Contribution
My Lords, this is a Bill about local government reform, but it is also a constitutional Bill. It is about the structure of governance within the UK and in particular in England. Perhaps I should say by way of introduction that I have had some very helpful advice in preparing this amendment from John Denham and Sir David Lidington, so in some ways, this is a cross-party amendment, and it is a matter of much concern to those who are thinking about the structure of the UK and how it holds together. I have also looked at the report from the Labour Party’s commission on the UK’s future, from December 2022, three and a half years ago, which strongly recommended a statutory council of England. I have also looked at various reports from the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which has reported on the governance of England on a number of occasions in the past five years.
There is now a Mayoral Council for England, which I gather has met five or six times since the last election. It does not have statutory powers. Currently, it has the 14 elected mayors on it, and when we have gone all mayoral it will have some 30 to 35 when complete. I heard Andy Burnham talking 10 days ago about how well it has operated since the last election.
That takes us back to early intergovernmental relations, when, in 1998, the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales were set up and relations between central government and the devolved authorities began to operate in a relatively informal way. The intergovernmental framework worked very well when you had Labour Governments in Scotland and Wales and a Labour Government in London, and began to work very badly when you had different parties in power in those countries. I say that by way of emphasis, because we are facing a situation in which, after May this year, we may well have different Governments in power in Scotland and Wales, and we will certainly have some different parties in power in parts of England. The question of how we manage that and how, if we really believe in devolution, we set up some means of bargaining negotiation between those who represent devolved authorities and central government, matters a great deal. If we want to make it work, we have to talk about the place of the Mayoral Council for England and give it proper authority to operate.
I remind noble Lords that we had these various intergovernmental councils under the previous three Governments. I note that under Conservative authority, we even set up joint executive committees to negotiate on the Barnett formula. The Joint Exchequer Committee for Scotland last met in June 2022; the Joint Exchequer Committee for Wales was created shortly before the Wales Act 2014 received Royal Assent and last met in October 2016. That is what happens if you have only informal and non-statutory arrangements.
The complexities of intergovernmental relations across the UK also include the British-Irish Council, which now has not only a north-south body but an east-west body on relations between Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. From what I have heard from talking to Scots involved with this, it is clear to me that the Scots will not accept 35 mayors from England as representing England alongside the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish on the Council of the Nations and Regions—which, I am afraid, is simply a rebadging of the old intergovernmental conference. Gordon Brown’s image of what the Council of the Nations and Regions should be was a great deal more ambitious than what we now have, and it was absolutely a statutory body. It is a sad reflection of how timid this Government are on all matters of political and constitutional reform that so much that was valuable in Gordon Brown’s report has so far not even been discussed further, let alone put into action.
We want the Mayoral Council for England and the Council of the Nations and Regions to be able to negotiate, bargain and hold the Government to account. We also want government departments in London to have to negotiate with and take into account the views of these sub-regional authorities that we will be creating. I was talking to another noble Peer who is actively engaged in this today who said that they regretted the regional centres of government, because it meant that those in the regions could get together with central civil servants and talk through some of the relations and regional areas of policy with them.
We have many more civil servants in London than we had 15 years ago, and we have fewer local government civil servants. That is the sort of thing that we clearly need to have. The purpose of my amendment is to say that we need some degree of clarity within the Government on the role of the Mayoral Council for England and how that governance arrangement for England fits in with the governance arrangements for the UK as a whole. This will become a much more difficult matter once we no longer have Labour Governments and Labour mayors as the majority, and we will therefore need statutory functions and statutory status to make sure that they continue to meet, argue and, one hopes, co-operate.