Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 89, in

clause 26, page 13, line 4, leave out from second 'region' to end of line 5 and insert

'as determined in accordance with section (Regional boundaries)'.

Mr John Butterfill (Bournemouth West, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to take the following:

Amendment No. 90, in

clause 26, page 13, line 5, at end insert—

'( ) The Secretary of State may by order vary the regional boundaries set out in the Regional Development Agencies Act (1998).

( ) It is immaterial whether more or fewer regions are created as a result.'.

New clause 3—Regional boundaries—

'(1) Before making any order under Parts 1, 2 or 3 the Secretary of State shall—

(a) invite all local authorities in England to submit to him proposals for the creation of regions for the purposes of this Act; and

(b) invite such other persons and bodies as appear to him to represent relevant interests throughout England to submit to him proposals for the creation of regions for the purposes of this Act; and

(c) upon receipt of submissions in response to paragraphs (a) and (b) invite the Electoral Commission to comment on the submissions and to make proposals to the Secretary of State for the creation of regions for the purposes of this Act having regard to—

(i) the desirability of all regions being of approximately equal size; and

(ii) the need to reflect the identities and interests of local communities; and

(d) publish the proposals made to him by the Electoral Commission under paragraph (c); and

(e) make an order creating regions for the purposes of this Act, having regard to the proposals published under paragraph (d).

(2) For the purposes of this section ''relevant interests'' means professional bodies, trades unions, voluntary organisations, faith groups, political parties, business organisations and community organisations.'.

Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

It is a pleasure to be back in these surroundings after the somewhat unfamiliar experience of debating the Bill on the Floor of the House yesterday. I am glad that we have reached clause 26 and amendment No. 89. It is a paving amendment for new clause 3, which goes to the heart of the question of the regional boundaries.

The Minister for Local Government and the Regions has made his position clear: he is not prepared to engage in any discussion about the wisdom or otherwise of the boundaries that have

been chosen for these purposes: the boundaries of the regional development agencies. He resorts, rather scurrilously, to the accusation that the previous Conservative Government put those boundaries in place and he then retreats behind his reinforced concrete wall as if that makes them unchallengeable. However, those boundaries were put in place for a completely different purpose.

One conclusion that we can draw from the debates on the Floor of the House last night is that many colleagues on both sides of the House are greatly interested in what the appropriate boundaries for regions should be for elected assembly purposes. The size of regions and the need to create an identity in a region that makes it a real entity for the people who live in it were discussed.

The Minister tried to make great play of the conflict between the two criteria laid down in new clause 3(1)(c)—the desirability of regions being of approximately equal size and the need to reflect the identities and interests of local communities—as if that were a fatal flaw in the structure of the new clause. However, it is no different from the requirements in clause 13, on the local government review, to have regard to certain matters.

Under new clause 3, the Electoral Commission would be required to have regard to the desirability of approximate equivalence of size and the need to reflect the identities and interests of local communities. Clearly, it would not be possible to meet both requirements all the time, but in dealing with one of the two criteria, the commission would be constrained by the need to have regard to the other. I hope that out of that tension for an expert and independent body such as the Electoral Commission would come a sensible compromise.

Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State (Local and Regional Government), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Greenwich & Woolwich, Labour)

How long does the hon. Gentleman believe that that process is likely to take?

Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

I see no particular reason why the process should take much longer than the time scale already envisaged by the Minister. It would take a year for a boundary committee to do its work in one or two regions, if the Secretary of State were minded to call a referendum. I see no reason why restructuring the regional boundaries should take much longer. The Government's pragmatic objection is not a good reason to fail totally to deal with what anyone listening objectively to the debates in this Room and on the Floor of the House would agree is one of the two major objections voiced by Members on both sides of the House and on both sides of the debate on regional assemblies. The other is the coupling of the creation of regional assemblies with local government reorganisation.

Mr Jim Knight (South Dorset, Labour)

Does the hon. Gentleman believe that it is possible to redraw regional boundaries in a way that would keep everyone happy? Is not it the case that whenever a boundary is drawn around anything, people on the edge of it believe that they should be on the other side?

Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

The hon. Gentleman is, of course, right, and the Minister says yes from a sedentary

position, as if that is a fatal flaw in my argument. However, the right hon. Gentleman readily conceded to my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) during last night's debate, and indeed to my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), that local government boundary reviews invariably create the same problem. In the end, no one is ever happy.

The probable truth is that if everyone is completely happy, the work will not have been done properly. It is therefore a compromise, but what is clear is that outside the north-east, no one from any of the regions believes that the existing regional boundaries—south-west, eastern England, south-east, north-west, west midlands—are right. The process outlined in new clause 3 would at least allow a bottom-up consultation on these issues. I do not suggest that the end result will be that everyone is perfectly happy, but it will be better than simply taking inherited administrative boundaries, which date back to the second world war, and casting them in stone for ever.

Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)

I agree. The present boundaries were designed for a totally different purpose. The suggestion made by the hon. Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight) that they could not be improved is nonsense. If we were given the chance to ask people in a one-off, short review what they considered their communities to be, surely that would be better than what the Government are offering us?

Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

I agree. It is bizarre that the Minister does not seem to realise that his proposal for elected regional assemblies will not work unless he tackles two principal concerns: the first was voiced by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) about the coupling of elected regional assemblies with local government review; the second was articulated by many hon. Members about the inappropriateness of the regional boundaries. If the Minister genuinely wants a stable and enduring solution to the English question—a settlement that works for all England—he must deal with those two matters. We are talking about a constitutional change that may endure for decades and it is simply absurd for the Minister to say that it would take an extra six months to do it properly, so he will not do it at all, but instead will try to graft this arrangement on to England using boundaries that are as relevant to the communities and areas in which we live as are the colonial boundaries of Africa, which were drawn on a map by a bureaucrat's pen many thousands of miles away.

Mr Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough & Whitby, Labour)

I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman's remarks. If we have a Conservative Government after the next general election, will he confirm for the record that one of their priorities will be to consider this ''English question'', as he puts it, and to carry out the sort of review of the regions that he is describing? Such a review would obviously include London, as London is in England. Will he commit that as a policy objective of a future Conservative Government?

Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

I am not going to say anything about London because I am not going to reopen the discussion that the Liberals and the Minister had last night about whether London was an example of city unitary government or regional government.

The Conservative party recognises that there is an English question, which needs to be addressed following the devolution settlements in Scotland and Wales. There must be a reorganisation of the way in which England is governed below the national tier. We believe that that must be based on the existing established units and natural communities, and built upwards from the bottom, rather than downwards from the top, as the Minister would prefer. I can give him the assurance that it will be a priority for an incoming Conservative Government to deal with the issue, based on an organic solution that flows naturally from the communities with which people have affinity. While I do not think that it is necessarily the perfect way to go, the proposal to start from the bottom and review the regional boundaries from scratch is certainly much more in keeping with that approach than the Minister's approach.

Mr Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough & Whitby, Labour)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that answer. Can he flesh that out a little? In my constituency, it has long been an ambition for Whitby to be included in the north-east. Equally, it has long been the ambition of people in Middlesbrough to return to Yorkshire. How would he sort out that conundrum, which will be replicated around the country?

Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

As I was just agreeing with the Minister, this will not be an easy process but it must come from the bottom up. The solution is not simply for a Minister or a civil servant to sit in an office in Whitehall with a map of England and a blue pen.

Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)

I should like to ask the hon. Gentleman a question that the Committee has not asked him yet. Is he an English nationalist or an English devolutionist?

Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

I am not sure that I am either. I believe that following the Scottish and Welsh devolution settlements the English question must be addressed. We cannot simply ignore England as if it is a rump.

Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)

How?

Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

One alternative is to ensure that our communities in England have a voice in their affairs in a way that makes them feel comfortable, not a way that looks tidy to someone sitting in an office in London or makes the Secretary of State feel comfortable. You would not, Mr. Butterfill, encourage me to digress, but another issue that must be dealt with is the involvement of Scottish and Welsh Members in affairs that are purely English and which involve the whole of England. Whichever route we take to strengthen the lower tiers of government in England, that issue must be addressed.

If the Minister is to make his project sustainable and enduring, he must create resonance with the people who will live under the regime. At the moment the biggest impediment to that resonance is the lack of

any natural affinity with the regional boundaries. If I were a supporter of that regional project, I would urge the Minister to review the boundaries. I do not believe that it will work and endure unless he does so. The Committee has many other things to discuss and not much time to progress this morning. I do not intend to press this matter further now. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)

I will not detain the Committee long. I am sure that we will return to this matter on Report. I wanted to offer our amendment to the Minister as a way to sort out regional boundaries. It should appeal to him rather more than the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), because it gives all the power to the Minister.

We see in devolution and local government restructuring that the Government like to take a lot of power. Normally, the Opposition resist that. Normally, we believe that it is the job of Parliament and Committees to fetter the Government in as many ways as possible and to set down criteria and frameworks for them to act within. Whenever we do that the Minister tells us not to worry because we can trust the Secretary of State who is a fine chap and that it is all linked to precedent. In this case, we are giving him the chance to have the unfettered power that the Government have taken in so many other areas. It would help him to deal with the main problem, as he sees it, of reviewing regional boundaries—that it would take a long time.

The amendment would give the Secretary of State all the power that the Government need to decide how, when and if they would change regional boundaries. It does not require the Minister to do anything; it would not necessarily lead to an immediate review of regional boundaries. It does not require the Minister to undertake reviews of all regional boundaries at the same time. It gives him huge flexibility, which I would usually baulk at. The amendment was tabled to try to reach a compromise, to leave a little gap and to give the Minister a chance to think again, in the spirit of the season. I doubt that he will receive my present with such grace, but if he does not we shall return to the matter on Report and press an amendment in the House in a less generous way.

I had a little exchange with the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge because I wanted to tease out the Conservative position on the English question. His answer—the record will show if I misquote him—was that Conservative policy is to make people feel comfortable about their Government. Quite what that means—

Mr Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough & Whitby, Labour)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)

I will in a moment.

Mr John Butterfill (Bournemouth West, Conservative)

Order. I was tolerant when this little piece of badinage first arose but it is not relevant to the matters under consideration and the hon. Gentleman should not pursue it further.

Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)

As usual, Mr. Butterfill, you are completely right and I was completely wrong. Does

the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Lawrie Quinn) still wish to intervene?

Mr Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough & Whitby, Labour)

I shall defer to the wishes of the Chair.

Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)

Dash! Given that you have rightly closed down the debate, Mr. Butterfill, I urge the Minister to think about the strength of the amendment.

Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State (Local and Regional Government), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Greenwich & Woolwich, Labour)

There comes a time in the life of Committees when it is appropriate that they move to an end and I suspect that we are getting near to that point. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton has just gone on the record saying that, as usual, he is wrong, something that he may regret having said. There was also an interesting volte face in the position of the two Opposition parties. That is a serious warning to the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge. When the Liberal Democrats are embracing the iron fist of Thatcherite centralism with an amendment that gives the Secretary of State power to vary regional boundaries by order, the Conservative party is marching triumphantly towards the Liberal Democrat Valhalla with an amendment that would provide for constant consultation, endless debate and no possibility of any result.

The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge said optimistically that the arrangements under the new clause should not take much longer than a year to complete—he later said only six months; the hon. Gentleman clearly lives in Liberal Democrat optimism land. It says that the Secretary of State must

''(a) invite all local authorities in England to submit proposals for the creation of regions . . . and

(b) invite such other persons and bodies as appear to him to represent relevant interests throughout England to submit to him proposals for the creation of regions . . .

(c) upon receipt of submissions . . . invite the Electoral Commission to comment on the submissions''.

We can imagine the enormous range of propositions there will be. How on earth is the Electoral Commission supposed to comment on them in a coherent and sensible way and then to make proposals to the Secretary of State for the creation of regions, having regard to two mutually contradictory objectives, one of which is that it is desirable for all regions to be of approximately equal size? Last night, to the embarrassment of the official Opposition, we heard about the position on London, which they propose to exclude from the process of allowing some individual votes in the regions.

Mr Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough & Whitby, Labour)

Is it the Minister's understanding that what the Opposition are proposing is to exclude London, and therefore London Members of Parliament, from the constitutional role of the rest of England, which is where the logic—

Mr John Butterfill (Bournemouth West, Conservative)

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that that subject is irrelevant to our debate. It was out of order even when it was discussed on the Floor of the House yesterday.

Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State (Local and Regional Government), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Greenwich & Woolwich, Labour)

As I was saying, the Opposition are unsure whether London should be included—unsurprisingly, as it is three times the size of the north-east and if it is treated as a region, it cannot be

compatible with objective one in the new clause. Furthermore, we have to take account of the need to reflect the identities and interests of local communities.

We entirely accept the desire to reflect the identities and interests of local communities. However, it is a bit rich of Conservative Members to advocate that when they made it clear last night that, if they had their way, they would not allow the north-east to proceed with an elected regional assembly on its own. If fewer than three regions voted in the supposed national referendum, they would deny the north-east the right to establish a regional assembly.

Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

The Minister knows perfectly well that that has nothing to do with the definition of regional boundaries. It is extraordinary that he is making such heavy weather of the boundary review process: it is surely no different from a local government or parliamentary boundary review, in which the incompatible objectives of approximate equivalence of size and the natural boundaries of communities have to be reconciled. The boundary committee and the Electoral Commission routinely act on that basis.

Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State (Local and Regional Government), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Greenwich & Woolwich, Labour)

I was about to come on to that and to highlight the difficulties of proceeding as new clause 1 suggests. Before doing so, I wanted to remind the hon. Gentleman that it was he who spoke about organic solutions and building on bottom-up approaches, yet his party wants to deny the north-east, with its strong sense of regional identity, the opportunity to proceed with an elected regional assembly, unless several other regions also vote.

The new clause is hopeless. It has no prospect of working, which is precisely why the Opposition tabled it. Everyone agrees that boundary reviews are not easy, but open-ended boundary reviews make a satisfactory conclusion virtually impossible. The right hon. Members for Skipton and Ripon and for Suffolk, Coastal both conceded the point last night—it was an interesting moment in which these former Ministers accepted that the Banham review was a mess—effectively dissociating themselves from their own work in office. Banham was a classic open-ended review without clear parameters. The new clause would open up precisely the same prospect—a nightmare of debate, argument, endless discussion and no action—so I urge the Committee to reject it. The Government's approach is to proceed in an orderly and pragmatic way.

On the Liberal-Democrat amendment, we have not ruled out the possibility of boundary changes at a future date. The White Paper made that clear, but imposing the boundary review in the amendment would not be conducive to our plans to proceed expeditiously and to give the English regions an opportunity to have elected regional assemblies.

Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)

Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us under what current legislation the Government have the power to review regional boundaries? On the basis of the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998 and

preceding Acts, my understanding is that the Government do not have that power. Is the Minister intending to introduce further legislation to confer the necessary power on the Secretary of State?

Mr Nick Raynsford (Minister of State (Local and Regional Government), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Greenwich & Woolwich, Labour)

I have already explained that we have no desire to review the current boundaries. It would not be sensible because it would stand in the way of progress towards implementation of regional assemblies in regions where they are wanted. We recognise that the desire for such assemblies will not be universal: several regions will initially choose not to have them. The Government's approach is to allow people to decide. However, we have no intention of denying regions that clearly want to proceed—the north-east is often mentioned in that regard—on account of boundary reviews that will seriously delay the process.

The hon. Gentleman's question is interesting. We have powers related to the legislation on regional development agencies, but we do not intend to begin a boundary review at present. However, we have not ruled that out in the longer term, and if there is a need for legislation, substantive legislation would be the right way for such changes to be made, rather than a paving Bill such as this. We therefore urge both hon. Members not to press their amendments.

Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Conservative)

Last night, one of my right hon. Friends observed that he could always tell when the Minister was defending the indefensible because his smile became broader and his expression more fixed as he was doing so. I also detect a law of inverse aggression: generally speaking, the more aggressive the Minister becomes, the shakier the grounds of his argument.

The Minister must know that this new clause goes to the heart of his problem with the Bill. He would be on much firmer ground if all the regions were like the north-east, where a significant number of people would probably accept that the boundary is about right, even if they do not like the idea of regional elected assemblies. He is, however, on very weak ground, because he knows that in most of the English regions, perhaps in seven out of the eight, the majority of the public regard the regional boundaries as arbitrary and irrelevant to their daily lives. We are suggesting that that issue must be addressed. The Minister's only defence is that it would be an awful fag for him and his officials to get off their backsides and undertake such a review.

There is nothing magical about the review process. A range of propositions would be put forward by local authorities and other interested bodies in England. Any local authority in a region faced with local government reorganisation would be likely to put forward a proposition, so the number of propositions in the review would be an aggregate of those put forward in each region in response to local government reviews.

The Electoral Commission will have to comment, but its comments will not be unguided, because there are criteria specified in the new clause to steer it. The decisions will not be easy to make, but nothing worth doing is easy. The Government should bear that in

mind when they focus on how quickly, rather than on how durably and effectively, they can get things done.

The Minister says that the proposal would be a recipe for an open-ended review, but there is no reason to make it open-ended. A timetable could be set for the expression of opinions and for the reporting of the Electoral Commission. If that is the Minister's only objection, we can easily write such a provision into a similar new clause for consideration on Report. The Minister, however, prefers to proceed in what he calls an ''orderly and pragmatic way'', a phrase that is worthy of Napoleon. The Minister should not plead order and pragmatism ahead of democratic accountability when discussing major changes to our constitutional arrangements.

We do not have the opportunity today to debate this important issue to the extent to which it deserves. Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends regard it as the crux of the debate about elected regional assemblies. I hope that, by withdrawing the amendment, we shall be able to debate the matter further on Report, when many more hon. Members from both sides of the House will be present. I am aware that there are hon. Members on the Government side who feel equally strongly about the issue. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 26 ordered to stand part of the Bill.