Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-21
Topic: Government Operations
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this has been a short but helpful debate. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. There is recognition that we need the flexibility that the Minister is offering us to make best sense of the geographical diversity and local government diversity that we have in this country and to build on the our strengths. That is important. The noble Lord is also right to remind us about rural areas. Most of the cities that I have mentioned as seeking additional powers and, alongside them, clarification about the use of them from the Minister, are indeed the powerhouses of their local rural economies. That is rightly so; that is a perfectly appropriate relationship between the one and the other. The noble Lord is right to remind us of that and I take his point The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, said—in a slightly downbeat way, if I may say so—that the Bill is a receptacle for proposals coming from local government and that the emphasis was on bespoke arrangements. Of course he is right. My worry is that, at the moment, the receptacle is too much of a lucky dip. I am trying to get greater clarity so that we do not send authorities chasing wild horses and coming forward with proposals that will not be acceptable in the light of the Government’s intentions under the Bill We would like as much clarity and development as possible from the Minister as we proceed. That loops us back to a point that my noble friend Lord McKenzie made much earlier in our debates about the need for annual reports to show what has been acceptable, what has been agreed and what is the way forward, so that we can learn from each other in a healthy and pluralistic way. I am sure that the Minister has taken that on board My noble friend has handled the Bill with his usual skill and support. I welcome his suggestion for a conference of medium-sized local authority leaders so that around a table, together with appropriate support for the Ministers through civil servants and the rest, they can tease out in detail what may or may not be a runner before they devote quite a large chunk of what are fairly modest home resources to putting forward their bid. It is sometimes hard for large unitaries to understand just how limited are the resources of some district authorities. If we were a large unitary authority, we might have resources of about £200 million; as it is, we have resources of about £20 million a year. It is then hard to appoint staff and devote resources to work where we are essentially duplicating what other authorities have already achieved and established, so we want that to be a continuing dialogue Finally, the Minister has indeed clarified the position to be as I understood it: you cannot have overlapping combined authorities. The emphasis will clearly be on joint arrangements between combined authorities established by area. My only concern is whether joint committees will be robust enough in their differential contributions for finance and human resources—staff—to develop their shared goals in a way that can take the test of time. I have been involved over the decades in joint committees between various levels of local authorities. They depend too often on the energy of one or two people. Unless they leave structures behind, although the need continues, the ability to meet it recedes We will see whether the joint structures or joint committees which the Minister envisages, as opposed to a joint authority, will be strong enough bodies to power through major transport connectivity and economic development issues and perhaps issues around the integration of health and social care. We will see. In which case, I do not doubt that, if the Minister is then in her current post, she will respond to that as sympathetically as so far she has responded to our amendments. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.