Examination of Witnesses (Questions 620-628)
MR CHRIS
LESLIE
16 OCTOBER 2006
Q620 Mr Betts: You have suggested
various ways in which we might make regional scrutiny better at
Westminster. I do not know whether you can pick out the one which
you think might be the most likely to succeed. In the end, do
we not have to recognise that RDAs are in the end creatures of
Whitehall departments? They are government departments out there
in the regions. They are always going to be accountable to Ministers
at the end of the day. People go and look at them and comment
on them but the real accountability rests with Ministers, does
it not? They are a creature of government in the regions.
Mr Leslie: I think regional activity
needs to be accountable to both local and at a national level
because it is the meeting point between those two primary poles.
Certainly, local government, either through a reformed regional
assembly process or otherwise could have a louder voice. I also
think that Parliament and parliamentarians—no disrespect
to many of you, my former colleagues—could take a stronger
and more thorough scrutiny role in overseeing the work of the
RDAs and regional activity. That was the case certainly in Scotland
and Wales before the establishment of the Scottish Parliament
and the Welsh Assembly, and even to a certain extent in London.
There are a lot of parliamentarians who could add a lot of value
to this scrutiny process and, by the way, also bring a lot of
media spotlight to some of this hitherto clouded area of public
policy.
Q621 Mr Betts: I listened to what
you were saying about the concept of city-regions not being imposed
but maybe evolving, but if you get a fairly strong evolution,
as is beginning to happen in Manchester maybe, on the lines that
Bill Olner was referring to in Lille, where local authorities
come together in a federated way and say "Actually, this
is how we want to act, as city-regions", in some ways they
are going to actually be closer to and more accountable to their
communities than any attempt to have a departmental regional select
committee in Westminster looking at RDAs.
Mr Leslie: As a localist, I would
prefer that solution, but being realistic about other parts of
the country, not everywhere has a Greater Manchester feel about
it, a Greater London feel about it. There are some parts of the
country that do not naturally fit into the idea of a city or a
single identity and therefore often for those areas I think you
need a different model of accountability. I would prefer it if
local authorities led the process, held the reins and made the
decisions, but I do think that you always need to look at those
other parts of the country where national parliamentarians could
add value, knowing the patch that they have, representing the
area that they do, in supplementing the scrutiny that is currently
undertaken through the regional assembly process.
Q622 Alison Seabeck: How do you square
what you have just said with criticism in the pamphlet that only
MPs, parliamentarians, are on the Grand Committees?
Mr Leslie: I would not want to
intrude on the procedural niceties of parliamentary procedure
because Grand Committees might exclude others. You might be able,
dare I say it, to devise a new parliamentary process that does
allow members from local authorities to join together. I think
there have been ad hoc committees in the past where you
have had local authorities, or members of the Scottish Parliament
or Welsh Assembly at the same time as parliamentarians working
together. I think it is possible to design a better, stronger,
scrutiny arrangement.
Q623 Martin Horwood: I am also puzzled
as to how you think the involvement of MPs in this way is going
to do much other than, by the sound of it, give us 12 times as
many meetings to go to.
Mr Leslie: You can cope!
Q624 Martin Horwood: We cannot cope,
especially not if it is about regions other than our own a lot
of the time. It seems to me to be compounding the problem that
you describe, which is drawing the whole idea of regional government
more into Westminster and more into the Westminster world when
actually the "disinfectant of sunlight" really needs
to come from local level. The fact that local media take no interest
in regional assemblies—I do not know whether they doing
Manchester and Yorkshire but they certainly do not in the South
West—is part of the problem. You need to somehow grapple
with that, do you not, not draw it all up to Westminster?
Mr Leslie: I would, as I say,
far prefer strong local leaders to make enough of a fuss to hold
their RDAs and their sub-regional activities to stronger account,
but I do think that parliamentarians can add value because you
have a constituency base, because within your own home regions
you will know the priorities that your constituents want, and
I would like that accountability to inform the decisions taken
at a regional level. I think that would add value. I think it
did add value in Scotland and Wales and led to other forms of
devolution, which I also think is an issue Parliament should consider
as well for England.
Q625 Sir Paul Beresford: The way
you are looking at it, as I read it, you are saying that you want
some top-down and you want local government to come up from underneath.
Yes?
Mr Leslie: I do not necessarily
think that parliamentarians in their scrutiny role are top-down.
I am not talking about an executive piece of leadership. I am
talking about parliamentarians going into scrutiny, local government
leading the scrutiny.
Q626 Sir Paul Beresford: There would
be an argument to say that we have tried regional assemblies,
nobody wanted to vote for them, most people do not want them,
many people have not heard of them, they cost a lot of money,
they interfere at every twist and turn, and really we ought to
go back to your idea that the local authorities should be together
doing that role without this monster that every region has dumped
upon it.
Mr Leslie: I do not think elected
regional assemblies are on the agenda, certainly not for the next
decade or so. Who knows? They may be on the statute book. But
I do think there is a role for regional co-ordination of policy.
The previous administration recognised it—
Q627 Sir Paul Beresford: You want
local authorities to do it together.
Mr Leslie: I would prefer local
authorities to lead that, but from time to time I do think there
is a case to be made for regional action and decisions that could
be better led and scrutinised by local authorities, perhaps supplemented
by other elected representatives.
Q628 Chair: Briefly on this issue
of regional scrutiny at Westminster, do you think it would be
a good idea to have regional Ministers?
Mr Leslie: Personally, I do think
it would be worthwhile for a Commons Question Time that looked
at Yorkshire issues or the East Midlands, West Midlands issues.
It might be something you could look at at Westminster Hall. I
think there are a lot of parliamentarians who know the priorities
for their patch that go beyond their constituency or local authority
boundary. As you know, in my reckless youth, when I was a Member
of Parliament, I spent some time thinking of the major transport
investment that was needed in Yorkshire. I would have dearly loved
to have had more opportunities to press Ministers to think on
a regional basis about what Yorkshire needed to improve its economic
prosperity. That is an opportunity I would strongly commend to
you.
Chair: Thank you very much.
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