Andrew Cooper

It is a pleasure to speak on what may prove to be one of the most impactful and transformative pieces of legislation of this Parliament. The Bill represents one of the most significant shifts in local government in more than half a century. It sets out a clear ambition to move power out of Westminster and into the hands of local leaders who know their communities best. For areas such as Cheshire and Warrington, that has the potential finally to give us the tools we need to unlock our full potential and to deliver real, tangible benefits for our communities. On transport alone, the opportunity is to talk no longer about the decline in bus services but about how we are providing new routes; and to hear, instead of that we have been campaigning for a bridge or railway link for 40 years, “We have a plan to deliver.” On skills, instead of the 92% drop in adult education starters that has occurred in my area between 2015 and 2020, we can talk about how we will fix that. It is important to recognise, however, that the approach set out in the Bill is not without risks for Cheshire and Warrington with respect to police services. The Bill gives power to the Home Secretary to redraw the policing boundaries to match the mayoral combined authority. There is no consensus in Cheshire that Cheshire police should be reorganised to exclude Halton, which is currently part of the Liverpool city region. Indeed, quite the reverse: it is felt that such a move would be explicitly bad for Halton and would damage the viability of the remainder of Cheshire police. When the Minister sums up, I hope he will provide reassurance that there will be a full consultation before Cheshire police is reorganised, and that it will not be reorganised against the wishes of its communities? Let me turn to the Bill’s provisions on adult education. The new duty placed on strategic authorities to secure appropriate facilities for the education and training of adults aged 19 and over is a welcome step. In the focus groups that I have run with technology businesses across Cheshire and the wider north-west, there has been a clear divide between mayoral areas and non-mayoral areas, where—with some exceptions—businesses did not feel that there was a good understanding of their needs, nor a plan to deliver on them. The mayoral combined authority presents an opportunity not only to fix that, but to think strategically about taking advantage of projects like HyNet, which will require miles of new hydrogen pipeline and people with the right skills to build it. An important gap that the Bill does not address is post-16 education. Local authorities currently have a duty to secure enough suitable education and training provision to meet the reasonable needs of all young people in their area who are over compulsory school age, but they lack any powers to deliver this and neither can they meaningfully affect how further education is organised. That is a real challenge, particularly in my constituency, which has been left with big gaps in provision following the 2016 review into post-16 education in Cheshire and Warrington, contributing to NEET levels in Winsford being five percentage points higher than the borough-wide average. There is an opportunity for the mayoral combined authority to deliver better outcomes for young people in my constituency, but it needs the powers to do so. I urge Ministers to work with colleagues in the Department for Education so that we can use mayors to tackle entrenched inequalities and ensure that every young person, regardless of background, has access to high-quality education and training that prepares them for the future. This Bill is not just a handover of power, but a partnership between central Government and local communities—between elected leaders and the people they serve. For Cheshire and Warrington, it is a chance to lead by example, and to show what empowered communities can achieve when given the freedom to flourish.