Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee Oral evidence: Progress on Devolution in England, HC 174 Monday 25 January 2021 Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 25 January 2021. Watch the meeting Members present: Mr Clive Betts (Chair); Bob Blackman; Ian Byrne; Ben Everitt; Rachel Hopkins; Mary Robinson. Questions 196 - 240 Witnesses I: Lord Kerslake, Chair, UK2070 Commission; Rt Hon Greg Clark MP; Cllr James Jamieson, Chairman, Local Government Association. Examination of witnesses Witnesses: Lord Kerslake, Greg Clark and James Jamieson Chair: Welcome, everyone, to this afternoon’s session of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee. It is a further session we are holding, with three witnesses this afternoon, on our inquiry into progress on devolution in England. We are pleased to have three witnesses with a great deal of experience on this subject and, I am sure, a great deal to contribute to our findings. Before I go through our witnesses, I will ask members of the Committee who have any particular interests relevant to this inquiry to put them on the record. I am a vice- president of the Local Government Association. Ben Everitt: I am a councillor with the recently unitary Buckinghamshire Council. Ian Byrne: I am a serving councillor in Liverpool. Mary Robinson: I employ a councillor in my staff team. Rachel Hopkins: I am a vice-president of the LGA. I am also a sitting councillor in Luton and I employ a councillor in my office. Q196 Chair: I think we are expecting Bob Blackman to join us as well. He is just in for questions at present. Bob is also a vice-president of the LGA, to get all that on the record. That is appropriate at this stage, given the subject matter of our inquiry today. Let’s go over to our witnesses. I will ask them to introduce themselves and say a bit about who they are and why they think they have been asked to give evidence today. Lord Kerslake: I am Bob Kerslake, chair of the UK2070 Commission on regional inequalities. I am also president of the Local Government Association. Prior to that, I was head of the civil service and perm sec at DCLG, and I previously worked in local government as a chief executive in Sheffield and Hounslow. Greg Clark: I am Greg Clark. I think the reason you have asked me to be here is that I was the Minister for decentralisation when the coalition was formed and then the Minister for cities, during which time we negotiated and came up with the idea of city deals. They were then followed by growth deals and the devolution deals that I know the Committee has been taking an interest in. During my time as Secretary of State at what was then DCLG and at BEIS, we continued some of that work. James Jamieson: I am chairman of the Local Government Association. Until last week, I was also leader of Central Bedfordshire Council, which I was for nearly 10 years. Q197 Chair: Thank you all very much for joining us this afternoon. Each member of the Committee will ask relevant questions. They may ask a general question, and any of you who wants to can come in, or they may specifically go to one of our witnesses first and ask them specifically to respond. I have a general question to begin with. What is devolution for? We have had various objectives posed as the reason why powers might be devolved to various bodies in England—that is what we are looking at, rather than the UK as a whole—to address regional inequalities, bolster economies at a local level, improve public service, or just look at a better way of identifying people with their areas. Bob, you have led the commission and had a look at these issues. Do you want to come in and say what you think the purpose of devolution is? Lord Kerslake: Its purpose is all of the things you have just said. The one I wanted to particularly focus on is the issue of economic recovery coming out of Covid, and tackling regional disparities. By almost every measure, we are one of the most unequal countries in the developed world economically. I would contend that the agenda of rebalancing or levelling up cannot be achieved without more devolution. It is central to any agenda of levelling up. Why do I say that? Without local leadership of the economic agenda, we are unlikely to see the sorts of gains we need to make in productivity and wealth in this country. It is central to that. The very fact that we are so unequal means that any policy created from Whitehall or Westminster is never the right policy for any area. That is one of the problems with it. Housing is a great example of that. Coming up with one housing policy simply does not work. The very fact that we are so unequal is another driver for devolution. Finally, Covid has increased the urgency of improving our economic performance and recovering from the impact of it. Particularly, it has increased the urgency and importance of the levelling-up agenda. For all those reasons, but specifically the economic one, devolution is essential. Q198 Chair: To play devil’s advocate, some might say that, because we are so unequal, we need central Government to equalise. Lord Kerslake: You certainly need central Government to intervene to equalise on resources. That is true. I do not think you need central Government to be the arbiter of all decision making. We have an overloaded centre and disempowered places in this country, on any measure. We have both inequality and centralism, which is a very bad combination. Q199 Chair: Greg, when you were a Minister, you particularly concentrated on the economic aspects of devolution. Perhaps you would like to give us your views on the subject. Greg Clark: I always saw it, and see it, as a matter of opportunities. For the 20th century, certainly for the second half of the 20th century, we centralised too much power in Whitehall and disempowered some of the great cities and regions of our country that, through most of our history, had been real dynamos of growth, progress and creativity. They were known the world over. If I think back to the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, cities like Sheffield, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol were known across the world. They had somehow been cowed and had their sense of initiative taken away, which was very outside our historical experience. My observation around the world, whichever country you are in, is that the most vibrant countries have pulsating, powerful cities. It seemed to me that there was no reason why we should accept the subjugation of our great regional centres. Q200 Chair: Councillor Jamieson, you have a fairly wide perspective from the LGA, across a whole range of authorities. What is your thinking on the subject. James Jamieson: I would agree. I agree with my president on this as well. It is all of the above. Fundamentally, if we are going to do right for our communities, and that is essentially why we are all in politics— because we want to do the best for communities—it is about how we deliver in the most effective, efficient way that tailors to the needs of our communities. You cannot do that from 19 separate Whitehall Departments, coming with a one-size-fits-all, frequently unaligned strategy. At the local level, you can pull everything together about place to deliver for our communities in the most efficient and effective way possible. That is what it is about. It is about delivering for our communities. Q201 Chair: Coming on to public attitudes, we will follow this up in detail in due course, but a generalisation is that, by and large, the public will say, “Yes, we think we should have more powers at local level. We think we ought to have more say in what happens in our area.” When you say, “Are people entitled to the same level of service that they get in one area in another area? Are we all entitled to have the same service delivered for education, health or whatever it is?”, they will say, “Of course.” The two things are not mutually compatible. How do we deal with that particular issue? Greg Clark: You are right to point out that it is not simple. It would be simplistic to say, “Everything can be done at the local level.” Some things should be done locally, and there are strengths locally that should be recognised. It seems to me that it is good to have the expression of that. I used to say, before we had any combined authorities and mayoral authorities, other than London, and Bob Kerslake will remember this from his time as permanent secretary, that the truth was that, when the Mayor of London, whoever it was, rang you up as a Minister, you took the call and took very seriously what was said there. It seemed to me that there was no reason why London should be the only place in which that was the case. It ought to be the case for Birmingham, Sheffield and other places as well. That was not to say that everything was done locally, but at least you had a sense that you had a leader expressing the local point of view and, quite rightly, a Secretary of State or Minister expressing the national point of view. You went into a discussion, sometimes a negotiation, and came up with something that is best for that area.