Devolution in England

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I will do my best to keep to your time limit, Madam Deputy Speaker.

This has been a welcome and interesting debate, and I repeat the thanks to the Select Committee for its report which contains helpful and useful recommendations. It is always welcome to take part in a debate with my own MP, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), although I was slightly concerned about the number of times that he referred to Yorkshire rather than Lincolnshire.

The Scottish situation has developed with more and more powers being devolved. That is perhaps regrettable in many ways, but we can be thankful that it has spurred on the debate about how we devolve powers in England. Like most of my constituents, I regret the fact that the settlement with Scotland now means Scottish MPs have far too much influence over decisions. I welcome the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) in that respect.

There has been considerable devolution under this Government, and my own area has benefited greatly. Like the hon. Member for Great Grimsby, I was present a couple of weeks ago when the Hull and Humber region growth deal was signed. There is no doubt that that is particularly beneficial.

I note that paragraph 15 of the Select Committee report states:

“The power to raise, retain and spend money locally—fiscal devolution—is back on the political agenda. Local government wants more of it.”

I agree on unleashing more and more powers to our cities and towns. I emphasise the word towns: too much rhetoric in recent months has referred to cities. People in towns up and down the country feel somewhat left out. Towns make a major contribution to the national economy, and constant reference to cities has not been helpful.

On the present structures of local government, I am not entirely sure that they are particularly well designed to cope with more powers and responsibilities. In many cases, local government is in fact more efficient than central Government—the squeeze on budgets in recent years has delivered many necessary efficiencies. I was a local councillor for 26 years; 14 of those were on a district council and 12 on a unitary council. I wholly recommend the latter: unitary authorities are vastly superior. We have to recognise that district councils are dying. They are sharing more and more of their powers and responsibilities—joint chief executives, shared officers and shared delivery of services—and we have seriously to ask whether there is a role for the two-tier system in the future. My view is that a move to unitary top-tier authorities, supported by parish councils, is the way forward.

Reference has been made on a number of occasions to combined authorities. I share the misgivings of others that they are not particularly democratically accountable. I have yet to find an elector who has said to me, “I’m not going to vote for so-and-so, because I don’t think their contribution to the combined economic authority has been particularly helpful.” The reality is that we need a figurehead at the head of a unitary authority. I have always been in favour of elected mayors—I stress elected. A clearly identifiable person responsible and directly accountable to the electorate is the best way forward.

The report states:

“Enhanced local democracy offers the best possibility of a step towards addressing the challenges of the wider democratic deficit caused by the over centralisation of England.”

I am not, as I said, entirely convinced that combined authorities are the way forward. The relationship between unitary authorities and parish councils is crucial. Unitary authorities are the best way of creating a clearly identifiable structure that the electorate can identify with. We have all experienced the confusion in the minds of voters about who is responsible for various services. We have to recognise that people identify with their towns or villages and their counties. However, in many cases, counties, such as my own county of Lincolnshire, are geographically too large to cope with one local unitary authority. Authorities with 70, 80, 90 or 100 councillors are far too large. All parties have difficulty recruiting good-quality candidates to be councillors. We need slimmed-down authorities.

In my own area—the hon. Member for Great Grimsby referred to this—we suffered County Humberside for too long. We were dumped in it against the wishes of just about everyone in the locality, and suffered it for about 20-odd years. I have concerns about its possible re-creation, as we seem to be edging towards that. I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s comments, but I point out that it is the view of the Labour authority that a combined authority, which I would regard as a stepping stone to a larger unitary authority, should be to the south of the Humber. I think any edging towards the re-creation of Humberside is totally inappropriate. We seem to have an inferiority complex on the south bank about Humberside. The reality, however, is that the strength of the local economies, voluntary organisations and the councils themselves on the south bank are the equal of those on the north bank. Having said that, because of overwhelming public opposition, I do not think that is the way forward.

I urge the Minister to address the issue of perhaps edging towards more unitary authorities with elected mayors, and perhaps even to commit a future Conservative Government to moving in that direction.