My Lords, I remind the House of my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Like many, I was looking forward to this Bill. You could say that I was even excited at the prospect of a set of provisions that would unleash the economic, social and environmental opportunities of all the towns and cities across the land—maybe I need to get out more—but, having read the Bill, my excitement turned into a feeling of utter disbelief and confusion.
Is this Bill’s focus devolution and economic growth? Is it planning guidance, housing, or the control of local government structures and finance? I have no idea what its driving purpose is; it seems to be a pick-and-mix of whatever was in the Secretary of State’s in-tray, which he has decided to cram into one Bill. At the same time, he has given himself so many powers that all he will be doing is sitting in a Whitehall office making provisions for rules on street votes in Saltburn, making new design orders for development in Southampton, or deciding the financial constraints of the council in Sheffield. Indeed, this Bill could be diagnosed as having a split personality.
Part 1 of the Bill sets the whole tone of the Government’s thinking. Devolution is derived from the Secretary of State’s pen—deciding what is important, what is to be measured and when, and marking his own progress. That is why this Bill is flawed before it starts. It is still the Whitehall-centric view of the country from SW1: deciding if all is going well from that vantage point. It is indeed a “Henry VIII powers on steroids” Bill.
The elephant in the room is that there is no reform of the Victorian monolithic structure of Whitehall itself. You cannot have an empowered set of regions until you start looking at the reforms of Whitehall needed to facilitate that. If the Government really are radical about what matters to local areas, let them decide what is important in closing the economic, social and environmental gaps. Let them have a say and put them at the centre of whether progress is being made in closing the economic, social and environmental gaps. Why cannot that be turned around? Why cannot local areas be the judges of what is important and how progress is being made, along with government?
It is also what is not in this Bill that shows why it is doomed to fail on levelling up. When we look at other countries, we see that they cannot control sustainable economic growth in any region without having full
fiscal devolution. Here in England, only two property-based taxes are the levers that local politicians can pull to raise income to invest in their area. In France, local areas have nine taxes; in Germany, the figure is more than 12; and in New York City it is 22. The OECD has shown that, to be effective, local areas need to have a split of taxes based on 60% property and 40% non-property. Other than the iron glove of the Treasury, what stops local areas in this country having fiscal powers to make the right investment decisions and create the right incentives for their areas? We have to stop the Oliver Twist approach of holding out the begging bowl and asking the Secretary of State, “Please sir, can I have some more?” in a bidding war for time-limited funds that is flawed and will continue under this Bill. This is an area that these Benches will return to in Committee.
This Bill has many great intentions but unfortunately, the powers in it are not really being devolved to local areas. Devolution means that local areas, local politicians, local businesses and local communities can make real decisions about investment, fiscal issues and significant issues that affect their area. This Bill stems most of that power still from the Secretary of State’s pen in Whitehall.
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