Cheshire and Warrington Combined Authority Order 2026
Debate between Baroness Pitkeathley and Baroness Pinnock(4 days, 4 hours ago)
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Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these two statutory instruments, which are progress on the way to the Government’s policy of mayoral devolution. I accept the notion and principle of devolution as being very positive, but, as the Minister will know, I have questioned the way it is being done, and I have one or two comments to make in that regard.
Mayoral strategic authorities are being created across England, ostensibly of a similar nature. However, the population of the new Cumbria combined authority will be around 500,000, and the Cheshire and Warrington combined authority population will be nearly 1 million. How does this compare with what we have already? Well, in West Yorkshire, the mayoral authority serves 2.5 million people; it is five times as large as the new Cumbria one will be and, presumably, will be offering similar services. My own council, where I am still a councillor, has a population of nearly 500,000, which is as big as the proposed Cumbria combined authority.
I will be interested to hear how the Minister expects the Government to respond to this: there will be various layers of mayoral strategic authorities, because those mayoral authorities of a very large population, in the met areas mainly—of course, we always exclude London, because it is a separate entity altogether—will inevitably become the big players. How do the Cumbrias of this world, which are not as big as unitary councils, operate in being able to deliver on transport, skills and so on? There is a question of size, which I would like some answers on.
The other challenge in setting up these strategic mayoral authorities concerns the constituent members of the authority. For Cumbria, only two unitary councils are going to come together to form the Cumbria combined authority. The way in which these are set up—there is a directly elected mayor, and the combined authority consists of a member from each constituent authority plus those who can be nominated on—means that there will be three directly elected members on that constituent authority. That seems unusual to me, let us put it like that, because associate members will not be able to vote. Can the Minister explain how that might work?
The other question I have is about the fact that, as we are discovering in the English devolution Bill, mayors will be able to appoint up to seven commissioners to fulfil the tasks. I understand that there will be many major strategic tasks to undertake, but I challenge the idea of having appointees rather than people elected to these positions. Will Cumbria, for instance, be able to appoint up to seven commissioners? Do the Government expect that to be the case? Will there be any restrictions on the number? Ditto for the associate members, particularly for Cumbria, because it is quite small. The Cheshire and Warrington authority will not be much bigger; three authorities are combining there, I think.
This model of devolution is being rushed out across England. Where such a model has existed, have the Government done any assessment of the effectiveness of that model? I live in a mayoral strategic authority. If somebody asked me, as somebody who is already democratically elected in part of it, what has been achieved, I would struggle. I am sure that some things have been achieved, but are they going to shift the dial, as they say? I do not know, but I think the Government should have some way of testing the effectiveness of it all.
When I looked at the number of folk who engaged with the consultation, I discovered that it was very few. What on earth does it mean to your everyday person on the street? Not very much, so very small numbers engage. However, roughly two-thirds of those who did engage opposed it. How was that view taken into account? If it was not—that is, if it was just dismissed because the Government have this model that they want to roll out across the country, which they are entitled to do—then do not ask people, just do it, if you are not going to take any notice of the comments they make. It seems that people were totally ignored.
I have one final question in response to the comments made by the Minister. She said that, in the constitution of these authorities, if a mayor is not present for a decision-making purpose, the deputy mayor should take their place. The deputy mayor is an appointed person—
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
My Lords, there is a Division in the Chamber.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
The Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes; we will then come back to the noble Baroness.