Local Authority Boundaries (Referendums) Bill

James Daly Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore]

My hon. Friend makes some important points. North Yorkshire is of course within miles of my two principal towns and I sometimes feel there is more allegiance to the areas of North Yorkshire. But we have some passionate people who are dedicated to making sure that services are delivered and local decisions are made as locally as they can be. I am working on a strong campaign with my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). We believe our two constituencies will be able to form our own unitary authority, so that we can make sure that decision making happens in our area and is not linked to Bradford Council.

When it comes to local democracy and local representation, which drives the local decision-making process, policy ideas and deliverability of services at a local level, size does matter and matters actually much more. That is why, in my view, there should be no set size for a unitary authority. It should be driven by the geographical area it wants to represent. If the population area is too large or people do not feel fully connected to the area which the local authority wholly represents, the negative implications can be disastrous for driving forward positive change for an area.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. May I refer him to the case of Greater Manchester, a completely artificial political construct? Within each individual borough of Greater Manchester, a 493 square mile clean air charging zone is being inflicted on people by Andy Burnham. This is an example of how, if decision making is taken away from the local population, the Bill will answer that. The people of Bury do not want to be part of Greater Manchester.

[Robbie Moore]

My hon. Friend describes the similarities. A clean air zone is being imposed on hard-working people in my constituency—taxi drivers and construction workers, who are having to pay up to £50 a day to enter Bradford city. It is a completely outrageous tax on hard-working people, and I urge Bradford’s Labour-run council to rethink the proposals and perhaps take a leaf out of Andy Burnham’s book, delay the implementation and consider that. In my view, the strategy will not work in its current format.

When there is disenfranchisement and disengagement, with a council area being too large, the consequences can be devastating. Public trust in councillors and council officers is eroded. Levels of uniform engagement across the whole area become weaker and levels of identification or affinity between the electorate and the council officers become weaker again. Of course, across Bradford district, we see exactly that.