Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I have three clause stand part objections in this group of amendments but, having scrutinised them rather more recently than when I tabled them, I do not know why I object to the clauses. However, in the mean time, the Conservatives have tabled clause stand part objections to all the other clauses and, along with my noble friend, I am happy to support the idea that the whole of Part 6 should be removed from the Bill. As I said earlier, the Minister reprimanded me several meetings and several weeks ago for being rude about some early parts of the Bill, which are ridiculous nonsense but not overtly dangerous. However, as it is written at the moment, this part of the Bill is potentially quite dangerous. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, said about it. There can be no argument about powers being given to local authorities to work together to do things instead of being instructed to do them. The problem with this is that the detail—the noble Lord said it is cumbersome—is a kind of strait-jacket which, once you are in it, you will find it difficult to get out of. I did not agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, said about regions, but that does not make any difference as we have come to the same conclusion about this part of the Bill. There is no doubt whatever that the drive towards democratic regional government in England has stalled and will be stalled for some time. I think it will come back—it has to come back—but it will take some time. When it does come back, I hope that whoever is in power at the time will not botch it in the way that the present Government botched it last time. However, that is off the agenda at the moment. We are now looking at the fall-out from the sub-national review, the latest trendy concept of city regions. These certainly exist in parts of Britain. You can argue about where these city regions and the real city regions are, but t2he biggest and most obvious city region is the south-east of England. It is not Greater London, it is the south-east, but no one will face up to the fact that the capital of this country is closely integrated with the quarter of the country that forms the south-east. Until that nettle is grasped, planning in the south-east will never be satisfactory. There is no doubt that there is a Greater Manchester city region, although it is not as clearly unified as the south-east is around London. This is largely because there is a constellation of large old industrial towns surrounding Manchester—including Wigan, which the noble Lord ““reigns”” over, if that is the phrase.