Cities Devolution Bill
How significant is the Government’s defeat on the devolution bill?
Obfuscation around the introduction of mayors may well delay further devolution deals.
Obfuscation around the introduction of mayors may well delay further devolution deals.
Last night the Government suffered its first defeat of the new Parliament, as Labour and Lib Dem peers successfully passed three amendments to the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill. These included a requirement for ministers to report annually on devolution, the introduction of a test regarding the suitability of areas and functions for devolution, and most critically, scrapping the need for cities to have a mayor in order to get devolved powers.
Given the Chancellor’s insistence that a mayor will be part of any deal, the Government’s majority in the Commons, and the likelihood that the SNP will abstain from voting (the Bill applies only in England and Wales), it is unlikely that any of the amendments will survive the legislative process. However, they could have significant implications for when the Bill gains Royal Assent, and for how many cities are in a position to take advantage of it.
The Government has set an ambitious timetable for passing the Devolution Bill, with a view to pushing ahead with the Greater Manchester Deal, and potentially agreeing a series of other devolution deals with city regions across the country ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review. Even if further amendments are not passed in the Commons, and the amendments tabled in the Lords are rejected, the Bill still needs to return to the upper chamber for a final consideration of the Bill.
It is entirely possible that Parliamentary ‘ping pong’ could then ensue, with the Lords sending the Bill back to the Commons with new amendments at this stage. Eventually the Bill is likely to be passed as a result of the Salisbury Convention (whereby the Lords do not block legislation required to deliver on measures within the Government’s manifesto) but the delays caused could be significant, slowing progress across the country and providing real political challenges to local leaders trying to secure a deal.
And that brings us to the second big implication of this vote. The amendment to remove the need for a mayor is likely to make it even more difficult for local leaders to secure city-region support for that change in the coming months.
The prospect of making such a significant change to local governance has presented all city-regions, including Greater Manchester, with major political challenges. Local leaders across the country hold a range of concerns, including the prospect that the reforms will serve to undermine their local council, represent an undemocratic imposition on their electorate, or dilute their own power. Yet because of the clarity and force of the Government’s agenda since the General Election, in recent months many have determined to make the change work for their area and have been attempting to reach a political agreement to allow their place to access more powers once the Bill is passed.
The danger now is that this vote will give new oxygen to local opponents of the mayoral model, and dilute the incentive for leaders to reach a local agreement, instead encouraging them to re-adopt the “wait and see” position that characterised so many places before the General Election. This could prove terminal for the devolution hopes of many city-regions for the majority of this Parliament, as the Chancellor is overwhelmingly likely to stick to his guns and simply push ahead with fewer deals – or even just the Greater Manchester agreement. This could have substantial consequences for the economies of those places and the local provision of public services, with big implications for the lives of the people who live there.
That’s why it is important that those who cheered the Government’s defeat last night now pause and consider the admirable progress that has been made towards devolution across city-regions in the last two months, and ask themselves whether in this light, the vote will ultimately lead to better or worse outcomes for residents in the years ahead. The power to devolve remains in the gift of national government and the Chancellor has been absolutely clear he will not bend on the introduction of a mayor being part of any significant city-region devolution deal. Debates about getting governance right will continue long after the Cities Bill has eventually passed. But, in the meantime, further delays and obfuscation around whether or not to have a mayor, at the national or local level, is likely to simply result in fewer places benefiting from devolution in the years ahead.
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Peter Davidson
“but the delays caused could be significant, slowing progress across the country and providing real political challenges to local leaders trying to secure a deal.”
Perhaps such delays are the desired goal of this Parliamentary tactic – offering time to reflect on the wisdom of current government policy?
Have “local leaders trying to secure deal[s]” undertaken any programs aimed at;
a) Informing their respective electorates about the terms/benefits/implications of such deals?
b) Seeking their consent to conclude them?
The answer in both cases of course, is a big fat NO!
I concur with the now general consensus supporting the principle of dispersing power downwards, away from a highly centralised Westminster based administration but the manner in which such strategies are being pursued across England is deeply flawed, displaying ZERO democratic legitimacy and very little coherence in terms of delivering effective, robust and accountable tiers of governance closer to the communities they purportedly serve?
Scotland with 5.3million inhabitants boasts a fully fledged Parliament, replete with primary legislative capacity, which will in time accrue greatly enhanced competency over significant policy portfolios, including commensurate revenue raising powers.
Yorkshire on the other hand, with 5.2million inhabitants appears to have NO prospect whatsoever of being offered anything remotely equivalent, instead having to settle for (possibly) some City Deals based around entities that leave huge swathes of the County out in the cold, exhibit no transfer of revenue raising capacities, rendering freshly imposed Executive Mayors and weak institutional architectures exposed to the worst consequences of Westminster driven ideology and associated policy initiatives – a constitutional reform outcome repeated across England’s provinces.
What happens if/when a toxic cocktail of burgeoning social demands (ageing population?), significantly diminished capital resources (in the form of hand me down block grants controlled by a central administration committed to profoundly reducing the overall size of state activity) and incompetent political leadership combines to cause implosion of public services at the local level – who will bear the brunt of such potentially catastrophic failure?
The answer of course is the usual suspects populating the most vulnerable elements of society – in Osborne’s master plan a Westminster administration will simply point the finger of guilt at elected Mayors and/or attendant local govt. cabinet minders, effectively washing their hands of responsibility – a win/win all round for political leaders at both national and local level but a massive loss of confidence for localised communities already deeply sceptical/ambivalent about the motivations driving elected bodies.
Is there an alternative strategy available – yes, there is and it’s very simple to understand, revolving around genuine engagement with citizen focused ideas and initiatives. Again Scotland has demonstrated the way forward, offering us a proven template in the form of the Scottish Constitutional Convention – a process that began small but gradually expanded to encompass many strands of Civil Society;
• Business & Enterprise Community Leaders
• Trades Unions
• Voluntary Sector
• Community Representative Groups
• Faith Groups
• Youth Representation
• Think Tanks
• Academia
• Special Interest Campaigns
• Political Parties
as legitimate proxies for a wider base of engaged citizens
It is this principled approach underpinning the Northern Citizens Convention, a broad alliance of individuals and groups committed to widening the debate about devolution, with particular emphasis on a marginalised and peripheral Northern England – http://www.northerncitizensconvention.org.uk
Perhaps the present government administration is cautious about encouraging this form of “democratic” public engagement because they don’t relish the prospect of any core message emerging from its deliberations?
Vicky Seddon
Your insistence that there must be elected mayors does not fit with your stated “Our main goal is to understand how and why economic growth and change takes place in Britain’s cities, and to produce research that helps cities improve their performance”.
Where is the legitimacy of a system to be imposed on a city region without the consent of the people there? Most of the referenda on elected mayors in 2012 rejected the concept, and while these were single local authority referenda, there is no evidence that a city-region wide opinion would be any different.
You call it devolution but this is not about power to the localities, it is power in the hands of the Chancellor, both in term of Governance structure and also in finance terms because there is no money raising powers included in the proposals.
There is more and more scepticism around Devo Manc as being a way of localities taking the blame for huge cuts in funding instead of the blame being where it lies, with the Government. And also opens up presidential – style elections which are much more susceptible to media influence – is this a plan of Osborne’s to try to get a Conservative foothold in the northern cities that is nigh impossible under current arrangements? Is this the real rationale behind your Centre? I see no evidence that elected mayors produce better governance. Recent reports from London suggest the opposite.
And sliding Tony LLoyd in as interim mayor in Manchester isn’t a wonderful advert for democracy and accountability, is it?
So I say, great that those amendments were carried and yes to a proper locally and publicly agreed, and hence legitimate, scheme of devolution. Less interference from Westminster. Grant local authorities more powers including fiscal powers, and incentives for them to band together to work out their own destinies.
Anonymous
Quick point of clarification – the Parliament Act is a red herring here. It only applies to bills that start in the Commons, so can’t apply here. And in any case it’s the procedure for when the Lords throws a bill out entirely, by refusing to give it a second or third reading. In this case the rules of ping-pong will apply and the bill will fall if it hits “double insistence” – the Lords insisting on its amendments twice and the Commons removing them twice. The Commons will therefore have to offer some compromises in order to persuade the Lords to accept removal of the amendments.
Ben Harrison
Thanks for that – I’ve updated the blog accordingly!