Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Those constraints are being imposed by the Government on that region. It should be up to the region to choose the most appropriate model of governance as we proceed, rightly, with devolving powers down to that area.
Our new clause 21 seeks to ensure that the community is involved in any decision about the model of governance. Open engagement needs to go much further than that. Devolution deals that are shaped with the local community are more likely to have the support of the local community. Just as important, they are more likely to be better deals. The Government should not close the door on meaningful engagement that is open and transparent. The deals the Minister is making may not feel obscure to him, because he is the one inside the closed door. The people on the other side of the closed door—those on the outside—need to know what is going on and to be able to influence and shape it. If the Government really believe in devolution, why will they not devolve decisions over the appropriate form of governance so that local areas can decide for themselves? I wonder what they are afraid would happen.
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Consultation is further constrained because the Government are not clear enough about which functions local areas could have greater powers over, which is why we have tabled new clause 25. Local areas need greater clarity about what the Government are prepared to devolve. They say they are open to any request from combined authorities, which is the right attitude, but the Chancellor is not necessarily accepting every part of every bid, so what is guiding him to say no where no is the answer he comes back with? Clarity will help other areas to shape their own bids more effectively, it will help devolution to expand and it will help us to see whether the Government are being too cautious and thereby apply pressure on them in a way helpful to the Secretary of State and his ambitions. In response, I hope that he or the Minister will make clear which functions they believe lie outside the possibility of devolution. Perhaps there are not any, but let us hear that from them.
On amendment 57 and the need for a better gender balance in mayoral teams, I was disappointed by the Minister’s comments. The Fawcett Society has stated:
“Women’s representation at a local level is stagnating with virtually no change in the level of female councillors in the last ten years.”
According to 2014 statistics, women make up just 33% of local councillors, just 13% of council leaders in England, Scotland and Wales, just three out of 16 elected Mayors and just six out of 41 police and crime commissioners. This is clearly not good enough. We must not allow the roles of mayor and deputy mayor to become predominantly male preserves, as other leading roles in local government have been. Our amendment is not prescriptive, but it would require mayors to consider gender balance when appointing a deputy. It is a sensible and modest measure, and I hope the Government will support it. With the Speaker’s permission, we will return to this on Report, at which point we might wish to push it to a vote, depending on the Government’s position.
London has had a mayoral assembly for well over a decade, but that cannot mean that devolution to London has reached the end of its journey; there is still much further to go, and we are grateful to the work of London Councils, the GLA and the Mayor of London, all of whom have endorsed the proposal for further devolution to London. Our new clause 22 backs that proposal, and I welcome the Government’s willingness to listen, as expressed by the Minister earlier in the debate.
Devolution will not work if areas are set up to fail because they are inadequately resourced to deliver the devolved services. Since 2010, local government has faced cuts of 40%, and more is on the way in the coming spending review. Just this week, the LGA, a cross-party organisation, has warned that local authorities are struggling. Lord Porter, its Conservative chairman, says:
“We know we’ve got probably 12 or 14 councils that are very close to the edge now.”
Councils close to the edge will not be able to cope with devolution. The funding settlement so far is deeply unfair. The 10 most deprived communities in the country have suffered cuts 18 times higher than the least deprived. In many cases, the areas hit the hardest are those in the front line for devolution. In part, that is because local decision making is more effective and more efficient, but there will be a breaking point if resources become wholly inadequate, and the Government should not force local areas past that point. I am sorry that the Minister sees no merit in ensuring that resources are aligned with powers and need. Our new clause, quite reasonably, would place a duty on the Secretary of State to publish a report on the impact of funding on devolution. It is intended to ensure that devolution can flourish, so I hope that he and his colleagues will think again.
The Bill could radically reshape local government, but to really make an impact, we also need to change the culture and shape of national Government, Whitehall and this place. Redefining local government should also mean redefining national government, but very little has been done on that so far. At its best, devolution will mean real power for local areas, but at its worst, it will simply make local government a commissioning arm of national Government, adding little more than local colour. That would make it a huge wasted opportunity. Whatever they say from the Dispatch Box, the Government still talk localist but act centralist. Free schools have no
local oversight, desperately needed social housing is being sold off in areas that do not want it sold off, the forthcoming Housing and Planning Bill contains dozens of new centralising powers, and the Work programme was designed and delivered from the centre in a way that excluded localities. All this, and so much more, hardly argues that the Government are consistently pro-devolution in the way that the Secretary of State would have us believe.
It is welcome that the Government are agreeing to publish an annual devolution report, which is an important transparency measure, but if the whole Government are signed up to devolution, in the way we are told, why are they opposing our proposal that every Minister should tell us the impact of every new Bill on devolution? That tells me that the Secretary of State has failed to convince his colleagues in Cabinet that devolution really does matter. As it stands, clause 2 ensures that every time a Bill is presented in either House, a Minister must make a statement to show how it is compatible with devolution. This clause has been welcomed by the cross-party LGA as a means of strengthening devolution, so I regret the Minister’s earlier comments. For instance, the new Housing and Planning Bill would benefit from such a statement because it would make it clear to the whole country just how centralising it is. I can see that, although it would benefit the passage of legislation and devolution, politically the Government would not want it, but that is no reason to block the measure.
Similarly, amendment 59 seeks to focus on the general power of competence and review its fitness for purpose for devolution. LGA research shows that the general power is
“limited by significant constraints set by central government”
and that local government needs far more independence from interfering central Government. We had a small example of that in a Delegated Legislation Committee on which I sat earlier this week. The Government insisted on retaining a role for the Secretary of State in taking local decisions about tattoo parlours in England—although oddly not in Wales. This really is not “letting go”. Post-legislative review has not resolved these matters. The amendment encourages the Secretary of State to review the general power of competence and remove barriers to empowering communities.
In conclusion, we welcome these long-overdue attempts by the Government to devolve power. We welcome the fact that it is largely Labour councils that are leading on this agenda, and we congratulate them on and support them in their work. The Bill is welcome. It is a step forward, but it could be better and it could go further still in empowering communities beyond the town hall, in the way my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) described; in offering fair resources alongside devolved powers; in reforming central Government to fit a permanently devolved settlement, particularly across England; and in engaging local communities far more openly to help shape their own devolution deals so that they can become the settled will supported by the local community.
In conclusion, I would like to test the opinion of the Committee on new clause 23, which seeks a fair funding settlement alongside devolution, and to oppose Government amendment 4, which gives the Secretary of State centralised powers to impose mayors where localities have made it absolutely clear they do not want them.