My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, I think that devolution is a positive thing. I like the constituent boroughs that are designated in the order—Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral—and I support the Motion before the Grand Committee today.
For 18 years I served in another place as a Member of Parliament for a Liverpool constituency, but before that, from 1972 I served as a member of Liverpool City Council, and from 1973 as a member of the now defunct Merseyside County Council. I have always strongly supported subsidiarity and decentralisation along with the devolution of powers. I believe that robust decision-making done at the closest possible level serves democracy well. Moreover, it helps to address the disconnect that we see between our elected representatives and the communities they are supposed to serve. Noble Lords would expect someone who cut his teeth as a community politician to say that, but the municipalism of Joseph Chamberlain and Disraeli’s dictum that centralisation is the death of democracy illustrate that there is a distinguished and long tradition of men and women who have served and believe in local government, and some of them are present in the Committee today.
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In 1997, having stood down from the House of Commons, I helped establish the Liverpool Democracy Commission, and served with a small cross-party group as the commission examined the state of local democracy on Merseyside and what might be done to revitalise it. Your Lordships will recall that in 1981 the city had experienced riots—during which 1,000 police officers were treated in hospital—followed by control by the Militant tendency, which led to the city being used as a battering ram against central government, and then the disqualification of city councillors and the real danger of a commissioner being appointed to run the city. Out of these ashes, I am glad to say that not only did the city recover but regeneration initiatives and stable local government breathed new life into the heart of the conurbation. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, I was happy to have played my part in that.
It was against that backdrop that in the late 1990s our commission examined the structures of local government and its inability to guarantee quality in the delivery of services. We concluded that the traditional idea of the local authority as simply the monopoly provider of local services was no longer viable or adequate, and that councils must be willing to be more flexible in their approach to service delivery and the expectations of citizens. We argued that local government needed to become more outward-looking and willing to work with partners if it was to deal more effectively with complex, cross-cutting issues. We said that this would mean embracing profound cultural change, with the council defining its role and its relationship with the people of Liverpool.
We made a number of recommendations about how local government in Liverpool could get closer to the community that it serves, and redefine and add value to the role that councillors play in governance,
improving local leadership and re-engaging citizens. Among other things, we called for the introduction of US-style open primaries to select council candidates and a directly elected mayor—both of which had impressed me during an assessment I made of how those things worked in the United States.
At the time, I suggested that just as the boroughs surrounding Manchester saw every benefit in describing themselves as Greater Manchester, we needed to convince the four neighbouring boroughs that constitute Merseyside that seeing themselves as “Greater Liverpool” would help them and the city sub-region. Perhaps because of the experiences of the preceding 20 years, the neighbouring boroughs wanted to keep as much distance between themselves and Liverpool as possible, but this was a tragic missed opportunity. No body can function without its heart, and all of a body’s organs need to function together.
For 40 years or more I have argued that only by breathing new life into Merseyside’s heart can there be long-term prosperity for all. If these orders are to achieve that objective—perhaps learning the lesson of Brexit about the disconnect between the political class and the people—it is vital that the boroughs and their leaders take real ownership of this initiative. They need to enthusiastically explain it to the people resident within their areas. Just down the road, Manchester has stolen a march on Merseyside, and if this challenge is not embraced with enthusiasm, our city region will fall behind competitor cities and its economy will suffer.
In this context, I particularly welcome last week’s launch, at the Finding True North conference in Salford, of ResPublica’s A Manifesto for the North, its vision for the region’s future, which envisages harnessing further devolved powers to enable the region to become culturally vibrant, with the benefits of economic growth accruing to all. At the launch, the right honourable Greg Clark MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, said:
“This is an important and thought-provoking Manifesto … The Government will work closely with partners across the North to devolve more power to people”.
Surely that is to be welcomed, and is the point of these orders today. ResPublica argues:
“There have been too many platitudes written about the North, and too many partial and piecemeal policies that have done little to reverse the decades of decline. For years, a combination of indifference and fatalism has left local leaders with a monopoly on power content to administer decline, and thus they must share some of the blame”.
It says, and I agree, that the city region devolution deals should be seen as an opening, not a final offer from central government—with the decentralisation of investment decisions greatly expanded in scope and scale.
When she replies, perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, who has done so much to press the case for the north in Motions and orders such as these, will say whether she will support the following key recommendations in the ResPublica report, which are all matters in which city regions like the one proposed in this order will have a stake. How will the Government devolve Transport for London-style powers
to elected city mayors? Will they allow regions to control housing development, giving northern cities and localities the right to control regeneration? How would they respond to, for instance, the introduction of a northern teaching premium to attract and retain the best teachers in the area, helping with their housing and student debts, or the creation of a northern wealth fund from any money generated, for instance, by shale gas exploration in the region? If the city regions call for the establishment of a northern digital service, how will the Government respond to that? The planned northern digital service would provide a shared platform for automating council services that all cities and councils could use—an entirely sensible and, I would have thought, eminently doable proposition.
Will the Government respond positively to proposals to devolve cultural assets and funds to the cities? Perhaps the Minister will say a little more about the £30 million that she mentioned in her opening remarks and how the Government believe that should be accessed and used in areas where council leaders complain all the time about the reduction of local funding and the implications for the running of existing local services. Much greater decision-making on public policy and the funding of cultural assets and infrastructure should be made within city regions such as the one proposed here. I have personally argued that instead of HS2 we should first connect the northern cities from Liverpool to Hull via a trans-north rail line. Is this something the Minister will be talking to the northern city regions about?
I support the order, with an open mind, so long as it has some real powers and real teeth. I will conclude by entering one simple caveat, which echoes something that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said a few minutes ago. The most obvious difference between arrangements for the new city region mayors and London is that nothing resembling the London Assembly is proposed. At the minimum surely there should be something like a mayoral senate. As things stand, the accountability and scrutiny arrangements are virtually non-existent. I would like to hear the Minister’s assessment of that significant deficiency.