Baroness Janke (LD)

My Lords, in echoing my colleague’s comments reflecting on the previous debate, it sounds as though today we are agreeing on uniformity rather than devolution. The Bill gives the Secretary of State sweeping powers to merge, restructure or abolish councils without parliamentary oversight and local consent—all apparently in the name of devolution. A top-down authoritarian approach replaces local choice with a central direction from Whitehall. A single model is to be imposed across England regardless of geography, identity or local preference. It shifts real power away from local councils and into large strategic authorities headed up by regional mayors, with reduced numbers of local councillors serving larger areas and populations. Civil servants in Whitehall carving up maps is not a process that encourages local participation and people having real powers, as devolution implies. In fact, it is the very opposite of devolution. When its results become apparent, they will fuel further distrust and anger, as local people will find that they have even less chance to influence decisions affecting their lives or opportunities to participate in the governance of their local area. Mayors do not have the confidence of the population all over the country, so imposing a universal model is asking for local dissent. In my area of Bristol, there was a referendum that decisively rejected continuing with an elected mayor, so this actually imposes something on an area that is contrary to what the local population said. We had some talk about regional assemblies. Having served on the South West Regional Assembly, I dispute that all the RDA money goes into Bristol, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott—Councillor Scott—said, but that is something that we can perhaps talk about afterwards. Having looked at housing plans for the whole of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and more, I can tell the noble Baroness that rural affairs were very high on that agenda. This amendment seeks to restore the requirements of full local consultation on the substantive changes being proposed, including the geographical area, functions and powers of the new authorities, and governance arrangements including membership representation and accountability. Consultation is also to include funding arrangements, transitional costs and where they will be borne, and the impact on existing local government funding. It is essential for there to be transparency and accountability on funding, and that local obligations and responsibilities are fully funded, with councils enabled to do the job for which they were elected. It seems deeply ironic that an unelected Chamber such as ours should be party to removing powers and accountability from local communities and riding roughshod over local democracy. This amendment goes some way to restoring the rightful importance of local leadership, local consent and local participation.