6 and 7 are, I think, about the shortest and, in many ways, the simplest in the Marshalled List. Amendment 6 suggests that mayoral elections should basically be every four years and Amendment 7 suggests that there should be a maximum of two terms On the four years, I think the Minister has probably gone as far as she can. It may not be precisely in her amendment, but in truth the Government seem to be saying that four years is a reasonable, sensible term of office for a mayor. It struck me as very odd indeed—I said so in Committee—that the term of office of the mayor was left entirely to ministerial order in the original Bill. In theory that could provide for a term of office of four, five, six, seven, eight or nine years, or any other number you care to think about. It is such a fundamental part of a democracy to know when an election is going to take place that it is essential to have at least some reference to it in the Bill, and I welcome the fact that the Government have put down an amendment. It does not do everything I would like, but in life you do not get everything Amendment 7 would effectively limit the mayor’s term of office to two four-year terms. That, the maths will tell us, is a maximum of eight years. I emphasise that the amendment would be in no way retrospective; I do not think that, under the Bill, it could be. It does not say to those people who are directly elected mayors at the moment—I would not dare say this—"Sorry, you’ve had your eight years and you must go". It would simply apply to the provisions of the Bill I submit that this amendment is very important. I have made it plain that I do not like directly elected mayors. I much prefer the parliamentary system to the presidential one, and there are checks and balances built into the leadership of local authorities at present. Leaders can be removed if they are not doing the job properly. It has never inhibited great leaders of local government in the past, as far as I can make out. I must admit that from some of the comments we have heard in earlier debates you would think that local government had been bereft of outstanding leaders. I do not think that Joe Chamberlain did too badly and I thought that Herbert Morrison was not too bad either. Anyway, we have had that debate What I know is that the great strength of the present system, prior to directly elected mayors, is that there is a daily check and balance on the performance of the leader, and if they are not good enough they can be removed. We all know that that has happened in local authorities; we probably all have our own examples. The problem with a directly elected mayor, and I do not think that the Bill addresses it, is that once you have elected them—there is one election once, and that is it—there is very little under this system to deal with a mayor who is considered by his or her peers not to be doing the job very well. There is no power of recall Perhaps the Minister could spell out what the checks would be if it became manifest that a mayor was not doing the job properly—obviously, short of a criminal offence. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, referred in the earlier debate to checks and balances, but as far as I can see there are none. That is why the amendment is important; again, I will stand corrected if other people have better international examples than I have, but I think in most systems where there are direct elections there is a limit somewhere to the number of times that you can be directly elected. There are good reasons for that, not least that there is an inevitable tendency for directly elected mayors to see the job of the administration as basically to secure their re-election; that tends to develop in their minds and in the operation of many of their staff At its zenith, the American system decided that eight years was long enough, and if it is long enough for an American President it is probably long enough for the mayor of a city in the United Kingdom. I suggest that this has been a mistake in previous legislation about elected mayors; it simply has not provided for limits of terms of office, and it is right that we should do so. I think that the Minister even acknowledged that there are some problems that have not entirely been addressed in that legislation. I submit to the House that this amendment is well worthy of consideration.