Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for a fair amount of what the Minister said. My Amendments 6 and 7 are, I think, about the shortest and, in many ways, the simplest in the Marshalled List. Amendment 6 suggests that mayoral elections should basically be every four years and Amendment 7 suggests that there should be a maximum of two terms.

On the four years, I think the Minister has probably gone as far as she can. It may not be precisely in her amendment, but in truth the Government seem to be saying that four years is a reasonable, sensible term of office for a mayor. It struck me as very odd indeed—I said so in Committee—that the term of office of the mayor was left entirely to ministerial order in the original Bill. In theory that could provide for a term of office of four, five, six, seven, eight or nine years, or any other number you care to think about. It is such a fundamental part of a democracy to know when an election is going to take place that it is essential to have at least some reference to it in the Bill, and I welcome the fact that the Government have put down an amendment. It does not do everything I would like, but in life you do not get everything.

Amendment 7 would effectively limit the mayor’s term of office to two four-year terms. That, the maths will tell us, is a maximum of eight years. I emphasise that the amendment would be in no way retrospective; I do not think that, under the Bill, it could be. It does not say to those people who are directly elected mayors at the moment—I would not dare say this—“Sorry, you’ve had your eight years and you must go”. It would simply apply to the provisions of the Bill.

I submit that this amendment is very important. I have made it plain that I do not like directly elected mayors. I much prefer the parliamentary system to the presidential one, and there are checks and balances built into the leadership of local authorities at present. Leaders can be removed if they are not doing the job properly. It has never inhibited great leaders of local government in the past, as far as I can make out. I must admit that from some of the comments we have heard in earlier debates you would think that local government had been bereft of outstanding leaders. I do not think that Joe Chamberlain did too badly and I thought that Herbert Morrison was not too bad either. Anyway, we have had that debate.

What I know is that the great strength of the present system, prior to directly elected mayors, is that there is a daily check and balance on the performance of the leader, and if they are not good enough they can be removed. We all know that that has happened in local authorities; we probably all have our own examples. The problem with a directly elected mayor, and I do not think that the Bill addresses it, is that once you have elected them—there is one election once, and that is it—there is very little under this system to deal with a mayor who is considered by his or her peers not to be doing the job very well. There is no power of recall.

Perhaps the Minister could spell out what the checks would be if it became manifest that a mayor was not doing the job properly—obviously, short of a criminal offence. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, referred in the earlier debate to checks and balances, but as far as I can see there are none. That is why the amendment is important; again, I will stand corrected if other people have better international examples than I have, but I think in most systems where there are direct elections there is a limit somewhere to the number of times that you can be directly elected. There are good reasons for that, not least that there is an inevitable tendency for directly elected mayors to see the job of the administration as basically to secure their re-election; that tends to develop in their minds and in the operation of many of their staff.

At its zenith, the American system decided that eight years was long enough, and if it is long enough for an American President it is probably long enough for the mayor of a city in the United Kingdom. I suggest that this has been a mistake in previous legislation about elected mayors; it simply has not provided for limits of terms of office, and it is right that we should do so. I think that the Minister even acknowledged that there are some problems that have not entirely been addressed in that legislation. I submit to the House that this amendment is well worthy of consideration.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, in intervening briefly, I make it clear that I am a passionate supporter of the whole mayoral principle. I believe in elected mayors and have done from the very beginning. I saw them in France when I lived there many years ago. I believe that the system works and it is better than other models, so I have no problem with it at all. However, I also support my noble friend’s amendments.

It is more than 40 years since I was in local government but I always felt that very often local government becomes lazy. People do not always get into that position—there are often very good mayors outside the mayoral model that we are discussing, and leaders of local authorities can be there for years doing a perfectly good job—but you often find in local authorities that people simply become lazy, and they should be moved on. However, they have such control over what is going on around them in the local authority that they cannot be moved. The people whom they have appointed are somehow compromised, and they spend more time ensuring that their position is safe than in engaging themselves in the innovation that was talked about by a number of those who contributed to the last debate.

I think that a term of eight years is quite sufficient. It would keep the mayor on his or her toes, and they would want to be seen to be innovative at every stage. In many ways, I think it would avoid the kind of problems that I have heard and read about over recent years when I have looked at what happened in some of the mayoralties. The recent problems in east London in many ways reflect what I am saying: someone had total control and now, fortunately—through the courts, in the end—we have managed to get rid of them. If you have a model that is based on a more limited term, there is less opportunity for those sorts of problems to arise.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, we seem to be moving on to somewhat more consensual territory after the excitement of the past couple of hours. When I listen to discussions about the offer of devolution being based on a requirement to have an elected mayor, I am rather reminded of Henry Ford’s famous offer that anyone could buy a car of any colour as long as it was black. The mayoral model seems to be that you can have devolution as long as the devolution car is driven by an elected mayor; it is a less than free choice.

However, the Minister’s amendments are acceptable. They certainly incorporate some of the concerns that were mentioned in Committee, particularly with the default position that we are clear as to the limits that would be applied to the length of term. No doubt the Lord Chancellor, Mr Gove, has been sending over memos about the wording, or indeed the grammar, in reference to Amendment 8.

I was of course interested in my noble friend Lord Grocott’s amendments, one of which is effectively met, I suggest, by the government amendment. I think that four or five years is seen by the Minister as a maximum, and that seems to be reasonable. I am somewhat in two minds about my noble friend’s suggestion of a limit of two terms. I stood down from the leadership of Newcastle City Council 20 years ago and, in reference to the remarks from the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, about the recognition or otherwise of council leaders as opposed to mayors, I have to say that 20 years on people still remember—I cannot say with what relish—my service as council leader for a period of 17 and a half years before that. It is possible to hold office, be accountable and, I hope, make a contribution for a somewhat longer period than two terms would necessarily imply. For myself, I am prepared to accept the Government’s position.

However, it might be worth keeping this matter under review. I suppose that in any event it would be reviewed over time, and we might have examples in this country, which so far we have been spared, of the kind of conduct in office that sometimes has occurred, particularly in the United States but in other jurisdictions as well, where, frankly, there needs to be some kind of limit. In our political culture, we have not experienced much of that. On balance, I invite my noble friend not to divide the House on that amendment. For my part, I am content with the Minister’s amendments.