Localism Bill

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell]

I will restrict myself to commenting on mayoral development corporations. There is an irony in the positions that the parties are taking today. It is rather strange for Conservative Members to be defending city-wide government and for Labour Members to be making the case for the boroughs. Incidentally, I say in passing that I always find it slightly grating when people refer to London as a region. It is a city, and I consider myself as living not in a region but in the world’s greatest city.

Having started on that note of disagreement, I wish to say that on Second Reading and in Committee the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) correctly diagnosed a problem with the Bill. There was a danger that a future Mayor would designate a mayoral development corporation despite widespread cross-party opposition in all parts of the affected area. There would be nothing that the Secretary of State could do but accept that designation. He was absolutely right about that, and we had a good debate about it in Committee.

As my hon. Friend the Minister said, the problem with the solution that the right hon. Gentleman proposed at that point was that it would have centralised the decision back with the Government. I made the suggestion, which I am grateful to the Government for adopting, that we should go with the grain of the existing arrangements, for which the right hon. Gentleman was probably responsible, and use the London assembly to hold the Mayor in check.

The hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), who made a very good contribution throughout the Committee stage, has proposed an alternative solution. The problem is that, if just one local authority were involved, that local authority would essentially be given a veto. There might be good public policy reasons for the Mayor wanting to pursue a development corporation solution in a particular area. I therefore believe that the Government have adopted the right model in the Bill. I suppose I would say that, having proposed it in Committee, but I hope that Ministers will consider a couple of minor tweaks that could be made. If they are persuaded, perhaps that can happen in another place. I shall come to those tweaks in a moment.

My hon. Friend the Minister will know that many of the people who serve on the London assembly are themselves councillors in the local authorities concerned. In Croydon and Sutton, our London assembly member, Steve O’Connell, is a Croydon councillor. In the neighbouring GLA constituency of Merton and Wandsworth, Richard Tracey is a local councillor.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

indicated assent.

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend, who is a former member of the assembly, knows that many members are in that position.

The right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) referred to urban development corporations. I see that he is in heavy conversation at the moment, but he talked about the lack of democratic accountability in those corporations in the 1980s. It is important to make the point that in this case, the designation of a development corporation would be made not by central Government but by the Mayor of London, who is democratically elected.

I am conscious of the time and know that other Members wish to speak, so I end with two points that Ministers might wish to consider. Schedule 21 deals with the detailed arrangements for mayoral development corporations. Paragraph 1 is about the membership of them, and perhaps the Government could consider a requirement that the people whom the Mayor appointed to them, or at least some of them, should have a connection with the local area covered. That is not mentioned in the schedule. It sets out the need for people to have experience and to have shown some capacity in the relevant functions of the corporation, and for them to have no financial interest. Those are both good and sensible provisions, but there may well be a case for ensuring that at least some members have a local connection with the area and perhaps a relationship with the local authority.

Paragraph 6 of schedule 21 is about committees established by mayoral development corporations. Sub-paragraph (3) states:

“A committee or sub-committee may, with the agreement of the Mayor, include persons who are not members of the MDC, but a majority of the members of a committee or sub-committee must be members of the MDC.”

I, and I suspect other Members, have received representations from both the Mayor and the assembly stating that they would be happy with a much more relaxed rule that gave MDCs more freedom to appoint a greater proportion of people who were not members of its board. Those people may well be members of the local authority or have connections with the area. Given that we have not yet achieved complete consensus on this matter, the Government could look at some of the details of schedule 21, to see whether we can address some of those concerns.

In conclusion, it is greatly to Ministers’ credit that they listened to the debate in Committee and came back with a solution, which I think is a good one that improves the Bill. If they went away and looked at a couple of details on schedule 21, it might be possible to address some of the concerns that hon. Members have raised in this debate.