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Andy Burnham: Can I put this further point to my hon. Friend? I understand his argument about why it may be harder to secure resources in the regions, with the Government perhaps saying, "There is your regional assembly; now get on with it." However, the experience
 
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of London clearly shows the opposite. Since the Greater London authority was set up, we have seen, for example, the Olympic bid and congestion charging. London's issues have become national issues—housing shortages for key workers is another example—and under the GLA we have probably seen resources brought into London rather than taken away.

Mr. Stringer: I know quite a lot about the decision to make an Olympic bid. It was a decision taken by the GLA and the Government, which Ken Livingstone supported only afterwards. It was wrong that everyone else was excluded. London has been doing well because the central Government are putting more money into London than Ken Livingstone can spend, as he told the Select Committee at a recent hearing on the congestion charge.

I do not support the Government's proposals, because it will be bad for the Labour party when they are rejected. I hope that the Government will not hold the referendums but if they do, I am sure that the people of the north-west will reject them.

4.14 pm

Mr. David Curry (Skipton and Ripon) (Con): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) who ran one of the great metropolitan cities of the United Kingdom and knows a great deal about what he was telling us.

This morning, I picked up The Daily Telegraph, which is not something I do lightly, and saw a curious map in which greater Grimsby appeared as a London suburb. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) may be perturbed by that revelation. I was relieved to find that I was just outside the band of London influence, but the map served to concentrate the mind on some of the real regional development issues that we should consider. We should be testing the regional assembly proposals against such an assembly's capability to address some of the issues that we all acknowledge.

I do not want to spend a great deal of time talking about the assemblies. That is familiar territory. The Government's proposals for new political structures are irrelevant to most of the development needs of the English regions and I cannot think of a single criterion for regional development that would be met by the existence of an assembly, or of anything that could be delivered that could not be delivered without one.

I recently attended a debate in the Baltic Exchange—unfortunately, the right hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Joyce Quin) has left the Chamber—and looked down at the river. When I worked in Newcastle, there was dereliction on both sides of the river. There has been an amazing regeneration in that area, and it has been delivered without a regional assembly. Indeed, with a regional assembly, it would probably have cost twice as much, gone heavily over budget and taken three times as long to deliver.

What is the key marketing purpose of the regional assemblies? The weaknesses of the proposals have been well rehearsed. Even with whatever last-minute enhancements the Government are likely to come up with, there will be a new tier of government for most of the people in the three regions where single-tier,
 
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metropolitan authorities exist already. Members of the assemblies will lack any mandate of the sort understood by Members of this Chamber.

The assemblies will not replace existing bodies. As the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley has just said, the Government offices for the regions will not disappear and will not be subservient to regional assemblies. Indeed, regional assemblies will have to refer to the Government offices for the regions for authorisation to do most of what they want to do—even to make nominations to regional development agencies. They will be unable to nominate anyone without reference to the Government, so the tutelage of the Government offices for the regions will remain.

Furthermore, despite the three additional points to which the Minister for Local and Regional Government referred, the amount of public expenditure that will come directly within the purview of the assemblies will be less than 3 per cent. of public expenditure in the regions. That is small beer by anybody's standards. If those bodies are so vital and will open the doors to so many opportunities, it seems almost criminal of the Government not to extend that remarkable opportunity to people in the south-west, for example, who would no doubt jump at the chance to write their own destiny—to use the enthusiastic words of the Deputy Prime Minister.

As the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley said, the key point is that the Government propose no rebalancing of expenditure. Let us compare public expenditure per capita in the north-east with that for Scotland, and then consider income, or wealth, per head in those two regions. They are in inverse proportion, because of the famous Barnett formula. If I were in the north-east and felt that my regional assembly would enable me to address that imbalance and that I would gain some of Scotland's advantages, I might be tempted. However, I am not tempted, because no one has mentioned that. Occasionally, over cups of tea around the country, the Deputy Prime Minister has mumbled about what a terrible thing the Barnett formula is, but I am not aware that any political party is seriously committed to redressing its injustice, which seems to be increasing.

The Government are confused about their wider regional agenda. There are proposals for regional assemblies in some areas and for unitary councils. The Government made a mistake when they said that there could be regional government only with unitary councils. Large parts of Europe have much more local government than us. Local councils are much, much closer to the people—for example, in France about 2 per cent. of the entire population are elected in some shape or form—so we should be cautious about galloping towards the idea that size always means efficiency. Sometimes, for democracy, we might have to pay a little price in efficiency just to be closer to the people. Sometimes, the Government's proposals might appear terribly logical, but they are counter-intuitive in relation to the democratic process.

The Minister is tempted by the idea of unitary authorities, although I have no doubt that he will reaffirm his commitment that, if the vote is no, the unitary proposals die. The Government have proposals for city mayors and prescribe various mechanisms for
 
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the management of our local authorities, but they are bound by the enormous gendarmerie of inspection and control that the Government have erected.

To return to a question that I asked the Minister, it is interesting that the balance of funding review is due virtually this month, before Parliament rises for the summer. If the Government are serious about decentralisation, no doubt there will be bold proposals to return business rates to local councils. I believe in doing that: it does not involve the danger or spectre that the business community believes it would. There is a lot to be said for buying the business community into the democratic fabric of local communities. I do not imagine that that will be included in those proposals. I suspect that we will see a bit about business paying more because its percentage has been decreasing. We will probably see a bit about regional banding. We will probably hear one or two remarks suggesting what could happen sometime in the future and that perhaps we ought to keep in sight local income tax, but I would be amazed if anything fundamental happened in that review.

What would be my personal formula? I think that executive mayors are a good idea. I would like to see the great cities of the north run by executive mayors and demanding more powers. A personality is very important to give direction and to project a city externally. Whether or not we like the present Mayor of London or approve of his policies, we cannot deny that he has projected a personality about London in his period as mayor of that city.

We need to consider the regional development agencies. I am sympathetic to the idea that skills at any rate ought to be combined with the discharge of major economic development functions. Perhaps those in the RDAs are the people to do that, but they have tended recently to become too diverse in their activities. They need focusing on the core economic development issues, so that they do not spread themselves too widely. I would like them to be called back to order in that regard.

In my region and, indeed, in the north-west, the universities are a colossal asset. There are some world-class universities, and they are co-operating closely to create almost a trans-Pennine university campus that will attract investment and research facilities. That is the region's greatest asset. If we address the skills issue, which is obviously at a lower level, we will have the education infrastructural framework that we need. I should like the trans-Pennine links to be developed. I am not convinced by the Government's proposal to stretch an arm up towards the north-east, right through the Vale of York. I do not see the logic in that; I would much rather remain with the trans-Pennine core, as an effective development area.

We need improved transport links, but not just in the region; what really matters are the transport links to London. There is no point in pretending that London does not exist or in regretting the dominance of London in our national life. People want to get to and from it quickly. The more easily they can get to London, the more likely they are to establish their business out of London.

Not least, we need to assert the cultural identities of cities. Sport and cultural activities have been demonstrated to be powerful regenerators of our cities.
 
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People identify a city by its cultural and sporting activities, as well as by its business climate and culture. Those roles are best performed by cities. Our culture has grown out of an urban culture. Our civilisation itself has tended to grow out of our cities. Cities are the motors for regional development and they are not readily compatible with the sort of regional assemblies that the Government are talking about. The assemblies are an irrelevant distraction. They enable nothing, they facilitate nothing, they invigorate nothing, and quite frankly, it would be better if they were nothing.

4.24 pm

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