Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Heseltine
Lord Heseltine (Con)
My Lords, the more I have listened to the debate on Amendment 34, the more worried I have become about many of the interventions from the Benches opposite. Devolution is not something that government departments are longing to do. They are not sitting there asking, “How can we give up power? How can we transfer this back from where we have taken it?”. There is controversy between departments within government. It is a personal controversy and a power structure controversy. If we were to agree to this line of thinking, we would force the Government to find minimalist compromises within the existing structure. Why should the Government go further within the controversy? Why not simply give the least? That would broadly satisfy the consensus within the power structure of Whitehall.
The argument that I have used in my personal capacity with local authorities is: be adventurous. I have asked: do you have the capacity to see how to do something bigger, better and more imaginative than you will ever get if it is imposed on you from central government? Some authorities have that capacity. Manchester has been quoted many times but there are other examples—the noble Lord, Lord Low, in an interesting intervention talked about what has happened in Sheffield. However, in order to galvanise the momentum of local talent based on local strengths, you need men and women who can envisage how to do things better than will ever be achieved by what is imposed on them by the central machine. That is why Amendment 34 is at the heart of the worst way of dealing with things.
We want local people to rise up in indignation with their ideas, to argue for them and to put forward proposals which in many parts of government will not be acceptable so that a debate is forced on government. Then, those who believe in the devolution argument will, in the normal processes of government, have the chance to win the concessions that can meet the aspirations that are put forward. However, clamping down with prescriptive lists divided into tiers of local government and into functions, mirroring the Whitehall structure, is the way to stop devolution in its tracks.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Heseltine for setting the context for some of my answers tonight. We do not intend to make lists to prescribe anything. We want to hear proposals from local authorities—single local authorities or whatever they might be. As my noble friend said, we want to hear about their vision for the future of their areas. I hope that that answers some of the questions that were raised.
The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, referred to Amendments 71 and 72. As with the other amendments which the Delegated Powers Committee considered today, these can be discussed further on Wednesday, when the committee’s report will be available.
I was asked whether single local authorities could make proposals to the Secretary of State. The answer is yes.
The noble Lord, Lord Low, asked about social welfare reports. Whatever the merits of these issues—and I can see their importance—again, these are matters for local areas, and indeed perhaps for combined authorities, to respond to if that is considered right locally. They are not matters for a generally enabling Bill providing the framework for devolving powers as part of a bespoke deal.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked why there should not be a prospectus for local authorities to respond to. Again, a prospectus tempts us to shift from our bottom-up approach to devolution to an approach driven by the Government’s ideas about what may or may not be devolved. That goes back to the comments of my noble friend Lord Heseltine. We are totally wedded to the bottom-up approach of having conversations with those in any area for whatever they propose for devolution.