Localism Bill

My Lords, I am delighted to have been able to put my name to these amendments. There is no doubt that the core cities have worked extraordinarily hard to make sure that what they are hoping to achieve is well understood. The amendments were originally moved by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, at the previous stage, and we have worked on them ever since. It is very appropriate that something like this is done on a cross-party basis. As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, these are big powers that are very localist in nature and will do precisely what local government has wanted for a long time. It is therefore appropriate that they are now being presented in a way that enables us all to join in. I am grateful for the support of the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Tope, and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for all the questions he has asked me. I hope that I shall be able to answer some of them. However, we have learnt from him that the railway line to Newcastle is not operating because of fallen trees. That is useful to know at this stage in case we all suddenly want to run off and go there. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lord Jenkin for expressing his support. We recognise that things have moved on a long way from the days when he was a very distinguished Secretary of State who was extremely supportive of local government. But I do not think that even he at that stage could have envisaged that we would have been able to do this. As has been said, the new clauses proposed in the amendments allow for the transfer of public functions and the delegation of ministerial functions to local authorities and other permitted authorities. They combine the amendments that allowed for the transfer and delegation of functions to local authorities as originally tabled by the Opposition Front Bench in Committee with a power a transfer functions to elected mayors as set out in new Section 9HA which, as a consequence, we are now withdrawing. These new clauses have the support—indeed, they have been inspired by—the Core Cities Group, which championed the Opposition’s original amendment that allowed for the transfer of public functions to local authorities. I do not want to upset the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, but his amendment would have been inspired by the Core Cities Group and we need to acknowledge that. These new powers will be an important lever that will enable us to empower our cities and other localities to increase their competitiveness. Where local partners come up with innovative and creditable proposals for doing things differently, we will listen carefully to them and, under the provisions of the Bill, try to implement them. We envisage that often proposals for the transfer or delegation of functions will be made in support of local enterprise partnerships—the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, was not quite so keen on that. Any such proposals that were to come forward would need the clear support of local enterprise partnerships. My noble friend Lady Gardner asked whether these would have the approval of Parliament. I confirm that final decisions over whether to approve proposals to transfer a function to one of the core cities will rest with Parliament. Any order covering the transfer of functions to a permitted authority would be subject to a superaffirmative procedure. That would require that the order be laid in draft for 60 days, during which formal representations would be made. After this the order would have to be approved by a resolution of each House before it could come into being. Last autumn we published our Local Growth White Paper, which set out the Government’s approach to the delivery of economic development functions following the abolition of regional development agencies. The White Paper stated that while the Government will look to devolve functions to the local level where it makes sense, certain functions are best co-ordinated at a national level. I need to stress to the House that this new power, to which we are all signed up, does not mean that we intend to unpick the arrangements for the national delivery of certain economic development functions as set out in publications such as the Local Growth White Paper and skills strategy. Those would not be able to be devolved. If noble Lords accept these amendments, the provisions in Schedule 2, which insert new Sections 9HA and 9HB to the Local Government Act 2000 to transfer functions to elected mayors by order, are redundant. Accordingly, Amendment 151 deletes Sections 9HA and 9HB from Schedule 2 to the Bill. I have also asked about other departments’ agreement to the transfer of functions and how that would come about. Decisions relating to the transfer of functions would be a collective agreement by all of government; not only individual departments but government as a whole would be willing to take that on. We expect to respond—the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked about this—to proposals from cities for functions and powers that they wish to take on, and each city will need to put forward its proposal and a case for piloting new approaches. Those are the nuts and bolts of how this will work. I do not think I can say any more. I could go through what each of the amendments do, but that would probably be otiose. However, if at any stage anyone wants to know either from me or from the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, what the amendments achieve, I would be delighted to explain it to them, but I do not think the House need be worried with them all at this stage. I am delighted to support the amendments.