Clause 67
Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)
It is a pleasure to be here with you, Mr. Amess. As I walked towards Westminster this sunny morning, I was delighted to know that I would be spending it in Committee discussing the Bill, and I am sure that all hon. Members feel that way.
The former Secretary of State referred to getting the architecture right in introducing the Bill, and many people in the real world will feel that we have not got it right. A regular gripe when considering the south-west regional spatial strategy—the one with which I am most familiar, for obvious reasons—is that the region does not make sense and that attempts to come up with strategies across an area as geographically large and economically diverse as the south-west is not necessarily the way forward. The approach has been to identify sub-regional areas within that and to develop them.
It has been my view and that of many people across the south-west—I am sure that the situation will be similar in other regions—that regions that were set up back in the 1980s for various purposes, including Government purposes, might not necessarily be the right way to proceed. Therefore, regional development agencies that operate along those boundaries might not be the right way to go. The amendments tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne seek to promote a debate about whether those regions are the right way to proceed. They also seek to put in place procedures that would stimulate that discussion and enable principally local authorities, in consultation with their communities, to come up with suggestions about what the natural regions really are. We might therefore have RDAs that mirror those natural regions, as well as reflecting Government arrangements.
Since the failure of the north-east referendum to convince people that elected regional authorities are the way to go—certainly in that part of the country—we have been in a limbo state in which RDAs and regional assemblies have muddled along, trying to persuade people that they have the authority to take important decisions for the regions that have been constructed for them. It is fair to say that that approach has been greatly criticised.
The Bill gives us the opportunity to build a new regional policy, to look at the current boundaries and decide whether they are correct, and to put in place a mechanism for opening up debate and allowing it to move forward.