Draft Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield Combined Authority (Election of Mayor) (Amendment) Order 2017

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 General Committees

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley.

I do not propose to speak at length. A series of statutory instruments on combined authorities is now coming through to Committee, and I have put it on record that I welcome the move towards further devolution. I feel obliged to repeat that I am concerned about the lack of a framework for devolution in England. While some areas, as the devolution deal has progressed, have managed to negotiate to some degree impressive devolution and investment deals with the Government, other areas have asked what is in it for them. County areas, in particular, where a directly elected Mayor perhaps does not quite fit with local identity, are right to question how they fit into the vision for the future of devolution in England. I welcome any effort to bring forward a framework for devolution for the whole of England.

There has been a bit of talk about the four leaders. We should bear in mind, of course, that Chesterfield and Bassetlaw are both constituent members of the combined authority and, in the spirit of first among equals, we should welcome the work that they have done in the city region area on the combined authority.

We are beginning to see, I suppose, the contradiction that arises with the drawing of quite artificial boundaries in the spirit of trying to put in place combined authority arrangements, when those do not necessarily mirror local community identity. There has of course been a legal challenge from Derbyshire. Let us be honest: the leader of Derbyshire County Council is pro-devolution and believes strongly in the devolution of powers from Westminster to communities, so the challenge was not a weak political point-scoring exercise but a point of principle about the need for future boundaries to mirror local identity and circumstance. I urge the Minister, rather than holding the axe above devolution if the other local areas do not agree, to make far more effort to engage at a local level, to try to work with councils that have legitimate concerns.

If there were a national framework whereby we could see how different areas come together where boundaries are coterminous, maybe Derbyshire could see how it fitted into the wider proposal for that part of England. However, because devolution is incremental by nature at the moment, it is very hard for areas around combined authority arrangements to see how they fit into them.

In the spirit of brevity, I will leave it there and let Members get on with the rest of the day. However, there are some things that the Minister will probably not want to put on record in Hansard, but that would be helpful context for me to understand, shadow effectively and provide scrutiny, challenge and, where required, support for devolution coming to fruition for the whole of England. I place on record my offer to meet outside Committee to have that conversation in more detail.