Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I shall speak also to Amendments 185 to 188 inclusive. This group of amendments concerns the constitution of economic prosperity boards. Clauses 84 and 86 as drafted would allow the Secretary of State to impose a managerial structure on to EPBs and influence membership, voting powers and executive arrangements. It will therefore come as no surprise to noble Lords that we are not at all pleased with these arrangements. Once again, the Secretary of State is reserving for herself the right to micromanage and direct things to her liking. Once again, I struggle to see how this state of affairs can be compatible with a desire to pass more power back to local communities. I have tried to reconcile these clauses with the Minister’s enthusiasm for empowering local people, but creating economic prosperity boards to which local authorities can appoint some members but where it ultimately remains in the gift of the Secretary of State to determine how many of those members there can be, how they can vote and what their executive arrangements should be, seems to be an exercise more in empowering the Secretary of State than in empowering local communities. I am sure that noble Lords will be intrigued to hear how the Minister squares this circle. I do not simply wish to hear more about how the EPBs will operate in practice—although I would be delighted to hear that, too—but to hear how these top-down arrangements can possibly be presented as a measure to empower local communities. In my own efforts to square this circle, I have proposed Amendment 184, which would provide for the Secretary of State to issue guidance on an EPB’s constitution but not to dictate it. My other amendments in this group focus on the membership of an economic prosperity board. It should, as I have said, be a matter for the local councils to set these schemes up. Therefore, I question why there need to be non-elected members, even if they do not have full voting rights. That is the reasoning behind Amendments 185 and 186, on which Amendment 186 is consequential. Amendment 187 suggests that the political make-up of the economic prosperity board should reflect the local authorities of which it is made up. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has refined that further with her Amendment 187A. The point that we are both trying to make is that if there is to be a new tier of local government, there is no justifiable reason why it should be of a different political form from the council from which it derives its democratic legitimacy. These are not particularly contentious suggestions and I hope that the Minister will look on them favourably when she re-examines the whole of this part of the Bill before Report. I beg to move.