My Lords, I rise primarily to speak to Amendment 57, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, which was very eloquently supported in detail by what she just had to say. I also want to speak in support of the other amendments in this
group. They are all on essentially the same matter, which is: how have the Government transferred, and how do they plan to transfer, resources from the centre to local government, so that they can deliver the levelling-up agenda that both the Government and local government want to see delivered in those areas?
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I was motivated to add my name in support of Amendment 57 because of the fiasco of the two rounds of wasteful bidding that have taken place so far, some of which was very eloquently explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine. The allocation of money to projects has startled some people who received it and annoyed a lot of others who did not. Under the current system, there is a serious lack of credibility in this scheme across the country. The Government and the Minister may feel that this is really unfair and unfortunate. They are spending £3.8 billion, so who could possibly object to that? But there has to be a sense of fairness and reasonableness, and there has to be a sense that it has been done by some objective, transparent criteria which can be explained and, if necessary, audited.
I would also suggest that there ought to be a proper flow of information so that people and organisations which might be attracted to bid have a reasonable understanding of the framework in which these bids are to be assessed. If they are unsuccessful, they should have some proper feedback to help them understand why they were not successful and how they might look to the future to secure funding from the fund. The noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, eloquently set out the case for reform. She proposed a system that would, at long last, put in place that objective, transparent and measurable footing—three things completely missing from the current situation.
I also support what the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, said in relation to her Amendment 50.
The noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, gave some shocking examples. I hope that the Minister is shocked to hear of the position in which young people in Blackpool have been left as a consequence of the on-off, stop-start unpredictability of funding for what is clearly a valuable, core project doing a vital, levelling-up job. Other examples in Norwich and Bradford make the same point. For sure, town deals have had some benefit in some places, but perhaps we would be slightly less optimistic than the noble Baroness was about the comparative effectiveness of the deals. If one were looking at a levelling-up agenda, some of those have landed in the most unlikely seeming places. Other areas which, on the face of it, would seem to be obvious targets for town deals—places which would contribute to the levelling-up agenda should they be funded—have been turned empty away.
I and my colleagues want to see a meaningful, effective transfer of spending power to local communities so that they can start to self-propel the levelling-up process in their areas. The levelling-up fund as currently run is not the right vehicle to achieve that. Organisations and local authorities which see themselves as eligible are almost, by that definition, hard-pressed and short of cash. If they had lots of cash and lots of spare people twiddling their thumbs, they would not be
bidding. They would not need to, and they would not succeed. They are operating with shrinking human resources and a loss of cash, and now some of them are in the position where they basically have to do due diligence before they bid to see whether it is worth wasting their time and money when the chance of success is extremely low.
As I understand it, the fund has now been over- subscribed threefold compared with the amount of money handed out. That means that two-thirds of the money spent by local authorities bidding was completely wasted as two-thirds of the bids were unsuccessful. That money essentially has gone completely down the drain and could have gone on educational projects in Blackpool or on social care. Obviously, it could have gone on front-line public services rather than being spent as it was.
From my own second-hand knowledge of bids made by the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, even when project organisers believed that they had jumped through every hoop put in front of them—and, indeed, had been assured by officials that they had a good bid that looked pretty good for ticking the box—they were rejected and there was no feedback process; it was just, “Sorry about that, you’re not on the list.” So there is no learning from this either, which is surely an essential part of the scheme. My note says that, yes, I am talking about Marple again. There is a community there that feels very bruised by that process.
All these amendments aim to put that right and put in place something that means that, if this funding system is retained—I have grave doubts about whether it is a sensible long-term mechanism—and the levelling-up fund has rounds 4, 5, 6, 9 and 23, and goes right through to 2030, it has a proper system of measurement and evaluation, and objective and transparent processes. There has to be feedback so that there is learning from that process.
This is a desperate plea, because although I will not say that this has been uniquely bad compared with how Governments so often function—that is quite unfair, because there are enough bad things that mean it is not unique—we need to see open and transparent dealing between central government and local communities, a genuine transfer of the power of decision-making to those communities, and a delivery system that is fair and objective. Current experience on the ground is that none of these things is happening.
I urge the Minister, who I regret to say probably will not agree to adopt Amendment 57, to at least acknowledge that there is a problem and say that the Government will work on it. If the Government are committed to a further round of levelling-up funding—I believe they have already announced that there will be another round—will she give the most careful thought to how she can respond to this debate and influence her colleagues as to they can return some functionality and trust in this broken system as they set out on the third round?