Mr Clive Betts
MP for Sheffield South East · Labour · United Kingdom
“I wholeheartedly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement, both its content and its tone. I would like to ask about his discussions with our colleagues and allies in other countries who are looking to implement similar sanctions.”
“I offer two congratulations: first, to my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, the First Secretary, on her well-deserved promotion—I am sure she will do an excellent job. Secondly, I congratulate her and the Prime Minister for their real commitment to devolution, which I have wanted to see for an awfully long time.”
“I apologise for the fact that—as I have explained to you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I will have to leave straight after my question to chair Westminster Hall. I thank my right hon. Friend for doing this very challenging piece of work. I think that the theme of fairness, for the people who need benefits and for taxpayers, is right.”
“On the other hand, so many constituents with really serious conditions get turned down for PIP, and can get it only if they struggle through the appeal system, sometimes without any help at all. So the system is not fair to anyone at present.”
“When the previous Government let the contract, we were in a situation in which procurement could not properly take account of the past record of companies, and I understand that the Government have now changed that.”
“I will dive very deeply into the question, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Chair of the Committee sends his apologies for his absence; he is presently in a Committee meeting.”
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“Why do we need one element that says that they can have the powers they come up with providing that agreement is reached but that they must exercise them in a particular way and that there is no ability to discuss that or come to a different view? I find it completely inconsistent with the rest of the Government’s approach. I do not know why the Government are so insistent on having a mayor as a solution. If it was left to the combined authorities, they would come up with different arrangements. The arrangement in Sheffield has been negotiated not because the combined authorities wanted it but because they were told that they had to have it or else they could not have devolution. That is the situation.”
“I want to make a very few points, because I know that other Members want to speak, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who has tabled a number of amendments and has a long track record of constructive engagement in matters of constitutional reform and devolution of which I am very supportive. He did excellent work on that in the last Parliament. My first point is about the question of elected mayors and takes me back to the point I made on Second Reading. If the Government are committed to considering bespoke arrangements on devolution for particular parts of our country and considering requests from combined authorities—groups of authorities voluntarily coming together and proposing what they want to see devolved—why do we need one element of imposition in all this?”
“The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Of course, the whole principle of the devolution that the Government propose, which I support, is that areas should come forward with their own ideas about what they want to see devolved. Why should they not also come forward with their own ideas about how that devolution should be exercised and about the governance arrangements for it?”
“I do not believe that the combined authority, the district, would naturally have come forward with a proposal that broke up the responsibilities in this way.”
“I would not want to second guess the motives of the Secretary of State, so I will use my own arguments to resist what the Government are trying to do. Apart from the inconsistency of approach, the proposals are confusing. That takes me back to the point I made in my intervention on the Minister. In the Sheffield city region the economic powers, which are important and cover skills, economic development and the infrastructure associated with it, are to be devolved to the combined authority, which will cover nine districts—four metropolitan and five non-metropolitan districts. But as I understand it from the deal, the mayor will have responsibility for just transport. So the mayor is to run transport, and the combined authority is to run economic development. The public want some consistency of approach on these matters.”
“At some stage, surely, Ministers have to take some responsibility for coming forward with proposals to sort out this mess, or it will stop devolution working effectively in these areas.”
“However, for transport powers to be devolved to those areas through a mayor, those districts will not merely have to agree, but they will have to get the county, which is the transport authority, or two counties, to agree as well. Does the county have a veto over what happens to devolution in the Sheffield city region? This is not workable. At the same time as the Sheffield city region has a mayoral possibility, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire are looking at having a joint combined authority, which would have a mayor as well. As I understand it, the mayor can exist for the districts of north Derbyshire and north Nottinghamshire only if those districts agree to the county mayor for Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire being created. So they have a veto over that.”
“The whole purpose of combined authorities is to bring local authorities together on a voluntary basis to cover a travel to work area—the natural economic entity—yet transport, the mayor and the associated powers will not cover the whole travel to work area of Sheffield. This is a real dog’s dinner. It is not going to work, and it is certainly not going to be understood by the public. That leads me on to my second point. There is a problem with mayoral imposition, which in Sheffield’s case will not cover all five areas. Other districts can choose to join the arrangements for mayors if they wish. My understanding—I may be wrong—is that the districts of north Derbyshire and north Nottinghamshire, which are part of the Sheffield city region, are going to join the combined authority, which they are part of, for the economic powers.”
“There is a big difference in the Manchester case. I am not arguing that Manchester should have a mayor imposed on it. If Manchester wants that, that is a matter for it, but it is different. In Sheffield we have hybrid devolution, with transport going to the mayor, but the mayor is not going to cover the nine districts. The mayor will cover only four districts—the old south Yorkshire districts—so how are people to understand the devolution deal, which has one set of governance arrangements for economic powers and skills, and another set of governance arrangements for transport, where one set of governance arrangements covers four authorities, whereas the other set covers nine?”
“In the end it is not just about Government agreeing these deals; it is about Parliament taking a view where there is disagreement. Even if Ministers are not minded to accept the amendment today, it is an interesting idea to which they might give some thought. Finally, we cannot legislate for double devolution because in the end, devolution has to allow areas to do things their own way, but there is a role for Ministers, parliamentarians and the LGA to get the message across that devolution does not stop at the town hall door. Where powers are devolved to local authorities, it is for them to move those powers into communities and to engage with communities in a positive way to make devolution happen even further down the line.”
“Otherwise we will have districts, counties and combined authorities, as well as parishes in some areas. I am not sure that that amounts to easy-to-understand government. The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) has raised some interesting issues. I am not sure about his solution, but there is a problem, for which Ministers have to accept some responsibility. I realise that others wish to speak. On the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North, I hope the Government will listen to the idea of some sort of independent body to look at these issues. That was discussed by our Select Committee last time. If there is genuine disagreement between central Government and local government, an independent body could bring the two sides together and produce a report for Parliament to consider.”
“I understand that argument, and it would be a lot easier to accept it from the Government if there was clear accountability and a clear understanding of what was happening, and if I had not just had to explain the situation in Sheffield city region, which has neither clarity nor accountability. Transport arrangements are to be devolved to a mayor who does not cover the whole travel to work area. That is not clarity or consistency, and it will not work. Big issues are involved. I see the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) in his place. We had discussions in the Select Committee, of which he was a valuable member in the previous Parliament, and I know he has clear views about moving towards unitaries if we are to have a combined authority that works.”
“How will we devolve more powers to local government to take account of the extra money made available as part of that process?”
“We found a way to take on board proposals from the London Finance Commission about the wider devolution of property taxes, while recognising the need to protect areas that will perhaps struggle to raise business rates and other property taxes easily, or to get back money from areas that simply watch property prices rise and receive enormous windfalls. We must have balance in the system. The Committee has begun an inquiry into the workings of devolution and the Bill, but since then the Chancellor has made his announcement about the full localisation of business rates. The Committee will want to come back and look at how that will be done. I think most Members would support the principle behind such a move, but how will we implement it to ensure protection for poorer areas?”
“I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) said about the need for a wider constitutional settlement. That was apposite, and at some point we will have to address those issues. I agree with his points about subsidiarity and taking that below the level of an individual local authority, and about encouraging the process down. Fiscal devolution is a challenge, and Members have reflected different perspectives from different parts of the country. It is a challenge, but not one that we should duck. I am Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee, on which the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) sat in the previous Parliament. He made important and valuable contributions to our report.”
“My hon. Friend is right, and the Committee made that recommendation in the previous Parliament. It is a way that we can devolve the redistribution process to more local areas. That does not work everywhere, but it would probably work well in areas such as Manchester that have a spread of different local authorities”
“Somebody else will have to do that if, for example, a new tram system is going to be developed. The mayor will have to go to somebody else and say, “Will you borrow money for me?””
“I am still concerned to have a level playing field, however, and I am surprised about one element in the Bill that Ministers have not sought to explain. Amendment 60 would delete from clause 5(1)(7) words that would devolve to a mayor who is exercising powers independently, any powers that are “similar to any power exercisable by the mayoral combined authority…but the power conferred on the mayor may not include a power to borrow money.” When a combined authority is set up, it can have the power to borrow money. In the Sheffield city region, the combined authority has to borrow money for the functions of economic development, skills and matters devolved to it. The mayor will effectively become the transport authority and exercise transport functions. In exercising those functions, however, the mayor will not be able to borrow money.”
“We will certainly want to consider that issue. From reading what has been said, and the written statement that was presented to the House on the first day back after the recess, there does not seem to be a commitment simply to leave the amount of business rates collected in an area with that local authority. Instead there was a move to allow the full retention of the growth of business rates, and then a decision about what to do with the rest. I think that is the position, but Ministers will have to explain it further in due course. I am sure that the Committee will want to explore that. The Minister and I have slightly different views about whether elected mayors should be a requirement for full devolution, but the Minister won the vote and that measure is back in the Bill.”
“My hon. Friend is reiterating the point that I was making earlier, and I entirely agree with him. Although Bassetlaw could not be forced into D2N2, could it not be prevented from joining the Sheffield city region as a full member? In other words, it could be left in limbo.”
“These are complicated issues and I am not totally sure that I followed all that, and I do not know whether anyone else did, either. The Minister seemed to be reading out a brief from civil servants. Could he provide a note with a thorough explanation of the issue? None of us wants to end up with mayors who need to create transport systems but then find that they do not have the powers to borrow in order to do so.”
“I apologise, but I shall have to go to chair a meeting about black and minority ethnic coaches and managers in football, another issue that I know will be close to the Minister’s heart. The Minister may be trying to reassure the Committee, but in some ways he is giving me cause for concern. Devolution deals will, in particular, try to link social care and health in a more real way to the benefit of constituents. My concern is that if every line of accountability goes back to the Secretary of State in Whitehall, it will stop local innovation happening. Will not the line of command back to the centre simply stop things happening?”
“I see what the Minister is trying to achieve, but I just worry about whether it will work like that in practice. Given that we are in very new territory here and that things will be done differently with the delegation of powers to individual authorities as well as to combined authorities, does the Minister agree that it would be a good idea, perhaps two years after the devolution powers have been put in place, to have a thorough review of how they are working and whether there is anything in the Government’s proposals that might actually stop devolution working properly?”
“I will not demur in any way from what the Secretary of State has just said. I congratulate him on his efforts over the years to bring about the change that we have seen in the approach to devolution. In a written statement the other day, the right hon. Gentleman referred to the full retention of business rates and the fact that that will mean more resources for local government, but it will require a process of further devolution of powers to take account of the extra expenditure that local authorities will control. Will he say how that will be done? How will local authorities and this House be consulted on the measures to be devolved as part of that arrangement?”
“I have a lot of sympathy with the points that my hon. Friend is making about the imposition of elected mayors. Recognising that we will eventually need to move to a wider settlement, perhaps through a constitutional convention, does he accept that in the meantime it is not our party’s position to stand in the way of devolution deals to our colleagues in local government, particularly in major cities including Sheffield and Manchester?”
“If the rest of the approach is about agreement, with local areas coming forward with their views on what needs to be devolved in their area, why cannot we trust them to come forward with ideas about how powers should be administered in their area? The Government must provide an answer on that challenge, because that is the one inconsistency in their whole approach.”
“Having different solutions in different areas was likely to be the way forward to achieve devolution on a realistic basis, and that is also completely consistent with the localist approach, which is that things should be done differently in different areas. However, I have one serious disagreement with the Secretary of State, which the Local Government Association has also raised. The disagreement is that one size does not fit all in terms of the powers that will be devolved and how those powers should be administered. We therefore come back to the imposition of elected mayors. Why is such imposition necessary?”
“I think that credit, on a cross-party basis, should be given to the Government and to the Secretary of State—both in his current job and his past roles—for driving forward this agenda, which deserves support. Thinking about it, there probably never was a realistic chance of getting a big bang, with complete devolution across the board of everything that I would eventually like to be devolved. After years of centralisation, it was probably always going to be the case that incremental change would be the successful way forward—convincing the Treasury that economic growth would be improved and that value for money in public services would be increased. Indeed, we must watch to make sure that those things actually happen, and that proper impact assessments are made over the years to show that the change has brought such benefits.”
“I have over the years had disagreements with the Secretary of State about the pace of change of devolution: I probably wanted to go faster than he and the Government have gone. I have had disagreements with him about the amount of devolution: I probably wanted to go further than the Government have gone. I have had some disagreements with him on the detail. The important thing, however, is that we are actually talking about devolution. Devolution is a key element of Government policy and it is happening. It is important to have regard to such matters. Although my disagreements may be about the pace and extent of devolution, the direction of travel is absolutely clear.”
“As I said to the Secretary of State earlier, there is an opportunity, with the extra money retained in local government through full localisation, to allow more devolution right across the board. That will be a very big conversation during this Parliament, and I am pleased that the Secretary of State is committed to a full consultation on that both in Parliament and with local government as a whole.”
“I am pleased that the Secretary of State has become a convert to fiscal devolution. In the end, real devolution is not just about allowing local authorities greater freedom to spend the money they are given by central Government; it has to be about more freedoms for councils to raise money. The Chancellor’s statement on the full localisation of the business rate is a step forward. In the last Parliament, the Communities and Local Government Committee produced a report on “Devolution in England: the case for local government”. I hope that the Government will look at the proposals for further fiscal devolution. Business rates and how full localisation is done are obviously important issues.”
“The elected mayor will cover only the south Yorkshire districts, not other districts in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, but it cannot be right that a devolved authority’s travel-to-work area is not covered by the new mayor who has responsibility for transport. That is a challenge and a problem. I do not share the concerns that colleagues have expressed about health, although one of my concerns is that we do not really have standardised treatment and service levels throughout the national health service anyway. However, we must avoid the dead hand of centralism in the Department of Health stopping innovation at local level in joining up health and social care in a way that will be allowed under devolution deals, whether in a combined authority such as Manchester or in an individual authority such as Sheffield.”
“Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), let us look at wider devolution—ultimately, we may want a constitutional convention—but in the meantime we must not stop the progress that is being made. Let us make sure that the devolution deals can go ahead and take us in the right direction of travel. Perhaps that is something on which we can get consensus. I want to raise a couple of problems. In Sheffield, there is still a problem about the non-metropolitan districts that are part of the city region. It is unique as a city region because it crosses more than one region—it does away with the old regional boundaries—but the non-metropolitan areas cannot join the transport deal because transport is a county function.”
“In the end, one of the key issues of devolution should be greater public engagement, with the public feeling that they have more control over the decisions that affect their daily lives. That has to be a key element of devolution, but there is a problem at present. I agree that we will eventually have to get an overall framework for devolution, including a list of powers that councils can have as of right. Ultimately, there must be a move from devolution by patronage—Ministers agreeing that certain things can be done in a certain way—to councils having the right to have such matters devolved to them. We are a step away from that situation at present, but we must move in that direction. As I said to my Front-Bench colleague, my hon.”
“I think that will be more confusing than ever to the public, who will not know where powers rest under the new approach. The Government must give thought to one or two things, as should local government. The deals being done—I understand how they are now being done to move forward a very centrist agenda on a more devolved basis—still give a bit of an impression that ideas are being cooked up in back rooms by councillors, and that deals are then done in back rooms with Ministers. We must try to move to having a more open debate. Ideas for devolution should be brought forward by councils and there should be a more open debate on the Government agreeing to such deals. We must find ways of involving the public more in the whole approach if we are to take them with us.”
“Yes, I think so. Ministers will have to explain that. I think their answer would be that Cornwall has elected councillors for one county, which is slightly different from the situation in combined authorities. I do not accept that, because I think we can come up with arrangements in combined authorities. Indeed, to come back to the Sheffield model, I understand that some of the economic items to be delegated, such as those on skills, will be devolved to the combined authority, not to the mayor, but that transport items will be devolved to the mayor. That means there will be a two-party approach: on some items, the elected leaders of the various constituent councils, acting as a combined authority, will have the powers, but other powers will go to the mayor.”
“Does my hon. Friend think there is a slight irony in the fact that, as he says quite rightly, the midland main line has a better business case than the Great Western main line—and arguably than some of the works on the west coast main line over the years—but electrification of the line has been paused as a direct result of the overspend on the Great Western main line?”
“I apologise, because I will have to leave before the end of the debate, as I have explained to the Chair. On timing, is it not crucial that the high-speed trains on the midland main line are replaced by 2020 because of issues over disability? Equally, Stagecoach’s franchise has just been extended to 2018, but there will have to be certainty about whether electrification goes ahead, because, as my hon. Friend says, that will affect the future rolling stock for the new franchise.”
“The hon. Lady is demonstrating that we are mounting a cross-party argument today, with everyone behind it. She is right to mention the other works that are planned. Over the last few years, the journey time to Sheffield has been cut by 10 minutes for less than £100 million—great value. Will the Minister give a commitment today that the other improvement works will continue while the pause in electrification is in effect?”
“For all those reasons, it really requires the Minister to say yes to the track improvements now and to give a clear timetable for the decision on electrification, so that these other factors can be taken into account as part of that.”
“The HSTs will have to be replaced because of disability issues, and in my view it will be nonsense to replace them with more diesel trains, thereby effectively locking out electrification for the foreseeable future. We also have the franchise issue. The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) referred to the good news, which has just been announced in the last few hours, about the extension of the Stagecoach franchise to 2018. That means we will have a new franchise from 2018, but will it be for an electrified service or a diesel service? Again, the franchisee will have to indicate what rolling stock they will use on the line. They are going to need clarification about the future of the line and electrification in order to make a sensible decision.”
“Friend has already referred to the fact that if we get electrification, we will need the new Hitachi trains to run on the track, because only they will give time improvements with electrification, not the discarded, heavy trains that are currently running on the east coast line. However, the problem is that the HSTs on the route are old, out-of-date and not friendly for disabled people and will have to be replaced because of disability legislation by 2020. Indeed, the HSTs we have are themselves second-hand and discarded previously from other train lines. They were not new trains—most of them—when they came on the midland main line in the first place. There is therefore a big decision to be made. If the rolling stock is to be replaced, what will it be replaced with?”
“As I understand it, they will take another 10 minutes off the journey time to Sheffield and mean reductions in the journey time to the stations in between. The Government can do that. They have not announced a pause on those, so can we have clarification that those other improvements will go ahead? Of course we want electrification as well, but this commitment can be given ahead of any decision on electrification. The Minister can do it today. There are two drivers of this. We have some challenges coming up, the first of which leads back to my point that perhaps a driver of the great western line electrification was the issue of rolling stock. My hon.”
“It is one of the strongest—stronger than that of the great western line, so we have to ask why it was put behind the great western line. Maybe the question of having to replace the rolling stock on the great western line drove that decision and put it ahead in the queue, but it was certainly not the strength of the business case. That leads me on to issues for the future. Given that we have already delivered track improvements on the midland main line and have progressively, over the years, brought the journey time to Sheffield down to two hours—a long-term objective that we have now achieved—why can we not have a serious commitment from the Minister now that, irrespective of the electrification pause, we can get on with the other track improvements?”
“Ten years later, I remember going to a conference with Network Rail to talk about how we might deal with the problems on the line; and, another 10 years later, we finally got the upgrade. It was a long time in coming, but, as I said in an intervention, for less than £100 million, we cut 10 minutes off the journey time to Sheffield. When we consider how many billions were spent achieving not much more than that on the west coast line, we can see what good value the midland main line offers when improvements to it are carried out. That is a good starting point, and it leads on to the point that my hon. Friend has made very eloquently. The business case for electrification of the midland main line is very strong indeed.”
“As I have said, Sir Roger, I have to leave before the end of the debate, as I have a prior engagement, so I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Harry Harpham), to the Minister and to you. I will not take up too much time—I understand that other hon. Members want to speak—but I want to re-emphasise some points that I made in interventions. I remember, when I was first elected back in 1992—a long time ago now—going in the cab of a train down to London and being shown all the problems on the midland main line compared with the straighter and quicker routes on the east coast lines, and eventually, the west coast lines. All the curves and bends prevented the trains from going at maximum speed.”
“The hon. Gentleman is making a very important point, and I support HS2 strongly as well. The Government have said repeatedly to people, “Don’t worry about HS2. It will not affect the investment in the rest of the railway.” Are people not likely to conclude that if electrification does not go ahead on the midland main line, that promise of no impact from HS2 is not being kept?”
“I am pleased that the Home Secretary and her colleagues are working closely with the Local Government Association, but I want to press her again on local council funding. Surely this is such an urgent and unique problem that the Government, in advance of the spending review, can make a commitment to cover the full costs that local councils incur—and not just for the first year—in delivering a national policy. I ask the right hon. Lady to reflect on the potential damage done to community relations by saying to people who welcome refugees into their communities, “Welcome them now, but you will pay the full cost in the future in cuts in your services for funding the refugees coming to your community.” That is a damaging position for the Government to get into. Will she please reflect on that urgently?”
“Six hon. Members have applied to speak. I shall restrict the Front Benchers to nine minutes, rather than the usual 10, to allow everyone else five minutes to speak. It is a five-minute time limit, including any interventions, because obviously we are restricted.”
“On that point, the Budget changed the future rental income forecast for social housing from the consumer prices index plus 2%, to minus 1%. The National Housing Federation said that that will reduce housing association revenue by £3.9 billion in this Parliament, and that a conservative estimate suggests a reduction of 27,000 homes being built because of measures in the Budget. How does the Secretary of State begin to justify that?”