My Lords, it is a great honour for me to follow my noble friend and to thank her for an extraordinarily moving and well-judged maiden speech. She is one of the bravest politicians I know; she called out the scourge of anti-Semitism, which threatened to corrode parts of my party when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. Time after time, she exposed anti-Semitism and suffered abuse and threats as a result. She would not be intimidated or silenced. Under Keir Starmer’s leadership, my party has dealt decisively with this, but it would not have been possible without the courage of my noble friend and others. I am delighted to salute her today for this.
My noble friend also brings huge experience of the city of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire and the West Midlands. As she said in her powerful speech, what a contrast between the Government’s claims and the reality of the legislation before us. We are promised in the Bill that we will see devolved power, reduced inequality across the country, a boost to productivity, pay and jobs, an improved planning system and better environmental outcomes—yet, when we look at the Bill, what do we see? We see inappropriate and extensive use of executive powers through Henry VIII clauses, delegation as opposed to the devolving of powers, and what delegation is on offer seems conditional on promoting mayors and combined authorities. There is no new money for levelling up, little protection for the environment, and the concession made to nimby Conservative MPs in the Commons has rendered the 300,000 target for new homes unenforceable and unrealistic. The evidence for that is clear in the comments made by building companies only days ago that they are reducing their estimates for new starts immediately.
On sustainability, huge opportunities are being missed, the Chris Skidmore Net Zero Review published last week states:
“The Review is also clear that there must be more place-based, locally led action on net zero.”
It calls for the Government to
“empower people and places to deliver”,
noting that this will lead to
“more local support but will deliver better economic outcomes”.
Our planning system could have been a huge lever for contributing positively to net zero and environmental targets but, as far as I can see, the Bill skates over this.
As for levelling up, we are not seeing much of this in the industrial heartlands of our country, in the West Midlands, where we are performing at 10% below pre-Covid levels in economic activity. The unemployment rate in the West Midlands for August to October 2022 was 4.9% compared to the UK average of 3.7%. As over 10% of jobs in the West Midlands were in the manufacturing sector compared to 7% nationally, one would have thought that the West Midlands would have been a priority area. Yet public spending in the
West Midlands in 2021 was £12,841 per person, compared with £15,490 in London. Ministers continually ignore the needs of the Midlands.
I say to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds that if he thinks that travelling from Leeds to Manchester is slow on the railways, he should try going from Birmingham to Leicester. Unfortunately, in the programme for scaled-up railway improvements in the West Midlands and East Midlands, there is nothing for the Birmingham to Leicester route.
On devolution, this is a Government who have spent the last 13 years continually centralising power, not just in Whitehall but in Ministers through the use of secondary legislation, to give them an extraordinary addition to their powers. Even when devolution is proposed—actually it is not devolution, it is delegation—it is often conditional, and depending on the adoption of a mayoral or combined authority system. Where is the radical skills agenda that needs to be devolved to local level? What about finance for the transport infrastructure and transport operations? I listened very carefully to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle on the links between health and what the Bill is trying to do. Why are we not seeing a transfer of responsibility for aspects of the NHS, as we have seen in Greater Manchester?
The more one looks at the Bill, the more it seems focused on sucking up powers from local authorities. How else does one explain Clause 57, which would allow local authority functions to be conferred on a mayor without the consent of all the local authorities within a combined authority area? I agree with the District Councils’ Network, which argues that devolved arrangements should be firmly rooted in the principle of subsidiarity so that the right decisions on delivery are made at the right level. Or take Clause 58, which my noble friend Lord Bach will speak more extensively on, which removes the requirement for the consent of all councils of a combined authority for the transfer of police and crime commissioner functions to a combined authority mayor—why? Could it be because, on 6 May 2021 the people of the West Midlands voted for a Labour police and crime commissioner but the Conservative mayor, Mr Andy Street, had wanted to be his own police commissioner? The constituent local authorities would not agree. Instead of respecting the views of those local authorities in the West Midlands, as well as of the electorate, who voted for Simon Foster to be the police and crime commissioner, the Government want to allow Mr Street to single-handedly abolish our right in the West Midlands to vote for a democratically elected and directly accountable police and crime commissioner. I hope we will remove that clause and Clause 57 from the Bill.
Despite all the Minister’s puff, the Bill provides little devolution or regeneration, no levelling up, huge environmental risk and insufficient affordable housing.
5.05 pm