I am in the unfortunate position of not only having to follow my hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), but in disagreeing with them both. I always thought that if I disagreed with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, I should sit down and think again. In this case, however, I disagree with his arguments, because I think that when electing an individual who will have significant powers, we should try to ensure that they are elected with a larger proportion of the vote than is required by first past the post.
I suspect that no one would want some kind of extremist to win a powerful mayoralty in a fluke election where there were 14 candidates and the winner ended up with 16% of the vote. I accept that that is unlikely, but it would be a horrible situation. I am sure that the people of France, having seen their election results over the weekend, are glad that they will have a run-off in their presidential election. If the Front National were to win the first round, people will get a chance to elect a non-extreme president. I disagree with my hon. Friend, because when electing an individual who will have power, I am not sure that first past the post is the right answer. We should have the system currently used for the London Mayor and police commissioners, where there is a run-off after the original vote to ensure that the person who wins commands 50% of the vote.
I also disagree with my hon. Friend that not having an elected mayor is the least worst thing. If we are to devolve significant amounts of money and power to a new body, that body must be accountable directly to the people. We need people standing and being elected on the basis of how they will use that power and money.
When people elect a leader of a district council that has a small £10 million budget and mainly does planning and refuse collection, I am not convinced that they will be thinking, “The party I am voting for will choose the leader of the council and will effectively have a veto over the new super body that covers at least two counties in my area.” That is not accountable to the people, and I think it is bad for democracy. We risk recreating the police authority model that we did not think worked, but on a much larger scale and with more powers. That would be a retrograde step for our constituents’ democratic accountability over key public services, and that is why I do not support the amendment.
On amendment 56, I am a supporter of devolution to English regions. The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) made the right arguments, because areas such a Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire do not
have a long-standing, coherent geography that makes people think, “That’s a natural body of government I identify with.” We must proceed carefully, and ensure that we produce Government bodies that people identify with and say, “Yes, I see a coherent natural fit. That is where I look to for decisions to be taken.”
The hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that some parts of north Derbyshire and north Nottinghamshire might feel better suited to the Sheffield region rather than to Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. I am pretty certain that Amber Valley, which runs along the boundary between Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and has the strapline, “The Heart of Derbyshire”, sees itself firmly in the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire area, rather than somewhere else, but it is right for individual local districts to have the democratic right to say, “We represent our people, and we think that that region is the right place for us to be.” If people vote for that, that is what should happen, and there should not be a veto from a higher authority that covers a different area.
In exercising that right and making that decision, the Secretary of State should try to achieve consensus, consider the broader picture, and ensure that we do not achieve some strange, farcical democratic situation where, if the people of Bolsover choose to go with Sheffield, they suddenly have no say in holding their own police force to account because that is handled by the elected mayor for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. We must proceed with caution regarding what powers go to the mayors. If they are mainly economic powers and interests, and perhaps transport, perhaps elected mayors should not replace the police commissioners if we are to vary the geography, as that could be a dangerous step.
I know that people in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire are keen to replace their police and crime commissioners, but I am not sure how one person can hold to account two different police forces. That seems a little strange, because someone could be using one mandate to hold to account two forces with very different policies. We must think carefully about such functions. We ought to think properly about the geography, not just rely on some historic, centuries-old set of local government boundaries that may not make sense in the modern world. We should step back and think about what a good system of local government would look like if we added that extra tier. I am not sure that our constituents would thank us if we had four different tiers of local government.
My constituents in Heanor or Ripley elect 21 town councillors and 45 borough councillors. They elect two councillors to the county council, which has more than 60 councillors. I am not sure that they will fancy electing a new mayor and another tier of government, and paying for all that as well. I am not sure that many of them understand exactly what functions those three council tiers have, and what a fourth one on top would do. They would probably think that all four had some role in economic development and regeneration, largely because that features significantly in most of the election literature that we see.
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If we are going to have this devolution we ought to step back and consider whether it is a sustainable, effective and efficient system of local government that our constituents can understand and support. Should we use this Bill as the driver for looking at changing that
local government system, perhaps with unitary councils and a new elected mayor for a larger region? I put my name to amendment 56, which would make it easier, where there is consensus in an area, to create those new unitaries. It would not allow one small district to cross two counties to block the whole thing and reject the unitary authority. If there were consensus, that proposal should be allowed to proceed.
I am not sure that about the drafting of the amendment, which would allow the Secretary of State to create unitaries if only one council wanted that. It would be perverse for the Secretary of State to have such a power if one of the nine districts in Derbyshire were in favour and the county council and the other eight district were against. Where the majority of districts and the county council are in favour, or if all the districts but not the county are in favour, the Secretary of State could use that power to create unitary authorities, which would be a more efficient, cost-effective and effective form of local government overall. I welcome the fact that the Government appear to have accepted amendment 56 with the change proposed in manuscript amendment (a). If the Lords accept the proposal, perhaps they should consider whether the consent of only one authority is the right model. Perhaps the power would be fairer if it were half the authorities, or two thirds. Apart from that, I commend amendment 56 to the House.