Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

Debate between Greg Clark and Julian Sturdy

Monday 7th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

All of our negotiations have achieved consensus locally. That is my approach. Amendment 56 allows us to require that those conversations take place. No authority can reasonably refuse even to discuss the potential for reform. That is right. It is reasonable for neighbouring authorities to have conversations about what is the best way to proceed. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, the powers are already there.

In responding to the case that was made in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) and that was made again on Report, we thought that it was worth having in the Bill, as a pilot, the ability to, as it were, encourage authorities to have the conversation. Anything that is agreed needs to be agreed by the Secretary of State and by this House. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) can be absolutely sure that, in exercising my authority in this area, I propose to maintain the preference for consensus that I have shown so far.

It is worth reflecting that, in the few years since we started negotiating, first with cities and then with local authorities and their businesses through the growth deals, there has been tremendous enthusiasm across the country. Members have spoken at various points during the debate about how the degree of collaboration and involvement of businesses and local authorities has been very much greater than that experienced in the past. That is absolutely the case. If we are to prosper and succeed as a nation, every part of the nation has to fire on all cylinders. This important Bill will help to drive that forward.

During the debate, many amendments have been made, resulting in the Bill’s improvement. We have accepted a need for various reports on the progress of devolution to come to this House, so they can be debated. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady) in particular, as he made a very strong case that Members should be involved in the ongoing scrutiny of agreed deals. I am only too willing to have my feet held to the fire. As the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), has observed a number of times during these proceedings, in my earlier incarnation in the Department I published a progress report of all Government Departments on whether we were living up to our commitments on devolution. I fully expect that the scrutiny of the House will be equally exacting when it comes to the receipt of the reports.

It is important that we have devolution right across the country. We started with cities, but the enthusiasm in counties and districts right across the country has been very palpable. When we issued an invitation for places to come forward, 38 places, covering almost all the country, submitted proposals. The Bill enacts some of our manifesto commitments to create a metro mayor for Greater Manchester and to create mayoral authorities for the great cities that have concluded deals with the Government.

In response to proposals, again from the bottom up and starting with Greater Manchester, we have been able to enter into discussions about the devolution of health matters, so that the two sides of the same coin that are health and social care can be better administered locally, jointly between the NHS and local government. I am pleased we have been able to make amendments on those matters.

I am pleased that we have ended the Bill’s proceedings with a degree of consensus between all parties. That was very much our intention from the outset. We started with a degree of discord on Second Reading, but I had high hopes that we would be able to persuade those on the Opposition Front Bench to move away from that. As we have scrutinised the Bill and accepted amendments from all sides of the House, including from the Back Benches, I think we have strengthened the Bill. I am grateful to those on the Opposition Front Bench for having, I think, modified their view. I hope we might even hear a degree of enthusiasm—I will be careful on that; I had better not count my chickens—from them.

This is an important moment. The Bill was in the first Queen’s Speech and one of the first to be introduced in this Session of Parliament. On Second Reading, I said it was an historic Bill that would do something our predecessors have not done and that our successors will look back on. They will see this as a piece of legislation that changed the direction of policy and built up our cities, towns and counties across the country, so that their discretion, power and ability to set their own future becomes much greater than it has been in the past.

[Julian Sturdy]

Like many on the Government Benches, I praise my right hon. Friend for all his work bringing the Bill to the House, but does he accept that some areas might need more time to come to the right devolution deal, rather than rushing a bad deal? Will he assure those areas that they will not be penalised for taking their time over what might be, for certain areas, quite a difficult decision to get the right conclusion?

[Greg Clark]

I can certainly give that assurance to my hon. Friend, who has played an active role in talking to his local authorities and businesses to build a consensus. It is clear that different places will proceed at different paces, as they have done already, but I and my hon. Friends are completely committed to inviting every part of the country to put forward and negotiate a deal that is right for them. We invite all parts of the country to propose that which would make the biggest difference to local areas. To paraphrase Disraeli, the Bill exists to show areas their riches to themselves. We can, with the Bill, unleash the growth, the jobs, the homes and the futures that everyone across the country has a right to hope for, and because of that, I commend it to the House.