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23 Jan 2003 : Column 509—continued
Mr. Hammond: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Davey: The hon. Gentleman hogged enough time, so I will not give way to him on this point.With your leave, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will seek to divide the House on amendment No. 26 because it is so important.
Joyce Quin: I, too, have expressed my support all along for decoupling. Although I support the idea behind the hon. Gentleman's amendment, I do not believe that it is necessary for the regional assembly then to address the issue. Regional government and local government are entirely separate and I regret the fact that there is confusion between the two in the Bill. I am keen for there to be no confusion, so I rather regret the fact that the hon. Gentleman has formulated his amendment as he has.
Mr. Davey: I accept the right hon. Lady's point. It is not the ideal formulation, and the amendments that we tabled in Committee did not take this form. However, we are trying to reach a compromise with the Government. If they are worried, we have tried to make it clear that the referendum could assure the people that the regional assemblies would consider their concerns about there being too many authorities below the regional level. If the Government had accepted the principle in the amendments that were unfortunately not selected, they would have enabled that process to take place.
I accept that the current amendment is a compromise, but I hope that the Government will accept it, as it would help the referendums to be won. If we could argue to the people who are concerned about too many tiers of government that the regional assembly would, after it was elected, consider that point without prejudging the issue, some of those understandable concerns might be allayed. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) feels strongly about that point, as do many of my right hon. and hon. Friends. They want people to have the choice about the structure of local government in their regions. They want the regional assemblies to give them that choice.
Mr. Streeter: The hon. Gentleman has completely misunderstood the comments of my hon. Friend the
Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) to whom he will not now give way. We are not at all in favour of allowing elected regional assemblies to decide on the local government review. We have suggested an additional question so that the voters themselves can have their say. That is very different from the hon. Gentleman's proposal.
Mr. Davey: I think that the hon. Gentleman misunderstands me. We want the regional assemblies to consider the proposals made by the boundary committee for England and to put them before the people so that they can vote on them. So the regional assembly would consider them, which is a more devolved approach, and the people would have a choice.
Mr. Hammond: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Davey: No, I want to make progress.
It is vital to decouple the two issues. I hope that the other place will take that seriously and Members of all parties will co-operate to ensure that the decoupling works. It makes sense in terms not only of democracy, but of ensuring that the agenda goes ahead.
The second key issue is regional boundaries. New clauses 8 and 6 and amendment No. 15 deal with that in different ways. None of them is perfect, but they offer options. If the Minister is convinced by our argument, I hope that he accepts one of them, although my guess is that he will not. An important issue is at stake, as I think the Minister knows in his heart of hearts. Some regions, such as the north-east, the north-west and Yorkshire and Humber, will have boundaries that are accepted in general. There may be a few complaints about them, as we heard from one or two hon. Members in Committee and today, but that is the case in general for those three regions. However, in other parts of the country there is much debate and concern about the regional boundaries established by the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998, to which the Bill relates.
As the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge said, we should not accept some regions, such as the south-east. They are far too large. People do not identify with them and the boundaries need to be reviewed. I think that that is the case for all the regions except the three that I identified.
Andrew George: My hon. Friend says that, in his heart of hearts, the Minister understands the conundrums that the Government will face when their zones are unacceptable to the people in their so-called regions. We are not attacking the Government, but advising them. Does my hon. Friend share my fear that the Government will find themselves in a straitjacket? They need to return to chapter 6 of the White Paper and recognise the need for flexibility when considering the future of the boundaries.
Mr. Davey: My hon. Friend is right. A series of events will take place. Referendums will be held in the north-east, north-west and Yorkshire and Humber. I hope that those are won and regional assemblies are established there. I predict that a future Government will then ask for a review of the regional boundaries of the remaining English regions. They will have to do that
because none of the referendums in the other regions is likely to be won unless they do. People who are strongly committed to regional devolution will be unable to bring themselves to support the campaign because they cannot support a region called the south-east of England.It would be much better for the Government to admit that and allow the Bill to contain a review of regional boundaries, even if it excludes the three regions with boundaries that I believe are acceptable to the people in those areas. That would enable the referendums in the north-east, north-west and Yorkshire and Humber to go ahead so that we do not stop the movement for regional devolution. It would also allow us to put right the problems in the rest of England.
4.45 pm
Joyce Quin: Given what the hon. Gentleman has said, does he agree that the argument made by the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), which was basically that because the north-east was smaller than any other region, it should have to wait until every other region, including the south-east, was happy with its boundaries before being allowed to have a regional assembly, was utterly preposterous?
Mr. Davey: The hon. Lady is right; it was preposterous. The problem for the Conservatives is that because they do not believe in regional devolution, they have no policies—they do not know what else to do. They would be happy to keep the quango state. They support regional government but just do not like any democracy in it. That is why their position is untenable.
I am keen to hear from the Minister in reply to this debate and to give him sufficient time in which to do so, so I shall quickly refer to the other amendments. Although I have some sympathy with the intention of new clause 3, it is fatally flawed because it would prevent a variable geometry—different regions going at different speeds. New clause 4 has something to recommend it. I would be worried about illegal expenditure by the RDAs or other public bodies before the referendums. I certainly oppose amendment No. 2, which is a surrogate turnout threshold amendment. We have had that debate.
The key issues before the House—we will presumably get a chance at least to vote on the decoupling issue raised in new clause 3 and, hopefully, amendment No. 26—are decoupling the local government review and the regional boundaries. If the Government gave way on those two issues, they would have an awful lot more support both in the House and throughout the country.
Mr. Raynsford: This is a complex group of amendments, I shall try to address all the new clauses and to respond as well as I can to the issues that have been raised.
New clause 3 enables the Secretary of State to hold a national referendum across England, including London, which would ask two separate questions. One would be on whether people supported the proposals for the creation of regions and the subsequent holding of regional referendums. The second would be on whether people supported the idea of reorganising local government into unitary authorities where an assembly
is created. Amendment No. 2 would mean that no regional referendum about elected regional assemblies could be held until a national referendum had been held.I am interested in the approach of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) to the people of London in these and other changes that the Conservatives have proposed. New clause 3 would give Londoners a vote on whether they were supportive of holding referendums about elected regional assemblies elsewhere in England despite the fact that there is no intention that London itself should have an assembly. It already has its own elected city-wide authority following a referendum in which the people of London voted yes. According to the Conservative party, the people of London would be asked to vote again even though, as I understand it, the Opposition have no intention of in any way changing any of the existing institutions in London. What a preposterous waste of time and money.
New clause 3 would also give Londoners a vote on whether they supported the idea of restructuring local government in two-tier areas—despite the fact that London already has wholly unitary local government. So, that proposal makes no sense at all. Under new clause 8, however, London would be specifically excluded from making proposals for changes in regional boundaries despite the fact that neighbouring local authorities outside London could do so. That illustrates the total incoherence, incompetence and inconsistency of the Opposition's approach. It tells us that new clause 3 has no serious or useful purpose. It is simply part of the official Opposition's ill-thought-out tactics to use any means to try to deliver referendums on whether to establish elected regional assemblies.
The Conservatives have made their opposition to regional assemblies clear; the hon. Gentleman stated it again this afternoon. As he will hear later, his noble Friend Lord Strathclyde made a scandalous statement yesterday in the House of Lords implying that the Conservative party in the other place would entirely ignore the views of this democratically elected House and try to stop the Bill becoming law. That comes from a party which accused us of arrogance, yet its unelected friends in the House of Lords are trying to dictate to this House which Bills should become law. That is a very dangerous challenge to our constitution, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman, who has made some disparaging remarks about the Government this afternoon, will immediately condemn his noble Friend's outrageous position.
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