Devolution: English Cities

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, Parliament and the country owe a huge debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, for his long-standing and single-minded pursuit of this subject, reflected in this great report and, indeed, by the speech he has just made to your Lordships.

I can claim an affliction that is similar to what might almost be described by the noble Lord’s party colleagues as his obsession. As long ago as 1968, I was a co-author of a political pamphlet called Power to the Provinces. We had a number of themes which are as relevant today as they were then, and I will touch on them briefly. In doing so, I hope that the noble Lord will accept that my colleagues and I are here not to dilute his message, but to enhance and empower it still further. We believed then, and believe now, very strongly in the principle that decisions in a mature democracy should be taken as close as possible to the people they will affect. That has become known as subsidiarity. Devolution implies a degree of decision-making that is more extensive and holistic than simple delegation or decentralisation, however desirable they may also be.

I would draw the important distinction between, on the one hand, the delegation of funds—which, by its very nature, is a short-term decision—and devolution of fund-raising powers on the other: once that responsibility has been given it is extremely unlikely to be removed again. Allocation of a central government funding stream, by contrast, can be at the mercy of individual Governments and Chancellors. I am not sure whether this report clearly distinguishes between these two quite separate objectives and exercises: one can lead to the other, but the evolution does not happen automatically. It also follows from our starting point of principle that devolution does not stop at one sub-national or sub-federal level. Taking power from Whitehall or Westminster to national parliaments in Holyrood, Cardiff Bay, Stormont and, indeed, to the metropolitan cities in England does not absolve them from distributing powers and resources to lower levels of governance.

As my noble friend Lord Purvis observed in a recent debate, a truly federal UK constitution would necessitate democratic accountability at all levels, and we believe that double devolution has been as systematically pursued as it should be. More local levels of governance have not received the same amount of attention; for example, I believe that town and parish councils can be very effective in hands-on representation and in management of local facilities. There has always been a good case for intra vires, enabling all authorities to exercise all powers not specifically excluded, rather than the other way round.

As a general principle, I am worried by the implication in the Heseltine report when it appears to share the criticism of mayors that,

“the powers and resources that our conurbations have are uneven and bespoke”.

Given the remarkable diversity of our country in every conceivable area of challenge and opportunity, that is exactly as it should be. When we extend the basic principles beyond the larger cities of England, this becomes even more essential.

It is surely axiomatic that more rural parts of the country cannot be shut out of the advantages of more democratic self-government. The noble Lord referred to the countryside in that context. I appreciate that this report does not purport to extend its remit beyond the major English cities, but the Minister must acknowledge that there are lessons here for more rural parts of England as well. I have no doubt that he has read The future of non-metropolitan England recently published by the LGA. I hope that he will accept that that is a very timely antidote to overconcentration on the major conurbations.

I acknowledge that my experience as a Devon county councillor and then as a Cornish MP reinforces my conviction that the urban case has been more effectively pursued than that for rurality, not least by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine. The recent Lords Select Committee on the rural economy made a similar point, and if time permits I may return to the Cornish experience later.

A persistent concern has been the lack of demonstrably effective scrutiny and accountability. We were dismayed by the overcentralisation of power implicit in the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill in 2015. We warned then of the possibility—even the likelihood—that we might be legislating for new one-party fiefdoms, with the mayor, the appointed deputy mayor, and a firm majority of the only body to which they would be answerable in the combined authority, all from the same political party. Without wider accountability, the risk of partisan patronage and petty corruption is increased. Democracy must not only be done but must be seen to be done.

The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, expressed similar concerns in those debates. He said:

“We hear about accountability. What accountability is there in local government today? … In a vast number of councils in this country, the councillors never change from one party to another. A significant number of councils do not change allegiance either”.—[Official Report, 22/6/15; col. 1397.]


Fortunately, a few weeks ago, largely as a result of the local government revival of Liberal Democrats, that was put to the test.

We also argued in 1968, and have argued ever since, that the democratic deficit has been dangerously developed still further by the tendency of Whitehall towards top-down imposition of structures, with limited menus of permitted powers and boundaries. We Liberal Democrats, like the previous Liberal Party, have always argued for bottom-up initiatives, giving the people in identifiable areas a role in deciding how, when and in what form they are to benefit from increased subsidiarity. This has led to our concept of devolution on demand, with elected authorities bidding to take on responsibilities from a menu of options. For example, current bids might start with the current powers of the Welsh Assembly or Scottish Parliament.

That brings me back to the Cornish experience. The coalition Government, especially my Liberal Democrat ministerial colleagues, were determined to demonstrate that the city deals were not the only model for decentralisation or devolution. No longer a county council and with its newly formed unitary authority, Cornwall was judged to be ready for a degree of devolution. Although this was very modest—perhaps more delegation than full-blooded devolution—it has recognised a level of separate identity and historic self-determination. Democratic accountability has been preserved by a more traditional leader and cabinet structure, avoiding the “elective dictatorship” of an elected mayor. It has proved a popular and well-respected model, giving real leadership through the Brexit crisis. Other more rural English areas are queuing up to follow the Cornish lead, with a unitary authority being seen as the key to progress.

Inspired by Cornwall’s example, a number of upper-tier authorities—mainly rural and with no major cities—have come together to form Britain’s Leading Edge group. Their latest report both demonstrates the value of bottom-up initiatives and displays a healthy approach to non-metropolitan devolution aspiration.

In this debate, my Liberal Democrat colleagues will follow up a number of these more general points with some specific examples of the direction in which we hope the devolution process will go next. In the meantime, I repeat my personal thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, for leading us in this direction and giving us this great debate.

Citizenship and Civic Engagement (Select Committee Report)

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, both on the way in which he introduced this debate and on the way he steered his committee to produce such a perceptive, thorough and very topical report. Of course, he has form, because he previously produced and published a very good report on campaigning, to which the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, referred earlier.

I was struck by the reference to the power of words. Indeed, much of this report is concerned with words, which is not surprising because after all, Parliament is all about words. Words are extremely important. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, referred in a particular context to the word “fundamental”, and that point has been echoed by others. It is an extremely important part of this report that we should look again at the way in which we express these ideas. Of course, these ideas have been expressed not just in this debate but previously on many occasions. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire. As a Minister, and before and after his service, he was very interested in the whole concept of citizenship. This afternoon he again referred to citizens’ rights and a social contract in our democracy. We also had two remarkable speeches from the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Alton. There must be something special in the water in Liverpool that has produced such eloquence and analysis, which I very much appreciated.

The debate also reminds us that citizenship is a two-way, mutual relationship. It is important to re-emphasise that the state and the body politic have a crucial responsibility to the citizen as well as nurturing the citizen’s role in the community and the nation. There was a vivid reminder of that in an article by Kamila Shamsie in the Guardian on Saturday entitled “Exiled: the disturbing story of a citizen made unBritish”. I confess that I had forgotten that the Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 made it possible for any Briton to be deprived of their citizenship and status as a UK citizen, even making them stateless if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the person has done anything,

“seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the United Kingdom … or any British overseas territory”.

That article quotes circumstances in which there has been no effective right to challenge or appeal. Given what we now know about the incompetence of the Home Office, let alone the evidence of UK complicity in extraordinary rendition, there is clearly room for review and reform of the way the Government respect citizens’ rights. Respect goes in both directions.

Similarly, both the committee’s report itself and the various other documents to which the excellent Library briefing has drawn our attention, emphasise the vital importance of fully involving what they describe as “hard-to-reach” groups. I detect some recognition from the committee that that has salience in the current debate about those who have been left behind in terms of household income and lifestyle in recent decades, and the growing sense of inequality in Britain. There is a widespread perception, with hard data to support it, that some citizens are much more equal than others. In that connection, the conclusion of last week’s UN report regarding Brexit is hard to argue against. The most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of society will be least able to cope and will take the biggest hit. Our not-too-distant ancestors—I am thinking particularly of the great Liberal, William Beveridge—would be horrified to learn that we are still looking at such issues in those terms.

That is what makes so very timely the common theme, which permeates all these documents, of enhancing the efforts to engage everyone in our democratic systems. My own involvement in charities, from working for Shelter in the 1970s—a national campaign for the homeless—to working with the food banks movement currently, reinforces my own experience that ensuring a voice for the voiceless is very challenging. I know that other Members of your Lordships’ House—notably some of those here today—have had that experience and continue to have that involvement. I accept that the voluntary sector may well be more successful in achieving greater levels of participation than government agencies, national and local. That does not mean that the latter can be let off the hook.

There are so many recommendations in this report that I enthusiastically agree with, and time is so limited, that I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I concentrate on the contentious issues that have arisen during the debate and especially where the Government’s responses have been judged to be inadequate or complacent. That word has been repeated by a large number of your Lordships in the debate. For example:

“The Committee is very firm that the promotion of Shared British Values should be separated from counter-extremism policy”.


That is self-evidently so important if we are to achieve a greater positive commitment to the responsibilities and opportunities of citizenship. Frankly, the Government response is very wordy—possibly also rather worthy—but it is scarcely conclusive, persuasive or a model of clarity.

The section on education in the Select Committee’s report is very valuable and many references have been made to it by those who have much more expertise in and experience of this issue than I do. I draw particular attention to the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, both of whom as Secretaries of State had a major role in that respect. I pay tribute also to the work done by others over the years, notably by the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall of Blaisdon and Lady Eaton, and of course by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. Despite the extensive government response, most of us would say that the current state of citizenship teaching is at best patchy and at worst simply lamentable. The problem is not the quality of those who teach, but the totally inadequate quantity of professionally trained teachers of the subject. There is also a lack of official emphasis on its importance for new citizens.

The Association of Citizenship Teaching has briefed us that we have fewer than one trained specialist teacher per 10 schools, which is roughly the same analysis as that given by the noble Lord, Lord Norton. The free schools and academies seem to be especially weak in this respect. Of course, the fact that it is not covered to the same extent in their curriculum requirements does not help. There was unanimous agreement in the committee that:

“The Government has allowed citizenship education in England to degrade to a parlous state. The decline of the subject must be addressed in its totality as a matter of urgency”.


I agree with my noble friend Lord Greaves on the twin issues of volunteering and democratic engagement, and the relationship between them. Turning to the latter, I am aware that some of the initiatives the Electoral Commission and the Cabinet Office have undertaken have been valuable. I am very committed to the efforts that have already proved successful for attainers, notably the in-house registration programmes in Northern Ireland. They have been so successful that I simply do not understand why they have not been extended to other parts of the United Kingdom. We do not need more pilot schemes; these programmes already work very well and they should be replicated over here.

I have also been involved in attempts to increase successful registration programmes for UK citizens abroad. This is hampered by the now totally anachronistic insistence on linking to a UK constituency that the individual might have left up to 15 years ago; clearly, this will become even more absurd when and if that limit is removed.

Finally, on the issue of naturalisation, I am glad to see that the Government agree with the committee on “good character” requirements for applicants, and that:

“Honest mistakes made during the application process should not by themselves be treated as evidence of bad character”.


I should have thought that that was pretty obvious, and I very much support what the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said on the tests for children. It is really quite ridiculous that we are still being forced to adopt that attitude. However, what I really do regret is the parsimonious objection by Ministers to the recommendation that states:

“It is inequitable that the Government should seek to make excessive profits out of those seeking naturalisation”.


I should declare an interest, in that my son-in-law, previously an American citizen, saw the sense not only in marrying my daughter but in becoming a British citizen. He has recently been through this exercise. The total costs that can be incurred are well over £1,000. By the time someone has finished the process, it is a great deal more than the £370 that is the actual cost of the administrative burden. I know of several cases where the many hundreds of pounds in fees and other costs have been a real source of aggravation and discouragement. I warmly support the views expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Judd.

The Minister will, I am sure, do his very best to respond both to the debate and to the exceptionally thoughtful committee report on which it has been based, as he always does. I do not envy him his task today: not only does the scope of the debate and the report attract the generalities that Ministers trot out—although we do not expect them from him—but the current government obsession inevitably leads to an impression of complacency on the hugely important issues involved here. I wish him success.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Committee: 11th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, as a co-signatory to the amendment, I want to make a short contribution in support of the reference by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, to the work of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and to pay tribute to our legal advisers, who are not only expert and experienced but amazingly diligent. The noble Lord referred to the committee’s work on the Bill, but he did not make direct reference to paragraph 93 of our third report to the House, the last sentence of which reads:

“The Statute of Proclamations 1539, which gave proclamations the force of statute law and later gave rise to the term ‘Henry VIII power’, was repealed in 1547 (after the King’s death earlier that year)”.


I have not been able to do the necessary follow-up research but, as I understand it, our 16th-century predecessors put around the statute of limitations some additional restrictions that are not in this Bill. As a former Member of the other House, I think that it would be extraordinary if the two Houses of Parliament allowed this to go through. It may seem a minor matter, but in terms of precedent it is extremely important. If we let it through, it seems that we will not have done our job as well as our 16th-century predecessors.

The work that is done by the Delegated Powers Committee is well respected in your Lordships’ House and I am delighted that that is the case. In saying that, I want to make sure that Members of the House know that we have the advice of some extremely assiduous lawyers. I think that the advice that we give the House usually benefits from that. I am not always a huge fan of lawyers, but in this respect I think that we are very well served.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, we come to the next stage of the slow journey of this Bill through the House. I shall look at Clause 9 again and address the issue of what the Act of proclamations provided, but just as a footnote I remind the House that the statute provided in categoric terms that a proclamation could not overrule a statute. One tends to overlook that. Everyone is absolutely riveted, are they not? Schedule 5—what an exciting topic to come to first thing in the morning. The problem, though, is that tucked away in this schedule, as frequently happens, is an issue of principle. That issue is, simply, and I support what the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, says, that we are giving an unnecessary, or inappropriate—I do not mind which word we use for these purposes—surrender of power to the Executive. We really must break that habit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Goldie]

If we can set to one side any concept of malevolence or malign intent on the part of the Government or a Minister, perhaps we can accept that this is a genuine attempt to provide simplicity. If a Minister in a department perceives that an instrument or one of the elements of EU retained law is no longer applicable and is not going to fit in with the new body of law, it is desirable that clarification can be provided in the swiftest possible way and that it should not make its way to the Queen’s printer. I appreciate that there are deeply felt views about this, and I am certain that we will come to this again on Report. I am merely trying to indicate to the Committee what the Government think is not just a sustainable position—

[Lord Tyler]

I am full of admiration for the way in which the noble Baroness appears to be trying to avoid the suggestion that it is executive expediency that is going to determine how this issue is going to be addressed. I think she knows that if she had used that phrase, people all over the House would have said: “We are not into that business”. Perhaps she could be a bit clearer about what considerations she thinks would be in the Minister’s mind to take this particular action.

[Baroness Goldie]

It is a little difficult to predict specific examples. Many of your Lordships have had experience of ministerial positions. I imagine that if an anomaly were brought to the attention of the Minister that something was not going to apply; it was no longer relevant; it did not fit in the new framework of what will be a body of UK law, the Minister would be reasonable in trying to ensure that that element, whatever it was, did not appear to make its way via the Queen’s printer on to what is perceived to be the body of law for the UK.

Some may argue that that is inherently flawed and a deeply suspect way for any Government to behave. In the extraordinary situation in which we find ourselves— I suggest that outside of wartime this situation is unprecedented—common sense has to be applied. There has to be a proportionate way of balancing legitimate interests in the constitution with the practical need to make sure that we do not create nonsense in the statute book.