My Lords, I very much support the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, particularly about the district council situation. Noble Lords might recall that in Committee I raised the issue of Oxfordshire and Oxford City Council, of which I used to be a member, which would be a non-constituent member of the combined authority, but Oxford University could be invited to come in as a participating member under this thing, and that does not seem right.
The noble Lord also kindly mentioned my Amendment 51, which is related to my Amendment 53A, which we debated on Tuesday, albeit to a rather limited
audience; the formal taking of the amendment comes up later. My Amendment 51 would retain the right of members of a combined authority to give their consent to a change in the membership of the combined authority. Currently, Clause 51, quite extraordinarily, takes that away from the members of a combined authority so that members of a current combined authority have no say whatever in whether the boundaries of that combined authority should be extended and a new member brought in, despite the consequences for the combined authority.
This takes us back to the West Midlands, I am afraid, because we know why this is being done. This is being done to gerrymander the boundaries of the West Midlands Combined Authority to give Andy Street, the Tory mayor, a chance of being re-elected next May, and the Minister tabled late amendments to make this easier. This is being done over 12 weeks. The cabinet paper to Warwickshire County Council, which I think was discussed this week, makes it clear that in order for this to be rushed through, it must undertake a governance review and publish a scheme with details of the proposed expanded area of the West Midlands Combined Authority and its membership, voting and other constitutional arrangements, functions and the way it would be funded. A public consultation also has to be undertaken—in August, essentially, because Ministers have told the county council that to meet the deadline for the May election an application must be submitted in early October. The paper to the council cabinet openly admits that this
“may require … urgent decisions being made during the process”;
in other words, the consultation is a sham because we know that the decision has already been made in the Minister’s department. So much is unknown, not least the financial consequences for Warwickshire. Indeed, what about the impact on the existing members of the combined authority, who have no say whatever in whether this should happen because of the Bill before us today?
On Tuesday, the Minister very kindly said that the Bill is a bottom-up process, but this decision has already been made. So why is her boss intensely engaged with the county council to persuade it to do it? Can she answer that question? Can she also tell me whether the MPs in Warwickshire have been consulted? One would have thought that when considering something as dramatic as putting Warwickshire into the West Midlands Combined Authority the Government might have asked all the MPs what they thought about it. I do not think that has happened.
I love Warwickshire. I live quite close to it, as the Minister knows. It is a delightful county. Do the people of Warwickshire really want to be absorbed into an urban combined authority? Do they really want a mayor situated in Birmingham to have such a key influence on their affairs? Indeed, the same could be said for Shropshire, where, again, I think Mayor Street seems to be very interested. I do not think so. I do not think the shire counties in the West Midlands want this, and we should change the Bill to make sure that it cannot happen without the consent of combined authority members as they are.