My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group, as do other noble Lords. I shall talk your Lordships’ House through why I felt we needed to put these amendments down.
First, let us look at my Amendments 25, 27 and 53. Our concerns are around the fact that the Government seem to view devolution settlements as evolutionary. Although we do not necessarily object to them refining these agreements over time, our concern is that, if they are going to refine them and the settlements are going to evolve, clearly they need to be changed both for the benefit of and with the consent of the local communities that will be affected by any changes. If we look at what is in this part of the Bill and what it does, we see that it adjusts the mechanisms affecting when changes to combined authorities can be made. With my amendments, I am trying to ensure that due process is applied at all times to such changes.
I want to look at one particular area of concern, which involves a change that could be immediate and will be able to be exercised through these powers if they are put into statute: the potential addition of
Warwickshire to the West Midlands combined authority. This could be done shortly ahead of the next election for the mayor of the region in May next year. Our concern is that it could happen shortly ahead of an election without proper agreement with the community and wider authorities. Because of that, I have tabled Amendments 25, 27 and 53.
My Amendment 25 states:
“The Secretary of State must consult, and have regard to advice provided by, the Boundary Commission for England regarding the boundaries of a CCA when making regulations under subsection (1)”.
My Amendment 27 says the same—it is just placed in a further, appropriate part of the Bill—whereas, if noble Lords look at my Amendment 53, they will see that it looks at another part of the Bill and aims to ensure that
“the Secretary of State has consulted, and had regard to advice provided by, the Boundary Commission for England”.
I know that we have discussed this issue. I thanked the Minister for her time either last week or the week before—I cannot remember when—when we discussed it previously. However, because the Boundary Commission has a responsibility to review parliamentary constituencies —I know that the argument from officials was that my amendment does not necessarily apply in this case because it looks just at county or district boundaries that already exist and are already agreed, for example— we feel that, because of the potential implications of boundaries being expanded by a mayor to suit their next election, this is something that should be supplemented. There should be this additional role for the Boundary Commission in such cases so that there cannot be any questions, concerns or even accusations of gerrymandering where that may not be the case; we just think that it would add an extra layer of security and transparency to any changes in this area.
My Amendment 35, which is also in this group, would insert a new clause:
“Mayors for CCA Areas: boundaries”.
The amendment says:
“Within one year of the day on which this Act is passed, a Minister … must publish a report of a consultation on the boundaries of each Mayor for a CCA Area … The report must also include a criteria which must be fulfilled for any future expansions of boundaries”.
Also, and this comes back to the point I have just made:
“The criteria must include that the extension is not being made for political advantage”.
This is something that we are concerned about.
We are trying to really stress the point here that any additions and changes to boundaries should not be motivated or be able to be motivated by any political purpose. We know that concerns have been raised that this may be the case in the West Midlands, for example. It is extremely important that the Government heed these concerns in order that people can have the greatest confidence possible in any changes to boundaries and powers that will be brought in with the proposed legislation.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has Amendments 37 to 39 in this group. They all look to do a similar thing: to remove Clauses 40 to 42 to avoid confusion about the number of different mayoral titles that are possible.
I genuinely think he has a bit of a point here. I find that many members of the general public get confused about what councillors do and what we all do. When I was a Member of Parliament—other noble Lords may have had the same experience—I was told to go and sort my councillors out. There is not necessarily a huge amount of understanding about local government and government structures. I have some sympathy with what the noble Lord is trying to do here to make it as simple as possible.
I now want to look at Amendment 52 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hunt, my Amendment 53, as I mentioned earlier, and Amendment 53A, the new amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Hunt to which I have added my name. I will leave my noble friend to go into the detail of this, but we strongly support what he is trying to achieve with this amendment and strongly support his concerns here.
I hope that I have been clear to the Minister about exactly what our concerns are. I think that they could be resolved with discussion, but these are genuine concerns about the way the boundaries may potentially be manipulated and we think that the Government should take them very seriously. I beg to move.