Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

““Operates in”” perhaps. These towns act as a counterbalance to a centrifugal tendency for everything to be drawn to Manchester. That is quite helpful. In West Yorkshire, the Government try to pretend that there is a Leeds city region. That is a disgraceful concept; as a native Bradfordian, it is an insult to my native city. I spent my teenage years growing up in Wakefield, the traditional county town of the West Riding, and it is not true to say that these places are parts of a greater Leeds in the way that Rochdale and Stockport accept that they are a part of Greater Manchester. There is a real danger in a one-size-fits-all policy. Once you get away from the big metropolitan regional centres such as Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle, city regions do not fit; the economic geography that the Minister refers to is different. The way in which things are run has to be adapted and evolved to the economic and social geographical situation on the ground. There is a real danger in this attempt to fit a system to all kinds of places where it is not applicable. Following the noble Lord, I suppose that I should declare some sort of interest relating to this part and the next part of the Bill. I am a member of a council in Pendle which has signed up to a multi-area agreement and is currently considering whether to join the rest of the Pennine Lancashire authorities in an economic development company. It is actually a city development company but, because east Lancashire is clearly not a city region, it has been given a sensible name. Whether it is a sensible thing to do is a different matter which I do not want to discuss here. My noble friend said that this is local government reorganisation by the back door and I agree. It is setting up a new tier of local government—quasi-local authorities. Plainly, structures are needed at different levels but whether we want something that is clearly established as a quasi-local authority is very arguable. If it is on top of unitary authorities, then we will be back to a two-tier system. It looks to me as though we are reinventing the old metropolitan county councils, and I not sure whether people want that. However, a structure at that level which is this formal will start to accrete powers to itself. It will probably take over the fire authority and perhaps even the police authority, and it will take over strategic planning powers and so on. That is a real danger unless it is what people want to do. Where there are two-tier areas in big counties, it may well be a new quasi-local authority that is stuck between the county and district levels. I think that that would happen in Lancashire and, I suspect, in some of the big shire counties in the south-east around London. People will have to think about where the authority is going. As the noble Lord, Lord Smith, said, the functions are all drawn from local authorities. The view of members and officers of district councils who have understood what this might be is that it is stripping districts of their reason to exist. I am sure that the chief executive of Pendle council will not mind if I quote him. He said that it is the ““subjugation of district councils Bill””. Ordinary, non-unitary districts, or shire districts as we used to call them, will never get out; they will be tied in for ever. The Government say that this system is intended to devolve more power, but there is no real evidence of that. It may concentrate power in a different body but the power comes from local authorities. The Government will say that the system is voluntary, and my noble friend touched on that. However, I do not believe that it will be voluntary; I believe that councils will be bullied into taking part, particularly if it is the one council that does not want to join in or if it is just a small council among big ones. I was grateful to the Minister for pointing us to the Policy Document on Options for Sub-Regional Cooperation in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill. I have a copy of it and there are two bits to which I want to draw noble Lords’ attention. Paragraph 26 states: "““If groups of local authorities wish to set up a robust and long term governance structure across their area to deliver the improvement targets agreed to in an MAA, they may wish to consider establishing an economic prosperity board across the area””." One cannot argue with that. It then says: "““More information on the links between MAAs with duties and EPBs can be found””," further on. One cannot argue with the words there but the fact that councils are being pointed to that and are told that that is the way forward if they are not satisfied with the MAA is a clear indication of the Government’s thinking. However, much clearer than that, paragraph 62, right at the end of the document, states: "““In order to take full advantage of the devolutionary proposals on offer, city-regions will need to have an effective mechanism in place for taking decisions at that level””." As the noble Lord, Lord Smith, said, it is possible for councils to do that at the moment if they want to. If they are sensible, perhaps they will. The paragraph continues: "““Establishing an EPB would be a way of achieving this and the Government has indicated that this would be its preferred mechanism, at such time as they become available””." I do not have to read through the lines there very much at all to realise that, when the Government have a preferred mechanism, they have lots of ways of making people take part in it. Of course, local authorities can say, ““We don’t want to do it; we won’t do it””, but they will be left out in the cold with no resources. As a councillor, I cannot go to my electors and say, ““As a matter of principle, we are not going to have all these millions of pounds which were available because we don’t want to do this particular structural thing””. You cannot do that. A lot of us have been bullied into agreeing to large-scale stock transfers of council housing against our wishes because of the huge amounts of money that have come in as a result. You cannot fight against that kind of thing—and, if you try to, the electors will come along and dump you out. They will say that they are not bothered about these principles; they are bothered about the fact that they want the brass. So in practice the Government will get their own way if these things are set up and the legislation is passed. They will go along to Greater Manchester and say, ““Well, there are these goodies and those goodies and this region and that region””—and the noble Lord, Lord Smith, will find himself in a very difficult position. He may be able to hold out against it if that is what he wants to do, but he will find himself in a very difficult position. I support the removal of these from the Bill, as EPBs are simply not necessary to do what the Government want to do.