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23 Jan 2003 : Column 527—continued
5.36 pm
Mr. Raynsford: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
We have had full and extensive debates on the Bill. We debated it on Second Reading and our extensive debates in Committee were widely recognised as being thorough and good tempered. Those debates were followed by a full day's consideration in the House on the first four clauses and now by the debates on Report.
The Bill is in good shape, and it is right that we should now commend it to the other House, where I hope that it will receive a fair and impartial hearing on all sides. I also hope that Lord Strathclyde's sadly unhelpful comments, to which I referred in my speech on the last group of amendments, will not be indicative of the approach that the official Opposition will adopt in considering the Bill in the other place.
The Bill takes forward the Government's manifesto commitment to provide for elected regional assemblies where the people in the regions want them.
Mr. George Howarth: My right hon. Friend is aware that I am opposed to the Bill in principle and that, as things stand, I would be inclined to vote against it on Third Reading. However, he is also aware that, if it were possible to develop new proposals for city-wide government in certain conurbations, I might look more favourably on the Bill. Can he give me any reason for hope about that?
Mr. Raynsford: I know that my hon. Friend has reservations about the regional agenda, but the Government are committed to strengthening city
government and ensuring that our big cities and towns have effective representation. We have already considered a range of constitutional changes, including directly electing mayors, and we will continue constructively to explore ways in which we can reinforce the ability of our cities and towns to achieve effective city government. I hope that my hon. Friend will want to engage in a constructive discussion about such issues and that he will feel able not to vote against the Bill tonight.The principle on which the Bill is based is choice, exercised democratically by the people through referendums in each of the English regions. The Bill is at the heart of our programme to modernise our constitution, decentralise power and deliver better public services.
It is a crucial step towards establishing a democratic voice for the English regions—a voice that has been denied them for too long. We want to give the people of our regions the right to choose; the ability to decide what is best for them; a distinct political voice; a regional level of democracy; and, above all, greater control over regional issues that matter, such as economic development and regeneration, planning, housing, transport, health, culture and the environment. This is an important and exciting Bill and I commend it to the House.
5.40 pm
Mr. Hammond : Although I do not wish in any way to detract from the Minister's achievement in getting this Bill through, he has certainly not won all the arguments, including some with Members on his side of the House. He has had a pretty thankless task in piloting the Deputy Prime Minister's pet project through its parliamentary stages. The Bill is an ill-thought-out measure. It seems rushed and fatally flawed even to some of those who favour regional devolution on the Government's model: first, because it insists on using the inappropriate and irrelevant Government offices for the regions' boundaries to define the regions; and secondly, because it couples the issue of elected regional assemblies with the compulsory unitarisation of local government—on which, to be fair, Liberal Democrat Members have focused throughout the debate.
Elected regional assemblies will create an extra tier of government in the unitary areas and the loss of county councils in most of the shire district areas. That is a high price to pay for assemblies that are based on regions with which, in most cases, people will have little or no natural affinity. The regional assemblies will bring additional burdens of cost—extra costs on council tax payers, extra costs on business in the form of higher rates, and extra costs through the bureaucracy involved in paying for the prestige buildings, salaries and cars that will be demanded.
What powers will the assemblies have in exchange for all those extra costs? Of course, we do not know, because we have not seen a Bill that sets out their powers, and we have learned precious little from the White Paper and ministerial statements. They will have political control of the regional development agencies, but no additional money. They will have influence over central Government decisions and will be able to put forward strategic plans, but always within the context of
a national framework and subject to the approval of the Government offices for the regions, which will be standing looking over their shoulders. They will have the planning functions that they have sucked up from county councils, which means that decision making will be more remote from, not closer to, local communities.Notwithstanding our disagreement with the principles behind the Bill, we proposed constructive solutions throughout its passage, but every one was rejected. Today, the Government have set their face against greater transparency by opposing a new clause that would have encouraged voters to understand the implications for local Government in their region of voting yes in a referendum. They have set their face against a process that would have allowed a building from the bottom up of regions that would have some meaning for the people who live in them—regions that people could respect and even come to love, rather than the irrelevant regions that the Government have chosen to run with. They have set their face against a referendum of all the people of England to test their appetite for elected regional assemblies and the local government reform that the Government insist must go with it.
The Minister has got his Bill through this House, albeit without a proper debate, especially on the first four clauses, which are critical to the Bill, but were very time-limited in Committee. The Deputy Prime Minister has seen his pet project come to legislative fruition, but the Government cannot rely on procedure to avoid the real debate that will take place when the Bill reaches the other place. Because of the Government's approach—the rush, the refusal to compromise, the unwillingness to listen to the people and to create regions that have meaning and might stand a chance of winning the allegiance and affection of their inhabitants—they do not have a lasting and durable solution to the challenge of creating a model for decentralisation in England.
5.44 pm
Jim Knight : I am a keen supporter of the Bill. I was pleased to sit on the Standing Committee that considered it, and I enjoyed the experience. The Bill is the precursor to regional government, which I very much support for four principal reasons.
First, it will increase the accountability of the many regional bodies—quangos—particularly the regional development agencies, which have done some useful work in the south-west, although I have concerns about the boards being accountable through the Secretary of State but not directly accountable to us in our region.
Secondly, regional government will provide a strategic view. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill is currently going through Parliament, and the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) alluded to the fact that regional assemblies would exercise some planning powers under it. I support that, as it is appropriate to have a strategic approach within which sub-regional groups may mirror counties in many cases and deny what the hon. Gentleman said about the sucking-up of powers. It will certainly join up a lot of thinking. My area is lucky enough to have world
heritage status for our coast, which cuts across county boundaries. I look forward to a more strategic approach at a regional level to maximise the benefit of that status.
Mrs. Ellman: Does my hon. Friend agree that any suggestion that boundaries should be drawn around cities would mean the isolation of areas that are not within those boundaries, particularly rural areas, and would not deal with vital regional issues in relation to economic development, population movement and the work of the regional development agencies?
Jim Knight: I am interested by my hon. Friend's intervention, but I have no desire to get involved with the politics of the north-west in answering it. There are times when there is a clear relationship between a core and a periphery. That happens at a national and a regional level, and it can happen between a market town and its periphery. That may give some support to her without necessarily offending some of my other hon. Friends.
The third reason why I support regional government is to provide a regional voice. Clearly, the north-east needs that voice. Even the south-west, however, with its rich diversity, has common strands of economic importance. We rely on agriculture, the defence industry and the tourism industry across the seven counties of the south-west. A clearer regional voice and set of thinking would be welcome.
Mr. Andrew Turner: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that my constituency has many similarities with his and with much of the west country? Will he comment on the Department for Transport's recent airports map, which put my constituency off the coast of his constituency rather than off the coast of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne)?
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