Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft]

To answer the noble Lord, insurance is always available for anything—at a price, of course—and I have no doubt that insurance could be provided for these bonds. As for a market in the bonds, there is always someone prepared to make a market.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome this amendment. As a former leader of Bristol City Council I tried to look into this possibility. As the noble Baroness said, there is always a great deal of local ambition to achieve projects within the area for which, in straitened times, it is often difficult to raise funding. At the moment, I can think of the completion of the Colston Hall building—a concert hall in Bristol—for which we are trying to raise money. That would also be a project that local people would be very proud to see achieved.

When I made investigations, I found that local finance institutions welcomed this idea. I also found that local charities felt that it would be a really good way to invest funds within the local area rather than have local funds benefit central institutions. I welcome the idea as well because, as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, this is a little bit more radical than a lot of the debate, which has been about concentrations of power. I welcome the idea of world-class cities and would like to see our cities at the heart of vibrant local economies. I hope that later in the Bill we can talk a bit more about some of the powers that might be made available to the combined authorities so that they can be at the centre of their local economies and exploit the potential that we have seen, as shown through various institutions such as Core Cities and Centre for Cities. There is great potential for economic growth.

I welcome this amendment and hope that the Government accept it. I hope that the idea may be explored further in due course.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft and to which I added my name for reasons anticipated by a number of my noble friends already in this debate.

As stated at Second Reading, I support the Bill but with an element of caution. Memories of the 1980s are still strong in the minds of some of your Lordships, as was the need at that time to address the profligacy of some local politicians by bringing powers and—with them—spending decisions back to Westminster and Whitehall. Now, some 30 years on, we consider providing potentially increased responsibilities to new combined authorities and designating their chairs as mayors. Today, we seek to provide them with a platform—a very public one—for potentially wide-ranging yet still unspecified powers. There is always a danger, not least evident recently in Scotland, that with devolved powers but without some element of financial accountability the finger will be pointed at Westminster for failing to recognise the financial consequences of a devolution of functions by the same electorates we seek to empower. The politics of such a potent mix can be far-reaching.

One way the Minister can benefit from the lessons of history is to consider ways of meeting the challenge whereby our determination to empower elected communities must be met by trusting those same electorates and their representatives with at least some additional responsibilities for raising the finances required to exercise the powers with which they are entrusted. I hope that today the Minister will be able to address this issue and in so doing agree that one of the potential functions that could benefit from municipal bonds, as in the United States, could be the populist and much-needed sport and recreation facilities.

Since the Government in their legislative programme rely heavily on key manifesto commitments, the Minister would simultaneously earn acclamation and plaudits from her colleagues by implementing the sports legacy from London 2012, which was in the Conservative Party manifesto. That legacy called for: new facilities outside London; a youth and community sports strategy designed to inspire a generation to develop a sporting habit for life, and not just in London, the city that hosted the Olympic Games, but throughout the United Kingdom; increased participation at all levels; and state-of-the-art sport and recreation facilities. This area has been very London-centric and investment in our great cities to achieve these objectives can be accomplished by providing a real voice for the proposed combined authorities over the current, centrally controlled spend on sport and recreation, including the decisions currently made for the whole country by Sport England in London.

This is where the amendment of my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft could add an important and very clearly defined financing vehicle to the current precept mechanism already enshrined in legislation. If the Minister felt that the powers in the proposed amendment go too far, municipal bonds could even be restricted specifically for this purpose as a sort of test case for the combined authorities. Whichever route is taken, we need to create the nexus between the management oversight for functions and financial responsibility and accountability to the local electorates who will be the principal beneficiaries. It is that objective that ultimately will be delivered. I predict that the Bill before us is a stepping stone on that journey. This proposal by my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft for municipal bonds is a key and important step in that direction.