My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for the points they have made, particularly my noble friend Lord Heseltine, who appears to have answered most of them right at the beginning.
Amendments 1 and 2 would insert two new clauses placing statutory duties on the Secretary of State to provide reports to Parliament setting out his strategy for ensuring devolution opportunities are available across England, and annual progress updates. I agree that there are merits in the Government being clear about what the devolution offer is to all areas and about future devolution agreements between local areas and the Government following local areas developing their proposals.
We have set out, not least at Second Reading, our broad strategy for devolution in England. Our intention is to ensure that there are devolution opportunities available to all parts of England, including rural and coastal areas, counties, towns and, indeed, cities. Many noble Lords have alluded to this. We also want to ensure—and I can give noble Lords this commitment—that no one place will be prioritised over another. Rural, city, coastal—we want to hear from all areas with their proposals. We want to hear from Norwich just as much as Nottingham, and we want them to tell us how it might work. We are not going to prescribe. I should have perhaps asked between Second Reading and now whether noble Lords who are making suggestions about certain areas speak for those areas—I do not know, and I am not assuming anything—but we want to hear from those areas about how they see devolution working. I cannot stress that enough, really.
As some noble Lords have said, some of the existing city regions include large rural and coastal communities; for example, as the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, the Sheffield city region has rural communities within and around it, including the Peak District; and the North East Combined Authority includes Northumberland. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, also made a point about areas being forced into hooking on to other areas. The Bill does not force anybody to do anything; it enables areas to do what their ambitions are. We have been clear that our approach is for areas to come forward with proposals that address their specific issues and opportunities. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, mentioned business clustering, which is vital for growth. Clustering is what leads to growth and supply chain enablement. The Bill is enabling legislation which will provide the legislative framework to give effect to the different aspects of devolution deals—and they are different—and we are listening carefully to debates on the Bill to ensure that it does this.
Turning back to the specific amendments, I agree that it is important that Parliament should be able to question and hold the Government to account, both on their pursuit of devolution and decentralisation and on the progress being made in those areas that have agreed devolution deals. There are already mechanisms, such as Parliamentary Questions and debates, by which Parliament can ask Ministers to account for anything within their remit. These are opportunities that both noble Lords and Members of the other place rightly take regularly.
I was asked about our response to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. We intend to respond in full before the end of Committee stage. But as that committee recognised, the Bill is an enabling Bill providing the primary legislative framework needed to deliver the Government’s manifesto commitments in full. It also made a point about ensuring that the overview of scrutiny—something which I know that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, is keen on—is effective, independent from any majority group on a combined authority and transparent. The Bill provides powers for us to make provision about all these matters and we are very interested in hearing views from all concerned about how the scrutiny could be as effective as possible.
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On the devolution deals, the secondary legislation to complement each deal will be scrutinised through the affirmative process by both Houses and approved by them. This process involves an Explanatory Memorandum describing the deal in some detail being laid before Parliament. A process for evaluating the progress on deals will be discussed with each area on a case-by-case basis. For example, as part of the devolution deal in Greater Manchester, there will be a requirement to put in place an extensive programme of evaluation agreed by the Treasury. I am very pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, in his place and I am sure that he will contradict me if I say anything wrong about Greater Manchester. Those evaluations will be public documents, available to all Members of the House, as well as to those with an interest in the area and the progress it is making. Accordingly, I do not believe that it is necessary to place statutory duties as sought by these amendments on the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on these matters. This would be a duplication of a well-tried process.
Let me turn to other points made by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked who is leading on the deals across government. The Secretary of State for Communities, the right honourable Greg Clark, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are working closely together to discuss deals with areas and Ministers—including myself—have met interested councils. On the question of capacity, this has been progressed with support from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, building on the progress made on devolution in the last Parliament.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, also asked what bids we are receiving. We do not see these devolutionary requests as bids but as a two-way process between government and groups of local authorities. It is important
to make it clear at this stage that it is not a bidding process and therefore, as I have said, there are no priorities and no areas come second to others.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, asked about having combined authorities within combined authorities—the concentric circles—to manage different services. You cannot have a combined authority within another combined authority, but two or more combined authorities can of course work in partnership. There can be unitaries or two-tiers within a combined authority, but you cannot have a combined authority within a combined authority.
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, asked whether Lancaster University would be secondary to some bigger universities in bigger cities. If Cumbria feels that the university and skills and jobs should be a priority aspect within the deal, the Government would welcome its proposals and would want to hear from it. The noble Lord also talked about the economic geography of Cumbria being very different. We fully recognise that every place is unique and different from every other place; that is why the Bill is an enabling Bill so that those differences can be reflected and come forward. He also said that there is perhaps not a consensus on the issue in his part of the world; of course, consensus is crucial, as is leadership and agreement.
I have some more explanations. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, asked why the Bill prescribes for a mayor. Elected mayors can provide an effective single point of accountability where major powers are devolved to cities. However, this offer certainly does not limit in any way the devolution proposals that areas can make, and we will consider any and all proposals. I think that I have made that point previously.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, talked about fiscal devolution. We have already agreed with Greater Manchester about the retention of 100% of additional business rates, providing a very powerful incentive to drive local growth, but we are not ruling anything in or out at this stage. We are very interested to hear from all areas how they see fiscal devolution working. With those assurances—