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The Deputy Prime Minister: Take a grip of yourself, sunshine.
In fact, there is representative democracy, and we all support it. There is evidence of that. I cannot see why people should not make their own decisions, and referendums will give them that opportunity. That is what we are trying to do.
As for the proposals being dismissed for the north-west, about 3,500 people participated, and concluded—
Sir Nicholas Winterton: Out of 7 million!
The Deputy Prime Minister: I am just trying to—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) is a Deputy Speaker in Westminster Hall, and I expect better behaviour from him.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: I am incensed!
Mr. Speaker: Order. Calm yourself.
The Deputy Prime Minister: I always feel better when I incense Tories.
Basically, people can make a decision. At the end of the day, it is up to them, and that is right. As for dismissal of the influence and control that there will be over resources in the north-west, the budget there will be £730 million, and if the influence that there will be over other budgets is taken into account, the region will have a say in the spending of roughly £2.1 billion. That is an awful lot of money by any standards.
Sir Sydney Chapman (Chipping Barnet): The Deputy Prime Minister will know that the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill is currently before the House. Its provisions give sweeping new planning powers to regional authorities. In the interests of democracy, may
I have his agreement to one simple proposition: will he assure us that those powers will not be given to the regional authorities unless and until they elect regional assemblies?
The Deputy Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman will know from the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill, the regional assemblies will have those powers. By the hon. Gentleman's own analysis, the elected regional assemblies will legitimately be able to deal with planning. I cannot accept that other regions should be denied that possibility simply because they do not have an elected assembly. On regional spatial planning, the Bill will give a number of powers to the regional assemblies, and we think that correct.
Mr. Peter Mandelson (Hartlepool): I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his welcome statement on behalf of my constituents and others in the north-east who simply want the right to vote either way, which is an opportunity that the Conservative party would deny them. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the aim of devolution is not to replicate the role of local authorities at regional level, but to create a genuine strategic role for the regions? Does he further agree that the system to be created will not be narrowly party political, but will be inclusive of all regional partners, including the business and voluntary sectors?
The Deputy Prime Minister: I very much agree with my right hon. Friend. There is no doubt about the regional dimension, and I certainly agree that the people should be given the choice. That seems to be the difference between us and the Opposition: we will give the people the chance to make a choice, while the Opposition would deny people that choice, as they did for Scotland, Wales and London, only agreeing about it afterwards. However, we have to go through this process because that, I assume, is how they play opposition.
On the involvement of other stakeholders, my right hon. Friend will be aware that the White Paper proposes a civic forum, such as those in Scotland and Wales, which would mean that many more people, other than elected members, would be involved in making decisions. The White Paper proposal would mean that the assembly was a more strategic body, which allowed many more people to make decisions about their region.
Mr. David Curry (Skipton and Ripon): Will the Deputy Prime Minister give an assurance that declaration of the results of a referendum will take place at constituency or local government level, so that we may differentiate between the turnout and the vote in each part of the region, and if North Yorkshire's vote is significantly less, or different from, that in the rest of the region, we shall know and draw our own conclusions? Will the Deputy Prime Minister explain why he so badly misled the House when describing the powers of the assemblies? In his statement, he said that they would have powers over economic development, jobs, investment, transport, planning, housing, culture, arts and sport. He knows that his document talks about the vaguest of strategic powers. If the powers are real, why
can a wholly unaccountable body of between 25 and 35 people, partly elected through proportional representation, be held to be doing the job?
The Deputy Prime Minister: No more than the regional governments who make those decisions now. We just want to make the assemblies democratically accountable, and I am doing that against a great deal of opposition. It is the Government who are asking for greater democratic accountability; we hope that that will come to every English region, but we have accepted that the regions must make that decision. We have to recognise that some regional assemblies may be non-elected while others are elected. We do not want to disadvantage non-elected regional assemblies, so we need to find a careful balance; they will not all be the same because the powers of a directly elected accountable body have to be greater. We shall deal with that when we come to the legislation.
As for elections, we shall be talking to the Electoral Commission about some of the proposals, and will bear the right hon. Gentleman's comments in mind. If he wants to write to me with his recommendations, I am prepared to consider them. We have not yet started our discussions with either the Electoral Commission or the boundary committee; I had to make my statement to the House before I could begin that process.
Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle): Although I welcome my right hon. Friend's decision, I should have welcomed it much more if Cumbria had been with the north-east. However, that is not the reality at present.
The effect of a yes vote will be to reorganise local government. Can my right hon. Friend tell us whether the boundary committee will be able to look beyond county council boundaries to form the new unitary authorities?
The Deputy Prime Minister: Because of my years of dealing with regional matters, I am well aware that there is great contention about whether Cumbria should be in the north-east or the north-west, so I tread carefully when drawing conclusions about that. As my hon. Friend rightly said, it has been decided that it should now be within the north-west regional area.
I have been asked whether county boundaries would stay the same when considering electoral areas. The areas do not have to be defined by the county boundaries. We want to achieve a proper balance between the rural and urban areas, and the committee will take that into account. I shall give the committee guidance notes—I think that they are available in the Library—which confirm what I have said to my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk): The people of Norfolk will be relieved that, for the time being, a referendum will not be foisted on them. How long will that decision remain in place, however, and what does "for the time being" mean? Can we now scrap the unloved regional development agency? The Deputy Prime Minister is obviously aware that people in
Norfolk greatly value the work done by the local county council and parish councils, so why does he use every opportunity to undermine county and parish councils?
The Deputy Prime Minister: That flies in the face of the Conservative Government's activities some years ago. They scrapped county councils. I have not scrapped one yet, and all that I propose to do is to allow people to decide whether they want to keep their county councils, or whether they prefer to have regional government in a unitary structure, so that we have two-tier government, not three-tier government. I do not know whether people in Norfolk want that, but they are not faced with that position at present. I do not readily accept for a moment that people in Norfolk want to abolish the RDAs. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman campaign on that at the next election; I suspect that he did not have anything about it in his manifesto. I believe that, like every other part of the United Kingdom, the eastern region wants the RDAs.
Mr. Neil Turner (Wigan): I warmly welcome the statement, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend on it. May I remind him that part of the proposal will involve reorganising local government, and that the existing local government work force will have concerns about that reorganisation? Safeguards for the work force have been included in previous reorganisations. Can he confirm whether those safeguards will exist when the new changes take place?
The Deputy Prime Minister: My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. Not only the work force, but others, will be very much affected by the changes when we embark on the referendums, and if they lead to a positive yes for regional government. That will involve considerable changes, particularly in the local structure, and my hon. Friend can be assured that we will give every consideration to the concerns that arise.
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