Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)

My Lords, I have Amendment 187. There is a fair amount of agreement between myself and the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne—on both sides of the Pennines—about the nature of the problems. This is not a devolution Bill; it is a decentralisation Bill. The Government believe that delivery is what matters but have not yet understood that, unless the people on the ground are helped to understand why delivery is difficult and that they have some part in seeing what is delivered and in helping with delivery, they will not feel that it is them. My amendment therefore starts from the need to re-establish public trust in the delivery of government on the ground, at the local level and, therefore, to provide a degree of financial transparency. Unless we have a more transparent process of fiscal negotiation about the distribution of funds between central and local government, we cannot succeed in improving the governance of England or in gaining the acceptance of people outside London and the south-east that the governance of England is fair. There is a deep sense of disillusionment across the north of England that people have been neglected, that London does not understand them and that the Civil Service in London, as the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, said, has grown in the last 15 years while local government has languished and, in many cases, faced bankruptcy. The city of Bradford is not yet bankrupt but is struggling on the brink of it. We have to explain to local people why the services they used to have are no longer being provided. I challenge the Minister to explain how devolution, which helps to resolve the enormous crisis we have with public trust in our democratic politics, can take place without a more visible process of fiscal devolution, without beginning to reform local taxation and without Ministers as well as local council leaders explaining to their public what is and is not possible in strict financial terms.