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Mr. Davey: I disagree with the hon. Gentleman on that point. I think that the Government have in many ways been scrupulously fair. They have tied themselves in knots on what they can and cannot spend, but they have failed to plug the loophole for the individual whom I mentioned or others like him. That is the concern that I am expressing. I think that the hon. Gentleman has the wrong target in mind. I hope that when the Minister returns to the Dispatch Box, and possibly in discussions with the Electoral Commission, he can use other election law relating to money used in collaboration. Those rules say that an individual, in this case a permitted participant, cannot work with another individual, another permitted participant, to promote a cause. That may be one way to thwart abuse of that loophole. I certainly hope that the Minister can give me that assurance tonight.

I do not want to detain the House further. I made most of my points on interventions. I simply say to the Minister that the draft powers Bill, which we expect to see on Thursday, will be the key test. My colleagues in the north-west will look at that when they decide how to vote. They are waiting to see whether the Bill provides for true devolution. The Liberal Democrats believe in devolved political decision making, and the Liberal Democrats in the north-west, as a regional party, will take the decision on the Bill. They are waiting to see the colour of the Government's money, so if Ministers want to make sure that the Liberal Democrats in the north-west are united behind the Government, they need to make sure that the Bill contains significant powers, particularly, as I have said, with respect to transport, learning and skills councils and the environmental agenda.

More generally, with the people, the Government need to overturn the apathy that was mentioned. There is concern that out there in the regions there is a degree of apathy and a lack of knowledge about these proposals. I know from my own experience that when people are engaged with these ideas they are excited by them, and they see their value. I talked to some sixth-formers on a visit to Durham a few months ago. One could see that they were passionate about regional devolution. They did not see why their lives in the north-east should always be controlled from here in London. They wanted these powers, and more—more than the Government were offering in the White Paper.

It may be late in the day, and it may be that the parliamentary draftsmen need to work late into the night, but if we are to win the yes vote on 4 November we need to say to people in the regions that real powers are to come down from Whitehall, and that this is the first down-payment on major devolution in our country.

5.4 pm

Tony Lloyd (Manchester, Central) (Lab): I begin by saying to the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) that I, too, look forward to seeing the
 
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Government's draft Bill. I will support the yes campaign in the north-west almost regardless of what the Bill says, because we know that it will be a significant move to devolve power from Westminster to our regions. But I also say to my right hon. Friend the Minister that it will not be enough. Many of us guarantee that, during the referendum campaign, we will spend our time campaigning to create the groundswell for even more devolution to our regions over the months and years to come, until there is a proper constitutional settlement for regions such as the north-west.

Across the north, among even those who are against regional devolution and among those who are passionately for it, there is a passionate belief that now is the time that we should get down to the serious business of letting the people decide. We heard an interesting speech from the Conservative spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin). There was little spirit left in his speech—perhaps that is a tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister—and little from the Opposition today that was serious. There was a lot of posturing and bogus point-scoring, but little of substance. Even the Tories now realise that it is the people, not the Tory party, who will decide in the referendum.

It will certainly not be south-east based politicians on all the Front Benches who will make a decision for the people of the regions of the north, particularly the north-west. I say that with no disrespect to my right hon. Friend the Minister. He has realised that the way to get through the process is to give the decision not to Whitehall or to Westminster, but to the people of our regions. That is a decision that the Conservative party has tried to block for a considerable time.

Mr. Clelland: Is my hon. Friend as curious as I am about why those who are opposed to regional government are so opposed to the referendum? Given that they are so convinced of their case that regional government is not popular in their area, one would have thought that they would welcome the referendum to put the matter to bed once and for all.

Tony Lloyd: I would hope that that is the nature of democracy, but we all know that those who speak the language of democracy but use the procedures of this place to try to prevent the public from having the right to decide are no democrats. They do a great disservice.

Not that many years ago, when I came into Parliament, there were still a significant number of Conservative Members of Parliament in the north-west. The Labour party in my region was berated from the Conservative Front Bench. There are disagreements among members of the north-west parliamentary Labour party, but at least there are enough of us to have agreement and disagreement. There are no longer enough Tories from the north-west even to have agreement on these issues. The Tory party in the north-west was massively distrusted because of the Thatcherite legacy, particularly because the Thatcherite Government were identified as government of the north by the south-east, and it will be many, many years before the Tory party is considered a respectable voice for the north-west.
 
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Mr. Neil Turner: My hon. Friend mentioned the parliamentary Labour party. Does he agree that the Labour party in the north-west is 100 per cent. behind a campaign for a successful yes vote, as it decided at its annual conference in February this year?

Tony Lloyd: My hon. Friend is right. It was in the 1930s that the north-west regional Labour party first made the decision to support regional government, and I am not aware that it has ever changed its mind since. Within a democratic party there must be room for dissent, and our colleagues on the Government Benches will debate the issue in a proper and acceptable fashion, not using the specious tactics that have sometimes been used by Opposition parties.

This is an important debate about the future of our region. As somebody from the region, I deeply resent the fact that the disparities between the north and the south are so enormous and have been growing during my lifetime. In particular, they grew in the period between 1979 and 1997, when we had that imposed Thatcher Government here in Westminster—a Government who were so uninterested in what took place in the north.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) made the powerful and important point that the life chances of a child born in my constituency today are far less than those of somebody born in the south-east. The matter is not simply about comparing inner-city Manchester with the home counties but about how Governments have swept away any semblance of equality across this nation of ours, which is not acceptable. When Tory Members who represent constituencies in the north-west speak, I expect them to bemoan the fact that people in the region that they represent have such a rotten chance in life, and they should take some responsibility for what previous Tory Governments did.

Mr. George Osborne: As the hon. Gentleman knows, some indicators show that regional disparities have grown under this Government. I am not sure whether his point about a child in his constituency having fewer life chances than someone born in the south is statistically correct. I hazard a guess that someone born in Greenwich and Woolwich or Tower Hamlets would have similar life chances to someone born in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, so he should not generalise.

Tony Lloyd: It is not generalisation but reality that a child born in my constituency will die 10 years earlier than a child with the same origins as the hon. Gentleman. The simple truth is that the funding system has favoured certain parts of the country at the expense of others. There are, of course, differences within regions—that has been and always will be the case—but the average difference between the south-east and the north-west is significant and not a statistical quirk. A gulf exists between the south-east and the north-east, which does not suit the south-east because of the problems caused by the overdevelopment at the expense of the life chances and opportunities for people in the northern regions.

Mr. Stringer: I do not agree with my hon. Friend's conclusions, but I agree with much of his analysis.
 
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Differences within regions do not obviate the fact that inter-regional differences exist too, and the huge differences in London do not mean that people at similar levels in society are not worse off in the north-west than elsewhere. Public expenditure is the biggest driver in putting those differences right, and, as the noble Lord Rooker said in the other place, what is wrong with the proposals on devolution is that the north-west will not get an extra penny.

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