Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
WEDNESDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2004
PROFESSOR ROBERT
HAZELL AND
MR MARK
SANDFORD
Q1 Chairman: I see your colleague
is delayed.
Professor Hazell: I apologise
for that, Chairman. I came by bicycle and he is coming on public
transport.
Q2 Chairman: Perhaps I should make
it clear to everybody that because of the short timescale we have
not yet been able to publish all the evidence that we have received.
We hope that it will be on the Internet by very early next week
and in published form certainly by Tuesday or Wednesday of next
week. The evidence for today's sessions is on the side, if anyone
wants to consult it. May I welcome you to the Committee and ask
you to identify yourself for the record.
Professor Hazell: I am Professor
Robert Hazell and I am the Director of the Constitution Unit at
University College London.
Q3 Chairman: Do you want to say anything
by way of introduction or are you happy for us to go straight
to questions?
Professor Hazell: I am happy to
go straight to questions. Perhaps I may just explain my expertise
and that of my colleague, Mark Sandford, for when he arrives.
Mine is in devolution generally and Mark is an expert in regional
chambers and regional assemblies and also the Greater London Authority,
subjects which he has researched and written about for several
years, and he is the author of the Unit's commentary on the Draft
Regional Assemblies Bill which I believe we have submitted as
evidence to the Committee. I will do my best without him, but
if I am a little reticent once he has joined us, forgive me. It
is because he is our real expert on regional assemblies and regional
government and you will get more value from him than from me.
Chairman: Thank you very much. John Cummings.
Q4 Mr Cummings: The Government have
announced in the draft policy statement its intention to restrict
elected regional assemblies' powers in order to prevent them,
for example, providing education and health services. What experience
do you have from other elected authorities in England and Wales
about the nature and effects of these restrictions in powers?
Professor Hazell: I was surprised
to see that restriction. I am not sure that it is at all necessary
given the very small budgets which regional assemblies are proposed
to have. They are simply not going to have the money to provide
health or education in any serious kind of way and I would be
very surprised if any of them were tempted to try to do so. Perhaps
I could make a brief comparison with Wales since you specifically
mentioned Wales. There is really no comparison of any meaningful
kind between the powers proposed for regional assemblies in England
and those of the Welsh Assembly. The Welsh Assembly is responsible
for running all public services effectively in Wales including
health and education. It has a huge budget relative to that proposed
for regional assemblies; I believe it is now some £9 billion
a year. It has a huge staff running to thousands. Regional assemblies
in England will not be playing in the same league.
Q5 Chairman: It is true, is it not,
that the population of Wales is very similar to the population
of the northeast?
Professor Hazell: Indeed, and
that is why I am making the comparison with its budget and the
size of its staff. One could make other comparisons with the size
of the Assembly. Wales has 60 members and even that has been strongly
criticised, most recently by the Richard Commission, for being
too small.
Q6 Sir Paul Beresford: Both the people
in favour of regional assemblies and those against are in agreement
that this Bill is going to set up an assembly that talks, consults
and responds to consultation. It is effectively a talking shop,
absorbing money and doing nothing and to many people on either
side of the argument it is a waste of time. Would you agree with
that in essence at least?
Mr Sandford: Apologies for being
late. I do not think Ken Livingstone wanted you to hear what I
have to say today. It is certainly true that a lot of the tasks
of a regional assembly as set up under this Bill will be to act
as the voice of the region, which is a fancy way of saying doing
a lot of talking and lobbying. I would not be completely dismissive
of that as a role. I think that recent events in London, for instance
the huge increase in the budget of Transport for London and the
events surrounding the Olympic bid, demonstrate that having a
concentrated voice in a regional area can make a difference to
the way the Government views that area. However, the amounts of
actual influence over public services that an assembly will be
able to have under this Bill are very small and influence takes
place over many years and in a very attenuated fashion, it takes
a long time to get things done and it takes a long time to prove
that you are doing anything.
Q7 Mr Cummings: What visible outputs
will ERAs be able to deliver to the electorate?
Mr Sandford: I think the number
of visible outputs to the electorate that ERAs will deliver is
very small. One of the problems with the proposals as they have
been made throughout the Government's development of its policy
is that the functions as they are laid out both in the White Paper
and the draft Bill are what I call `back room' functions relating
to the allocation of housing, capital finance, the development
of land, the reclamation of land and business birth rates. These
are all useful and interesting parts of public policy but they
are not things which get the electorate excited unless they know
already about those issues. I think this is one of the major problems
in terms of gaining public acceptance and indeed public interest
in the proposals.
Q8 Mr Cummings: Are you excited with
the prospect of regional assemblies?
Mr Sandford: I am sure I am.
Q9 Sir Paul Beresford: Do you think
those people going to the referendum are going to understand it,
are going to be interested, are going to be bothered or will they
even turn up because they think it is a complete waste of time?
Mr Sandford: I think people will
turn up more than is commonly expected. I do not think there will
be a derisory turn out in the referendum, but I doubt it will
be due to an in-depth understanding of what the assemblies can
offer.
Q10 Mr Clelland: How many elected
organisations in terms of government in this country do you know
of whose powers have remained the same or diminished over the
years?
Mr Sandford: Is that a question?
Q11 Mr Clelland: Yes. Is it not a
fact that it is not a question of where we start, although obviously
we are looking at the draft Bill in terms of the principles which
I think Sir Paul was relating to of regional government, but what
the future holds?
Professor Hazell: I entirely agree.
Ron Davies famously said, "Devolution is a process, not an
event." It is well known that he was by no means satisfied
with the powers offered to the National Assembly for Wales when
it started in business, and indeed in Wales there has been a lively
debate in the last five years about the powers of the assembly
and quite strong demands for those to be increased. One case being
made to those who will vote in the referendum in the northeast
in November by those in favour of regional government is that
this may be a slightly weakly looking creature at the moment but
it is the best we can get to get started, so please help us get
started.
Q12 Sir Paul Beresford: Would those
who have any experience of London not think the opposite to that,
which is that we started off with a small council tax etcetera,
the ambitions of the Mayor and the GLA are growing like crazy
and the prospect is that in time to come the council tax version
derivative from this assembly will also be progressively outrageous?
Mr Sandford: I think there is
a risk that the fabled 5p a week on a Band D council taxpayer
is likely to rise. I do not think it will rise that far because
that is an issue about which the assembly will no doubt be sensitive.
The reason why I think that will rise is actually specific, it
is not a general desire to increase powers. The nature of the
funding settlement and the elected regional assemblies is such
that a lot of the money which will come from the central government
grants will be pre-committed to general areas such as regional
development, housing and capital allocations, the regional fire
and rescue service. If the assembly wants to address other areas
it has got to have a supply of what is known in the jargon as
`soft' money, which is money that is not pre-allocated to any
particular area. The most obvious supply of such soft money—it
will be in small quantities, do not get me wrong—is through
the council tax precept.
Q13 Mr Brady: Does it not follow
from what you have been saying that even if the northeast were
to vote for an elected regional assembly, even taking the most
charitable view, it would be a very long period before the electorate
in Yorkshire, the Humber or northwest could be expected to see
any benefit whatsoever accruing to the people of the northeast?
Does it not make it even more likely that people in the northwest
and Yorkshire and the Humber will see costs but no benefits in
the whole regional government experiment?
Mr Sandford: It depends on your
view of why people vote for regional governments. I am not convinced
that people take as logical a view as you are outlining. I think
that the voice of the region aspect of regional assemblies to
which we were referring a moment ago will be just as catalytic
a factor in encouraging the electorate of the northwest and Yorkshire
and the Humber to vote for the assembly. There has been talk of
the "me too" thesis, the dominant theory already in
regions such as the West Midlands and the East Midlands which
have not even been lined up for a referendum yet. I would not
under-estimate the degree to which what the assemblies can do
at the moment will be taken on board by the electorate.
Q14 Mr Cummings: English regional
assemblies will share with the National Assembly for Wales a statutory
duty to pursue sustainable development. What, if any, are the
lessons to be drawn from the National Assembly in Wales in pursuing
this particular aim?
Mr Sandford: I think the most
important lesson from the National Assembly is that the existence
of that statutory duty was really a vital form of impetus in getting
the assembly to take notice of sustainable development at all.
What the assembly has done, as I understand it, is adopt a kind
of a framework of targets, not a strategy as such, across departments
which allows sustainable development to be progressively inserted
into the wider work of the assembly. Sustainable development fanatics
will tell you that this is what sustainable development is, it
is not a policy but a way of doing policy. Having that statutory
requirement there has encouraged this to be done where it might
otherwise simply have gone by the board. It is quite a highly
theoretical way of thinking about policy. I think we can anticipate
a similar sort of commitment to achieving that in the English
regional assemblies.
Q15 Mr O'Brien: The composition of
these assemblies is very important. They are going to be demographically
elected, so they will be accountable to the electorate. Do you
think that 25 or 35 members on each elected regional assembly
is sufficient?
Mr Sandford: There are two ways
of looking at this. First of all there is the question of representation.
If you look at regional assembly membership from the point of
view of representing the electorate, I would argue quite strongly
that 25 to 35 members is not enough. If you take a 25 to 35 member
assembly, because of the Additional Member System there will be
no more than 15 to 22 members elected by the first-past-the-post
element of the system. It will have constituencies as we understand
them. Those constituencies are going to be anything from 150,000
people in the northeast to something like 300,000 people in the
northwest or Yorkshire and the Humber. Those are very large constituencies
and it will be hard for a single member to represent the interests
of 150,000 or 300,000 people, they will be several times the size
of parliamentary constituencies. On the other hand, it is quite
hard to see what kind of constituency role elected regional assemblies
are going to have. It is quite hard to imagine members of the
electorate turning up to regional surgeries and saying things
like for instance, "The RDA has not cleaned up the land next
to my house properly. Please can you do something about it."
I cannot see that elected members are going to have to address
those kinds of concerns from members of the public. The more likely
answer to the question is that the membership of the assembly
should be related to the functions of the assembly which, as we
have been saying, are very small and on those grounds there are
probably better arguments for going for a smaller figure, something
in the region of probably 25 or 35, perhaps a little higher, 40
or 45. I say a little higher for a specific reason, which is that
the assemblies are expected to have Cabinets of seven members.
That leaves anything from 18 to 28 backbench members to carry
out committee work and scrutiny, either scrutinising the functional
bodies of the assembly, scrutinising the Cabinet ministers or
whatever they may be called, and carrying out work such as orders
and standards, which is done in the Welsh Assembly and the Greater
London Authority. I am not convinced that 18 to 28 members is
enough to do all those things.
Q16 Mr O'Brien: After all is said
and done, most of the backbench members will be part-time and
they are going to be serving between 200 and 300 electorates.
How do you see the profile of the backbench members developing?
If they are not going to be accountable to the electorate then
there is little purpose in having them there.
Mr Sandford: I am not sure I understand.
Q17 Mr O'Brien: If the backbench
members of the assembly have to play a role and most of them will
be part-time, how do you see the profile of these people developing
in the regions?
Mr Sandford: I think it will be
very difficult for that profile to develop. My guess is that the
fact that the backbench members will be part-time will be an encouragement
to dual mandate holders, people who are already MPs or perhaps
county or unitary authority councillors, to take on those roles
as well. The members may be able to develop their profile as political
actors within the region generally. I think the part-time nature
of the membership is going to make it very difficult not only
to develop a profile of the members but actually to do the job.
Q18 Mr Clelland: Quite often in local
government there are people who are retired, unemployed or who
work for public services where they can get more generous time
off to deal with their duties. Does this imply that we are going
to have the same problem in terms of part-time members of regional
authorities, and should this Bill contain new beefed up statutory
rights for people to have time off from work to carry out their
duties in elected authorities?
Mr Sandford: It is going to be
the same problem. I am quite curious as to why the Government
has made so much of the part-time nature of assemblies. I think
it is only fair to say that the part-time requirements I do not
think appears in the current policy statement. It was mentioned
in the White Paper two years ago but it has not been mentioned
in the policy statement that was released with the draft Bill
and I do not know whether that is an oversight or whether it has
been re-thought. Yes, I think there is a risk that people will
be coming predominantly from the categories you mentioned. As
to whether this is the correct place to introduce requirements
to allow people to have more time off, I am not sure I can comment
on that.
Q19 Sir Paul Beresford: You sound
so enthusiastic. I am being sarcastic. Do you not think you should
have a `sunset referendum' in the Bill so that after three sessions
the public can vote again on whether or not they want the regional
assembly?
Mr Sandford: I am not sure I can
comment on that.
Professor Hazell: As Mark said,
the size of the assembly must relate to its functions and the
way that it does its business and to the number of committees
and sub-committees which the assembly will be required under the
Bill to establish. It is worth noting that in Wales one of the
main arguments for increasing the size of the assembly from the
present 60 is because the assembly members are seriously over-stretched
in each having to serve on typically three, sometimes four, committees
and they are not being able to do justice to all those different
committees. It is difficult to work out from the Bill how many
committees a regional assembly will have or want to have, but
it is quite an important guess to try and make in order to work
out how many members the assembly then should have to staff an
appropriate number of committees.
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