Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill

House of Commons, 23 January 2003.

New Clause 2 — Further Referendum on Petition

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No.12, in page 3, line 15 [Clause 5], leave out 'five' and insert 'ten'.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Mindful of what was said in the previous debate, I shall attempt to be brief. The main issues of concern to hon. Members mostly fall in the second group of amendments, so I hope that the debate on this group will be relatively short.

Clause 1 provides for regional referendums to be held on creating elected regional assemblies. There is no provision for a threshold for turnout or, indeed, a threshold for yes votes. Hon. Members will be mindful of what happened in the Welsh Assembly elections. Clause 5 will give the Government the power to hold repeat referendums—if they fail the first time, they can try again after a five-year gap—so a ratchet effect is being introduced.

The Government need to achieve only a tiny majority on a tiny turnout, once, to create an elected regional assembly. They will need to shift public opinion only momentarily to get their way, and they will get as many goes as they like at achieving that. In effect, in a region where a referendum has been fought and narrowly lost, a sword of Damocles will hang over local government in that region.

Under the Government's proposals, an elected regional assembly will necessarily involve the abolition of one of the tiers in two-tier local government areas. It will be impossible for local authorities in those areas to continue to carry out their functions, to improve the delivery of public services and to recruit and retain good staff with the constant threat of a further referendum just five years down the line, and therefore the possibility of abolition or reorganisation.

This group of amendments consists of two parts. New clause 2 would insert the concept of citizen-initiated recall ballots. If an elected regional assembly were established and 5 per cent. of the electorate in that region petitioned for a new referendum to be held, the Secretary of State would have to call a new referendum and exactly the same question as before would be put.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

The hon. Gentleman says that a sword of Damocles should not hang over people in local authorities because of the uncertainty that their arrangements may change if regional assemblies are created. He is now arguing in the new clause that a sword of Damocles will similarly hang over people because the arrangements might change back again. Is not that contradictory—or is that just what we are used to?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The Bill will allow the Government to hold a second referendum on a whim, but we propose to give effect to the will of the people. We have to have things one way or the other. We need either sensible periods between referendums and sensible thresholds so that a tiny majority in a tiny turnout cannot determine the issue, or a mechanism for going back if it all turns out to be a dreadful mistake.

New clause 2 would allow mature reflection. It would deal with the situation where the elected regional assembly perhaps turns out to be something rather different from what the electors had been led to believe, bearing in mind that no legislation setting out the powers and functions of elected regional assemblies will be available to them at the time of the referendum. It would allow a wake-up call for the silent majority. It would allow a route back from what the Government would like to see as a one-way ratchet.

New clause 2 would allow an assessment to be made based on the experience of an elected regional assembly in operation and the unitary organisation of local government that that necessarily involves, rather than one based only on the Government spin that would be available before the referendum. The threshold of 5 per cent. that is proposed, which is similar to that for mayoral ballots, is a tough target. It is not so easy to organise a petition of 5 per cent. of all the electors in a region.

We oppose the currently proposed elected regional assemblies because they will not address the real problems created by the Government's centralising tendencies and they will not address the issues facing England post devolution, but we do believe in democracy. Certain safeguards need to be put in place because elected regional assemblies are not just matters for individual regions; they concern the whole of England. If those safeguards can be put in place—some of them will be dealt with in the debate on the second group of amendments—we are confident that, in a fair and open ballot where all the people of England have an opportunity to express their views on a settlement for England, the Minister will get his answer. We are confident that our view will prevail.

Kevan Jones (Labour, North Durham)

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has clarified the fact that the Conservatives will oppose regional assemblies. However, you said in Committee that you recognised that people in the north-east are interested in having a regional assembly. Will the Conservative party in the north-east therefore oppose the establishment of a regional assembly there?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I am sure, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you did not say anything in Committee, but it is important to put on record the fact that I certainly recognised in Committee that there are concerns in the peripheral parts of England about the centralising tendencies. [Interruption.] There is nothing pejorative about the word "peripheral".

Joyce Quin (Labour, Gateshead East and Washington West)

Yes, there is.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

No, there is not. It is a geographical term, and there is nothing pejorative about it at all.

Chris Leslie (Labour, Shipley)

Can the hon. Gentleman say where the central heart of England is?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

If the hon. Gentleman had allowed me to finish, I was about to say that I recognise that there is concern in the geographical periphery of England about the London-centred Government and their centralising tendencies, grabbing power and accumulating it in Whitehall. That is a fair point, and I have acknowledged it in Committee. We simply do not believe that the Government's chosen route is the way to address that issue. We do not believe that it presents a plausible, credible and durable solution for all of England, post the devolution settlement for the nations of the United Kingdom.

Kevan Jones (Labour, North Durham)

rose—

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I said that I would try to be brief; I shall give way once more to the hon. Gentleman and then I want to make progress.

Kevan Jones (Labour, North Durham)

Can the hon. Gentleman confirm whether the Conservative party in the north-east will campaign for a no vote in any referendum there?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I suspect that the Conservative party in the north-east will campaign for a no vote in any referendum there. However, we are now dealing with provisions for further referendums if such referendums are held and are unsuccessful from the Government's point of view, and if there is a rejection in relation to amendment No. 12. Indeed, under new clause 2, we want to create an opportunity for a recall ballot if there is a yes vote.

The point is that a fair and open process is not being proposed. Electors are being asked to vote blind. They will not know what the powers of the new assembly will be. They will be asked to vote for regions that have no identity and, in many cases, little credibility. They will be asked to vote for local government reform, the effect of which they will not know until it has happened. The Government want to create a one-way ratchet so that there is no going back. In the absence of any requirement for threshold of support for the creation of elected regional assemblies, with an ability for repeat ballots every five years and because electors will be voting blind, simple fairness and equity demand that there is a way back, and new clause 2 would provide it.

Amendment No. 12 addresses the provisions in clause 5 on repeat referendums. Clause 5 will allow repeat referendums to be called every five years. I have discussed that with business, interested organisations and local government members, and we believe that five years is too short a period for pragmatic reasons. If a referendum were lost, to have the threat of a further ballot in just five years' time would plunge local authorities in that region into chaos. There will be recruitment and retention problems and service delivery problems.

Repeat referendums will effectively create a state of permanent campaign for the ensuing four years or so. That is not in the interests of the citizens of any region. It is not in the interests of good local government, and it is certainly not in the interests of what should be the Government principal objective: improving the delivery of public services. The public want the Government to focus on public service, and they want their local authorities to deliver them. So five years is a recipe for chaos. I suggest that 10 years is the minimum period acceptable from a practical point of view. We tested various other periods in Committee. I hope that the Minister will be persuaded that 10 years is a sensible compromise.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I listened with care to what the hon. Gentleman said about amendment No. 12, but I do not see any time limit in new clause 2 about the reversal process. Is that an omission or does he think that people should be able to get together 5 per cent. and reverse the result of a referendum at any time?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The hon. Gentleman is right. There is no provision for a time limit on repeated recall ballots. I considered that issue. I envisaged that the Minister would raise it. If he is prepared to concede that time limits are sensible and that a recall ballot is a good mechanism and needs to be time limited and if he will propose or accept a sensible time limit on repeat referendums under clause 5, I shall certainly consider withdrawing this new clause. I should be happy if the Minister would table a new clause in the other place which would create a symmetry, so that referendums for the creation of elected regional assemblies and referendums for the winding up of elected regional assemblies on a citizen initiative have an equal, level playing field. The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. If the Minister is prepared to take that on board, at last we are beginning to achieve something.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

If the Conservatives press the amendments to a vote we shall oppose them. They want to pass these amendments because they want to wreck the anti-devolution movement. These powers should be vested in the regional assembly. When the Government introduce a powers and functions Bill for the regional assembly, as I hope they will, I hope that they will put forward a proper constitution for those bodies. When those bodies are created it should be up to them to decide whether there is an opinion in the region that the assembly should be dissolved. It is not for the Secretary of State or Whitehall to decide that after devolution has taken place. The Conservatives may have a point in that the people of the regions should have a way of changing that constitution, but the new clause is not the way to do it.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I have some sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman said, but he often seems to live in an ideal world. Has he heard of the concept of turkeys never voting for Christmas?

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

The hon. Gentleman is into pejorative words today about voters and parts of the country. Those whom he calls turkeys are the people who will vote for the assembly members. If voters want to vote in people who will dissolve the assembly, they will be free to do so. This is an inappropriate system. The hon. Gentleman suggests that we are living in some sort of cloud cuckoo land. He is completely wrong. We want regional devolution because we want the quango state that the Conservatives created democratised. That is what is important. When the quangos have been abolished, it could be up to the people of the region to decide whether they have faith to continue with regional assemblies. We shall vote against the Conservative amendments.

Gary Streeter (Conservative, South West Devon)

I support these amendments. The Government are proposing an imperfect constitutional settlement. I cannot really believe that they intend that the long-term constitutional arrangements for this country should involve some parts with elected regional assemblies and others without. That is not a sustainable framework. It is important, therefore, that there is some recall mechanism in place so that the people of the region can undo the wrong which they may come to realise they have done.

We keep talking about the north-east but that is something of a distraction because we are legislating for the entire country. If arrangements need to be put in place for a particular area, let us talk about it, but let us not legislate for everyone just because of one corner—albeit an important corner—of the country. By the way, we in the south-west are peripheral. That is not a pejorative thing to say; it is a fact of geography—we are a long way from the centre. We need mechanisms to undo what may be done. If the north-east goes down this route and votes blind for an elected regional assembly, in a few years time people there may come to think that it is an expensive talking shop and brings them no benefit whatever.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Is it Conservative party policy to offer a recall referendum for the Greater London Assembly?

Gary Streeter (Conservative, South West Devon)

The hon. Gentleman knows full well that there is none in place. My answer is that we would not start from here. If the hon. Gentleman believes that the appointment of the Mayor of London has been a terrific success, I invite him to think again.

It may not be just the north-east that votes for an elected regional assembly. We have heard that the north-west does not believe itself to be a coherent region, nor does the west midlands. Other parts of the country have shown little interest in this proposal, but there are defensive reasons why such parts may find themselves voting for an elected regional assembly. They may then have even more reasons to seek to undo that decision in future.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a MORI poll showed that in the north-west there was 97 per cent. identification with the region? Is he further aware that a BBC poll showed that over 72 per cent. of people in the north-west supported a directly elected assembly?

Gary Streeter (Conservative, South West Devon)

I was aware of neither. I was basing my assumptions on comments that I have heard the hon. Lady's colleagues make in this Chamber and in Committee as the Bill has proceeded, that the north-west does not consider itself to be a coherent region and there is little interest in this measure.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley North and Sefton East)

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that one of his hon. Friends and I took part in a debate on Granada television, following which there was a telephone poll, and that the majority of people who responded were opposed to a north-west regional assembly?

Gary Streeter (Conservative, South West Devon)

I hate to intrude on a private grief. Sadly we do not get Granada television in the west country, or at least not very often, unless it broadcasts "Coronation Street".

Although other parts may not want an elected regional assembly it is possible that because another region or other regions have plumped for it, they feel that in some intangible way they are missing out. They might mistakenly follow the same route. People make decisions for all sorts of reasons. Therefore, some sort of recall mechanism should be in place.

I was interested the other day when we debated the House of Lords that an hon. Gentleman spoke powerfully about how in Scotland many people are realising that the electoral settlement of Members of the Scottish Parliament elected on a list system was causing chaos and confusion in Scottish constituencies and wish that more thought had been given to that. I got the impression that many in Scotland wished to undo that particular mechanism. Elected regional assemblies may cause confusion with people who are elected to sit on those assemblies tripping over the toes of Members of Parliament and vice versa, colliding with MEPs going about their duties, and stepping on the toes of local councillors. I predict that there could well be immense confusion about respective functions, responsibilities and powers. That in itself may cause right hon. and hon. Members to reconsider their opinions on whether elected regional assemblies are right. That is another reason why there might be a recall mechanism.

My hon. Friend is right that 5 per cent. is a high threshold. Such a percentage cannot be put together on a wet Sunday afternoon. A lot of people have to sign a petition. That gives the Government all the reassurance that they need that it would not be lightly triggered, but would be available if people felt strongly.

Finally, I shall deal briefly with amendment No. 12, which I would like to support. I know from discussions with local authorities throughout my constituency that there is little likelihood of the south-west going for a regional assembly—I have never met anyone in my part of the region, Devon and Cornwall, who is in favour of it—[Interruption.] Hon. Members may disagree, but I remind them that Dorset is not in Devon and Cornwall. No one has mentioned it to me on the doorstep, and I have not had a single letter or phone call to my constituency office saying, "If only we had an elected regional assembly, all of my problems would be over." There is no interest in that in my part of the world.

Because local government is charged with looking ahead and looking around corners, however, it is already planning what might happen if there were a south-west elected regional assembly and what might be the impact on local councils. As I have said previously, West Devon borough council was already having meetings about how it would respond if there were an elected regional assembly, several years down the track, and the Electoral Commission were to conclude that Devon should be carved up into two or three unitary authorities. Its contingency plans have already introduced uncertainty, and if, every five years, the sword of Damocles is to hang over local government—which, as my hon. Friend rightly says, will have a great impact on recruitment and retention and the sense of security and stability—that will be an unnecessary infliction on its exercise of its lawful and statutory duties. I urge the Minister, who is reasonable, sensible, sensitive and impressive—

Chris Leslie (Labour, Shipley)

Which Minister?

Gary Streeter (Conservative, South West Devon)

Both the Under-Secretary and the Minister for Local Government and the Regions. I hope that they will think about that and change five years for 10 years in the Bill, and that they will agree to a recall mechanism, too.

Desmond Swayne (Conservative, New Forest West)

I support entirely the thrust of amendment No. 12 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond). I am concerned, however, about the threshold of 5 per cent. I would have welcomed a lower threshold although I wholly support the principle of the amendment.

To illustrate the difficulty of achieving that 5 per cent., I draw the attention of the House to the question that was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) on 20 January. He asked the Minister for Local Government and the Regions,

"how many representations he has received from electors living in (a) the south-east region, (b) Hampshire and (c) New Forest East constituency in favour of the establishment of an elected regional assembly".

The answer given by the Minister was that

"between the dates of 9 May 2002, when the White Paper was published, and 30 November 2002, the office of the Deputy Prime Minister recorded 18 respondents from the south-east who were in favour of an elected regional assembly . . . of whom two were from Hampshire."—[Official Report, 20 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 168W.]

In relation to getting a 5 per cent. threshold, I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the fact that there are some 6 million electors in the south-east region.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

It is worse than my hon. Friend fears: there are 8 million electors in the south-east region. I understand his concern. I thought long and hard about the figure of 5 per cent. and I tabled it in an attempt to reach for some consensus or centre ground on which I hope that the Minister and I can meet. It does not seem to me an unreasonable suggestion that there should be some recall mechanism. While I know that my hon. Friend takes a rigorous view on these matters, I hope that by going for 5 per cent. I will demonstrate to him that I am reaching out to the Minister in a spirit of compromise.

Desmond Swayne (Conservative, New Forest West)

I am persuaded and reassured by my hon. Friend, who, throughout the Committee proceedings, was entirely reasonable, as he is being now. I will follow his lead and accept 5 per cent. Nevertheless, Labour Members should be reassured that 5 per cent. will be very difficult to achieve.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Given everything that the hon. Gentleman has said about the difficulty of reaching a threshold of 5 per cent., would it not have been easier to have listened to the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey)—I know that that is difficult, but on this occasion he is correct. It would be much easier for electors to elect people to a regional assembly and have them dissolve themselves in the same way that electors in the European elections, I am afraid, occasionally vote for the UK Independence party in the full knowledge that it is standing to dissolve a Parliament with which it does not agree.

Desmond Swayne (Conservative, New Forest West)

Turkeys do not generally vote for Christmas. Once an elected assembly is established there is little prospect of it dissolving itself. What this carefully crafted new clause does is to provide a means by which citizens can initiate the political process and exercise people power: power for the greater part of the population as expressed in terms of the 5 per cent. requirement in the petition.

Chris Leslie (Labour, Shipley)

Will the hon. Gentleman, who is moonlighting in his usual role as a Whip, say whether, being so persuaded of the need for a 5 per cent. trigger mechanism, or any trigger mechanism, he feels, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight) pointed out earlier, that that should also be applied to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly?

Desmond Swayne (Conservative, New Forest West)

I do not want to stray from the terms of this debate, which is on the regional assemblies. I am therefore not prepared to be tempted by the Minister to go beyond that brief. I was interrupted in the train of thought that I was drawing to the attention of the House with respect to the difficulty of achieving a petition of 5 per cent. of the electors. As my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge says, the south-east region has 8 million electors. Eighteen responses were received in favour of a regional assembly. In Hampshire, there are more than 960,000 electors—not people, electors—but there were only two respondents in favour of the proposals. The Ministers know their uphill task. They have therefore devised an ingenious mechanism: any response whatever is counted as interest in favour of a referendum. The fact that someone might be wholly against an assembly, and might write to say so, will nevertheless be counted as someone expressing an interest in a referendum. Our task in securing a petition will not be nearly so easy as the method that the Ministers have devised for themselves.

Andrew Turner (Conservative, Isle of Wight)

I am shocked and amazed at the implicit duplicity of Ministers if, as my hon. Friend asserts, they should count a clear expression of objection to a regional assembly as an argument in favour of a referendum. I know of the huge amount of work that has been done by our colleagues, MEPs representing the south-east, in campaigning against a referendum. Is he saying that Ministers are genuinely taking such expressions against as expressions of interest in a referendum being held?

Desmond Swayne (Conservative, New Forest West)

I will preface my answer by saying that I am keen to move on to the next group of amendments. My hon. Friend should study the Official Report of the Standing Committee, as this was an issue that the Committee considered in some depth. The position is precisely as he fears.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Does the hon. Gentleman not recall the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) talking about the sword of Damocles and about his concerns about the effects on people in local authorities? Is it not valid for a community to decide to campaign for a referendum so that it can resolve the issue even if it is against an assembly? It is perfectly valid for people to organise for a referendum so that they can say no.

Desmond Swayne (Conservative, New Forest West)

I doubt very much that the people writing to the Secretary of State to say that they do not want a regional assembly have any idea that their letters are counted as though they are in favour of holding a referendum.

My hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge has provided a mechanism by which we can put an end to the ratchet effect and can avoid what I described in Committee as African democracy. We want one man, one vote, once. Then the matter will be settled and there will be no going back. That is the reverse of what Ministers have provided for the proponents of regional assemblies. They will be able to go on ad infinitum and hold referendums every five years. It is therefore entirely appropriate to accept amendment No. 12 and to make the figure 10 years. In Committee, I argued for 20 years—a generation—but I will accept my hon. Friend's reasonable compromise of 10 years.

Andrew Turner (Conservative, Isle of Wight)

I want to make two points. The first is to admit that I am a little confused by the speech of the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey). The question is, who are the turkeys? He asserted, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), that the description of turkeys voting for Christmas was a slur on the electorate in a given region. I do not think that it was a slur. The epithet "turkeys" was addressed not to the electors in the region, but to the members of the putative assembly.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

indicated assent.

Desmond Swayne (Conservative, New Forest West)

indicated assent.

Andrew Turner (Conservative, Isle of Wight)

My hon. Friends nod in agreement, so we have got that clear. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton was slightly wrong.

My second point was about the threshold that the electors—not the turkeys—would have to achieve under the new clause to enable a second or recall referendum to take place. I disagree with the assertion of my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), because I have experience of petitions being obtained for a whole range of purposes.

Before 1997, I was pleased to assist schools with the complex but invigorating process of achieving grant-maintained status. It was necessary for 20 per cent. of the parents of the pupils registered at a school to sign a petition for a referendum, which was conducted by postal ballot, to take place. A huge number of parents from almost 2,000 schools were willing to sign a petition. They signed up in such numbers that referendums were called. It is not difficult to reach a threshold of 20 per cent., or one that is even higher than that.

I cite the case of the west Wight ambulance or the Tennyson ambulance, as it is called. It was given to the area by the widow of Alfred Lord Tennyson, who was a distinguished resident of the west Wight. The ambulance serves the area covered by the parishes of Freshwater and Totland, the town of Yarmouth and the parish of Brighstone in my constituency. That area has a population of about 8,000. However, when the Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS trust proposed to redeploy the Tennyson ambulance, I received a copy of a petition signed by 4,000 electors—such was the level of interest in the deployment of a single ambulance. Imagine the level of interest that there would be in the deployment of the many millions of pounds that Labour Members wish to tear out of the grip of electors and hand over to the bogus assemblies. As it would not be difficult to achieve a 50 or 20 per cent. threshold, it is reasonable to propose a 5 per cent. threshold, and my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge is to be commended for that.

My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West also referred to people power. Putting power into the hands of the electors is the best way to determine such issues. It is not right to call the electors turkeys. I challenge the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton to tell me when a regional or national Assembly has voted for its own dissolution. If he can provide a substantial example of that, I might be forced to conclude that new clause 2 does not justify my support, but I do not believe that such an example exists.

I want to echo one or two remarks that my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) made on the frequency of referendums. The referendums will be deeply unsettling. They will entail the abolition of a tier of local government and redeployment of a huge number of local government staff and officers. That will make recruitment to those posts difficult. It is better to enable local government to operate in a stable environment—indeed, that is the objective of the Minister for Local Government and the Regions—but knowing that the sword of Damocles hangs over the assemblies every five years does not contribute to stability.

Chris Leslie (Labour, Shipley)

Thank goodness the Conservatives objected to the programme motion. They clearly wanted to spend much more time debating the main issues. It is a shame that only two of their Back Benchers are in the Chamber. Perhaps they will flood in later for other groups of amendments.

The Conservatives are using new clause 2 to introduce the right for 5 per cent. of the electorate to sign a petition to requisition a further referendum on the establishment of an assembly once it is up and running. That would be a recipe for uncertainty and extremely disruptive to the operation of an assembly. Elected regional assemblies will be strategic and focus on the long term so they need certainty. What would happen if such a petition was successful, a further referendum was requisitioned and people voted to abolish the assembly? New clause 2 gives no idea of who would take on the assembly's responsibilities. Would they return to Whitehall?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The reason for that is that nowhere in the Bill is there anything about what the assembly's responsibilities might be. The Government are inviting people to vote blind in a referendum for elected regional assemblies. We will have to wait a long time before we see the legislation that sets out their powers.

Chris Leslie (Labour, Shipley)

Well, goodness gracious me, if the hon. Gentleman has not noticed the voluminous White Paper "Your Region, Your Choice", which describes in great detail the roles, functions and activities of elected regional assemblies, he may need to do a bit more research.

A 5 per cent. threshold to trigger a further referendum would be unprecedented in our constitution. No other body has a 5 per cent. threshold for a re-ballot. My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight) asked the interesting question of whether the Conservatives would apply it to the Greater London Authority. The same could be said of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. [Interruption.] The Conservatives, including one of their Front-Bench spokesmen, the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), who is temporarily on the Back Benches, suggested that that was not within the Bill's scope, but I think that they were frightened to answer the question. If they believe that people should be able to challenge a decision to devolve powers and create an assembly or Parliament as a right, they should say whether that would apply to all parts of our country. I am surprised that they could not face up to that.

A 5 per cent. minority being able persistently, vexaciously and repetitiously to frustrate the settled will of the majority of people in a region would be not only a distraction but extremely costly and wasteful. There would be the costs of the referendums and of demolishing an elected regional assembly once it had been set up.

Andrew Turner (Conservative, Isle of Wight)

The Minister suggests that a 5 per cent. minority is unsuitable to cause a recalled referendum. What level of interest does he regard suitable to cause an initial referendum?

Chris Leslie (Labour, Shipley)

That is also set out in the White Paper. We are trying to give people the opportunity to make a choice. We are not talking about the establishment of an assembly, but simply about whether there should be a referendum to establish one. The hon. Gentleman opposes giving people a choice and letting them express their will in a referendum.

It is most unfortunate, but it is important to say that I agree with the suggestion of the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) that the electorate have the perfect capacity to elect people to run these assemblies and then say what those assemblies should be doing. The new clause is not necessary because people would have every opportunity both to consider the merits of an assembly in the initial referendum and to shape that assembly every four years in elections to it.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

Will it be the Government's intention when they introduce a Bill on the powers and functions of regional assemblies to create a constitution for them to allow an elected party to such an assembly to dissolve it?

Chris Leslie (Labour, Shipley)

Obviously, we shall have to look at that nearer the time, but I imagine that most Members would accept that Parliament is perfectly capable of making a judgment on the continuity issues of any assembly. I believe that that deals adequately with the point raised by hon. Members who want to consider the question of dissolving an assembly.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I do not want to fight the battles of the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) for him, but this is an important point because it drives a coach and horses through what the Minister is saying. Will an elected regional assembly have the power to dissolve itself or not?

Chris Leslie (Labour, Shipley)

Parliament decides to set up devolved authorities and assemblies, so that will be a matter for Parliament.

I am curious about the Conservatives' claim that once an elected regional assembly is established, voters should have the opportunity to change their minds whenever they want. However, amendment No. 12 would deny voters in a region without an assembly the chance to change their minds for 10 years. They want to impose a minimum 10-year gap from the date of a no vote to when any subsequent referendum can be held in the same region. That is completely inconsistent and unfair.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

If the Minister is prepared to agree on behalf of the Government to accept the 10-year provision in clause 5, I would certainly be willing to withdraw new clause 2 and retable it in the Lords to include a 10-year lockout.

Chris Leslie (Labour, Shipley)

The hon. Gentleman brings me to my next point: precisely why a 10-year gap is wrong and why we oppose the measure.

Desmond Swayne (Conservative, New Forest West)

Tease!

Chris Leslie (Labour, Shipley)

I should like to tease the hon. Gentleman over what he said in Committee. It was interesting that he argued for a 20-year gap, saying that he wanted to distance himself from the CBI suggestion of a 10-year gap. He said:

"I am not so concerned about the limit of 10 years that the CBI suggested. I think that our amendment suggesting a limit of 20 years is about right."

When asked by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) whether he actively disagreed with the CBI, the hon. Gentleman said:

"I do in this case. I think that the period should be a generation",

and he repeated that today.

The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) did not weigh in to support his hon. Friend, as he did in Committee, when he said:

"The CBI is looking at these matters from the narrow perspective of business . . . However, it cannot be a concluding perspective".—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 3 December 2002; c. 26-30.]

The fact that the Conservatives have changed their mind and accepted the 10-year gap in the space of just one month proves my point. People can change their minds in less than 10 or 20 years. The Government's five-year interval strikes the right balance between a reasonable opportunity for people to change their minds and the avoidance of uncertainty and the repeat costs of a referendum. A five-year gap is a minimum—the exact period will depend on the soundings of opinion taken by the Secretary of State—and there is not a requirement to hold referendums in a five-year cycle. The Government have not plucked that five-year figure from the air. As Members will know, five years is the maximum interval between general elections and is also the standard interval for European parliamentary elections. I believe that five years is the right interval. I hope that Opposition Members will not persist with their new clause and amendment and I urge them to withdraw them.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The Minister is skating on extremely thin ice. In the space of about two minutes, he said that people can change their minds and should have the opportunity of repeat referendums within a period of no more than five years to try to create an elected regional assembly, but then set his face firmly against the idea that, having voted for elected regional assemblies, people may change their mind and wish to do away with them. In response to a question from the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), he made it clear that elected regional assemblies will not have, as the hon. Gentleman would like, the power to abolish themselves. Electors electing those assemblies will not have the UK Independence party option referred to earlier of electing members committed to the abolition of the assembly.

The Minister's position is therefore inconsistent. He put administrative convenience above democracy and displayed breathtaking arrogance, as he said that it is all right for Ministers to have the disruptive power to impose referendum after referendum until they achieve their objective, then a ratchet operates and things can never go back to the way they were before. However, he said that it is not all right for the people the have the power through democratic action to call a referendum and reconsider a decision. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends and, I hope, all other right-minded, right-thinking Members to support me in pressing the new clause to a division.

New Clause 3 — Pre-Referendum

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 4—Certification prior to referendum—

'.(1) Before making an order under section 1(1), the Secretary of State shall satisfy himself that, during the period of twelve months prior to the laying of the order, neither the Regional Chamber nor the Regional Development Agency within the region to be specified in the order have carried out any activities which they do not have power to carry out and which are intended to influence the outcome of such a referendum.

(2) The Secretary of State shall, prior to making an order under section 1(1) and after satisfying himself in accordance with subsection (1), issue a certificate confirming that he is so satisfied.'.

New clause 6—Definition of Regions—

'(1) The Secretary of State may by order define regions for the purposes of this Act.

(2) In exercising his power under subsection (1) the Secretary of State shall define Cornwall as a region.

(3) An order under this section shall be subject to affirmative resolutions of both Houses of Parliament.'.

New clause 8—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 (except London) 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 (except London) 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, in so far as is not incompatible with (ii) below, of approximately equal population size; and

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

(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.

(3) For the purposes of subsection 1 paragraphs (a) and (b), the Secretary of State shall set out a timetable for the giving of responses to him.'.

Amendment No. 2, in page 1, line 8 [Clause 1], at end insert—

'(2A) No order may be made under subsection 1 unless a referendum has been held pursuant to section (pre-Referendum) and the Secretary of State has considered the result of the referendum and determined on the basis of it that sufficient interest exists in the creation of elected regional assemblies.'.

Amendment No. 26, in page 1, line 13 [Clause 1], leave out 'made recommendations' and insert

'been directed to prepare to carry out a review'.

Government amendment No. 4.

Amendment No. 15, in page 13, line 3, leave out clause 26.

Amendment No. 3, in page 13, line 4 [Clause 26], leave out from first 'region' to end of line 5 and insert

'is as defined in an order made under section (Regional Boundaries)'.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Clause 1 grants the Secretary of State the power to call referendums in specific regions. The amendments deal with the pre-conditions for them.

The Government are going off at half-cock. They are so anxious to proceed that they are building on sand. If they want regional devolution and elected regional assemblies, they should start by sorting out the regions. They should then ascertain whether there is a genuine appetite for the regional assembly solution throughout England, including for the local government reorganisation that they have linked inextricably to elected regional assemblies. The third tick in the box before embarking on the devolution road is ensuring that no hanky panky is happening in the regions and that no existing bodies are doing things that perhaps they should not.

New clause 8 is the key to the group. Two big issues have dominated our debates about the Bill in Committee and on the Floor of the House. First, the Government have decreed that local government reorganisation is a necessary concomitant of elected regional assemblies. New clause 3 covers that. Secondly, we must consider the shape of the regions. The Government are accused of focusing on only one or two regions and not proposing a genuine all-England solution. Their proposals thus ignore the fact that many English regions lack coherence and credibility for the purpose that the Government support.

Most regions simply do not stack up.

The areas of the Government offices for the regions, which the Government are now proposing to follow, were created for a completely different purpose, namely, administrative convenience and the delivery of administrative government throughout England. I understand that their origin goes back further than that, because the boundaries on which they are based were originally derived from the wartime division of Britain into direction of production regions for food and agricultural planning purposes. That is quite different from the matter now before us. They were never intended to be coherent democratic units. They have been given spurious credibility by being used as the basis for the regional development agency boundaries, but they were never intended to be democratic geographical units.

There are huge disparities of geography, economic strength and population between the different regions. The north-east region, for example, has a population of 2.5 million, compared with the south-east region's 8 million, which is more than three times as many. The north-east has a gross domestic product of £26 billion, against some £132 billion in the south-east, which is more than five times as much. The north-east region is the smallest, geographically, with 8,500 sq km, while the south-west's proposed region has a superficial area of 23,000 sq km. The north-east has 30 parliamentary constituencies, compared with the 83 that the south-east actually has, and the 96 that it would have if the distribution of parliamentary seats were proportional to population.

So the north-east is by far the smallest region—I do not say that in a pejorative sense—on every criterion, yet the whole structure builds around it. It will almost undoubtedly be the first to go for a referendum, and most hon. Members agree that it is the most likely to agree to an elected regional assembly. Perhaps this is no coincidence. The smaller the region, the greater the chance of a coherent identity in that region—we shall no doubt hear later from the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George), who is not in his place at the moment, about the claims of Cornwall to be an identifiable region—but the Government have set their face firmly against any attempt to create real, meaningful regions.

During the course of our deliberations on the Bill, we have heard from Members on both sides of the House that people in north Shropshire do not regard themselves as part of the west midlands, that Oxford does not have very much in common with Dover, and that south Essex has an entirely different focus from Cambridge or the north Norfolk coast, yet they find themselves in the same region. The south-west region consists of very disparate entities and communities that do not see themselves as a region at all. In our last debate on the Floor of the House, the hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) referred to the north-west region as "the fictional north-west". All these regions have a common theme: they have no natural centre, no natural focus and no coherent sense of identity.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is totally wrong to talk about the north-west having a fictional identity, when polls consistently show people in the region identifying very strongly with the north-west as a whole? Is he aware that a recent poll conducted by the north-west constitutional convention found that more than 73 per cent. of people in Merseyside wanted a directly elected north-west assembly?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

It is not for me to intrude on the private grief on the Labour Back Benches. The words "fictional north-west" were not mine; they were uttered by the hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East—another Merseyside Member. I think that this is something that the Merseyside contingent has to sort out for itself, and I shall not contribute further to that particular bit of in-fighting.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley North and Sefton East)

It may surprise the hon. Gentleman that I shall not indulge in a debate with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) at this point. Does he believe that it would be possible, within the compass of new clause 3, to establish systems of city-wide government? If so, does he think that that would be a worthy objective?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I was about to mention city government. This is exactly the point that we are trying to make. If a settlement of the English question is to be durable, and if the decentralisation of power in England is to work, it has to start from the bottom up. It has to build on units with which people have an affinity, and with which they can identify. The purpose of new clause 3 is to put in place a consultation process, so that people can say to the Government, "It may take an extra year, but we simply cannot use these Government office regions that were created for a completely different purpose and are completely wrong for this democratic purpose, just for the sake of saving a few months." We must start at the beginning; I agree with the hon. Gentleman.

I was about to say that I know many Manchester and Liverpool Members are interested in the concept of city government as another way of approaching the decentralisation of government in England, and that is a perfectly legitimate aspiration. Even among supporters of regional decentralisation, however, there is no agreement.

I was looking—as one does—at the website of the hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland) at the time of the last general election. On that Labour party-liveried website, he extols the virtues of something called the northern region to his constituents. He says:

"The Northern region would include the counties of Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Durham and Cleveland; and, if the people of Cumbria wish it, Cumbria".

Interestingly, perhaps intriguingly, that is not envisaged in the Government's proposals, which illustrates one of the problems that they face.

On his four-page website on a regional assembly for the north, the hon. Member for Tyne Bridge quotes the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer), who was then a Minister, as saying:

"The Government intend to bring forward legislation that will enable the electorate within the regions to determine whether they want an elected assembly."

The hon. Gentleman quotes his hon. Friend as supporting the Government's proposals. We see now, however, that the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley has serious reservations, not about the principle of regional devolution but about the route that the Government have chosen, and specifically about the choice and use of the old offices of the regions boundaries.

Many Labour party members who supported the abstract notion of regional devolution had no idea at the time that they were signing up to devolution to the existing administrative regions. It is clear from the White Paper—I confirm to the Under-Secretary of State that I have studied it assiduously—that the Government envisage the offices of the regions working, as the White Paper puts it, hand in hand with the elected regional assemblies. They see an argument for coterminous boundaries. That means, of course, a beefed-up Government office of the regions standing over the elected regional assembly, ensuring that what it does complies with the Government's requirements. It means, in effect, a prefect system.

Joyce Quin (Labour, Gateshead East and Washington West)

Having followed the debate in the Labour party, I suspect, more closely and for longer than the hon. Gentleman, let me tell him that for a long time the regions covered by the Government office have commanded a wide spread of agreement in the party. They are thought to be the appropriate units on which to build regional government. Regions are not prisons, however. It is perfectly possible for the north-east to co-operate with the north-west or with Yorkshire and Humberside. Rather than always seeing such arrangements as confining, the hon. Gentleman should perceive that this is a new type of politics enabling partnerships to be forged.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The right hon. Lady has underlined the fact that the consensus that existed in the Labour party has started to break down as the details have become clear.

Of course regions are not prisons. What I am suggesting is that if they are to be robust and durable, they must be built on firm foundations. I plead with the right hon. Lady and some of her colleagues from the north-east to understand this. I think they genuinely find it difficult to understand the objection of Members from regions such as the south-east and east of England, which make no sense at all. We understand that their region is probably the most coherent and has the strongest sense of identity. It is also the smallest. Why should we in the south-west, the east and the south-east face the Government's insistence on regions four times the size of the hon. Lady's, with no sense of cultural identity, no coherence and no economic, geographic or historical logic? Why can we not have an input in the process of defining the regions in which we will live and by which we will be administered?

Kevan Jones (Labour, North Durham)

Is not the main point about this Bill that it will give the people in those regions the option of whether they want regional government? Why is the Conservative party afraid of giving people a say in how their regions are governed?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I go back to the website of the hon. Member for Tyne Bridge. The problem is that, if this is to be a durable solution, it must be a solution for all of England, not just part of England. The hon. Member for Tyne Bridge, perhaps sticking his neck out rather a long way, says on his website with the Labour party masthead on it:

"English Regional Government is the answer to the 'West Lothian Question'. It will promote innovation and variety in the governance of our country."

In other words, it will deal with the post-UK settlement for England. If it is going to do that, it must deal with it for all of England. It must not be seen as a sectional solution that addresses the agenda only of certain parts of the country.

Scotland is a nation. No one could doubt that. London is a city. No one could doubt that, but the south-east region, my region, is nothing. No one feels allegiance to it. No one identifies themselves as a citizen of south-east England. The overwhelming majority of people would not be able to define it, unlike the constituent counties.

If a geographical region called London and the south-east were created, perhaps that would have a certain coherence and economic and geographical logic, but it would underline the problem. It would be so overwhelmingly the largest region in the country in terms of population, gross domestic product and geographical area that it would make the system unworkable. Therein lies the problem: the messy, inconvenient fact that England cannot be divided neatly into regions that have any meaning for their people unless the Government are prepared to contemplate a significantly larger number of significantly smaller—in some cases—regions.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

The hon. Gentleman is making extremely valid points that imply that the Conservatives might be in favour of devolution. On the assumption that they might be, does he agree that the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) would be right if the Government gave the people a genuine vote on regions that exist, rather than on synthetic regions that do not and that are therefore destined to fail? The Government will succeed in their plan to establish regional government if they accept the type of flexibility that the hon. Gentleman recommends.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

That is precisely my point. I make no bones about it. We shall vote against the Bill on Third Reading, but the purpose of Report is to try to improve the Bill. Unless the Minister deals with this issue, he will not produce a workable solution for all of England. It will be a solution that may or may not work in some of the regions—the north-east is the obvious one in people's minds—but it will not work in the south-east region or the east of England region; I do not think that even the Minister for a moment believes that it will. The hon. Gentleman is right.

The Minister will never create a durable solution that is based on meaningless lines drawn on maps in Whitehall, with as much relevance to the situation on the ground as the lines drawn by colonial 19th century treaty makers on a map of Africa. In unitary areas, the Government propose that regional government will necessarily involve the introduction of another tier of government. In existing two-tier areas, elected regional assemblies will necessarily involve the loss of the historic and much-identified-with counties. Many people will reject that model of regional devolution for a variety of reasons, but the main reason, and the reason why resistance is likely to be least strong in the north-east and greatest in the south-east and east of England, is that people do not identify with the regions that the Government are putting them into.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

The hon. Gentleman says that, by necessity, unitarisation would mean the loss of shire counties, which people identify with. I agree that people identify with the shire county, for example, of Dorset, which I represent, and speaking personally, if there were a unitary structure in my area, I would favour the retention of Dorset as the unitary authority, with the abolition of districts. Nothing has been said by the Government that militates against that.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The hon. Gentleman would therefore move the point of government further away from the local community.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again and allowing me to expand on what I said. I should like reinvigorated and re-empowered parish and town councils to represent communities in a unitary county. I am pleased that the Department is giving parish councils more power, but I should like that to be extended.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I look forward to the hon. Gentleman's elaboration of his thoughts for the counties with smaller populations when he makes his contribution to the debate. The Minister has been coy about admitting it, but for the larger and more populous counties a unitary option is unlikely to be appropriate for reasons of sheer size.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

The hon. Gentleman is right. My concern is that it is not in the Government's gift to promise unitary counties, although that may be desirable in certain circumstances. The Government are prejudging the outcome and are putting the cart before the horse.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

indicated assent.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The Minister nods, but the Bill means that that matter is in the Government's gift. The boundary committee will make a recommendation, but the Bill as drafted means that the Secretary of State will be able to implement that in whole or in part, as he thinks fit.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that we have had frequent exchanges on this matter. The boundary committee will be able to resolve the appropriate and best unitary structure, based on counties or districts, or combinations of districts. The recommendation will be for the boundary committee to make. Technically, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government will implement the recommendation, but the independent boundary committee will make the decision. That must be right.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I hoped that the Minister was rising to accept the amendment that he rejected in Committee, which would have required the Secretary of State to implement the recommendations of the boundary committee in full, if an elected assembly were established in a region. However, that is not what the right hon. Gentleman is doing. He has retained the discretion to implement the recommendations, or not, and to do so in full or in part. That provision is contained in the Bill.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I am sorry to go through this again, but the Committee dealt with this matter in detail. The hon. Gentleman has taken an intelligent and assiduous interest in the matter, and I thought that he would appreciate that the process is modelled entirely on the existing legislation passed by the previous Conservative Government. The existing procedures mean that the Government implement recommendations made by an independent body—in this case, because the structures have changed, that body is the boundary committee.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I had not realised that the Government had imposed a self-denying ordinance to the effect that they would only introduce legislation that exactly mirrored what the previous Conservative had done.

Clause 15(2) states:

"The Secretary of State my by order give effect to all or any of the recommendations of the Boundary Committee for England".

That looks to me like a clear ministerial discretion to implement, or not to implement.

If the Minister wants the proposed structure to work, he must create regions with which people can identify. The Opposition will vote against the Bill on Third Reading, but we are trying to improve the Bill. If the Minister wants it to work, a necessary precondition is that people identify with the regions—all of them in England, not just one or two—that he is trying to build on.

In Standing Committee, the Minister said:

"We propose that boundaries for elected regional assemblies should mirror the existing administrative boundaries used by Government offices . . . We believe that those regions reflect a logic in terms of population, geography, economic weight and, in many cases, cultural identity."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 12 December 2002; c. 227.]

I have enough respect for the Minister not to think that he believes that for one minute. It was not sensible of him to say that: to use his term, it is clearly "guff". If the Government cannot trust the people, they should at least consult them. New clause 8 would require proposals to be gathered from representative bodies, business and professional organisations, trades unions, Churches, local authorities and political parties. It would then require the boundary committee to comment on those proposals and to make recommendations to the Secretary of State, having regard to the objectives that regions should be of approximately equal size, where possible, and that the identities and interests of local communities should be respected.

Joyce Quin (Labour, Gateshead East and Washington West)

rose—

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

I shall not give way, because I am conscious that we are rapidly running out of time and that many other hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate.

I recognise that there is a tension between size and cultural identity, but it is not irresolvable. The second step introduced by new clause 3 is that regions defined under new clause 8, with a draft order produced, should then be put out to consultation with the people in an England-wide referendum. And before the Minister picks me up on it, that referendum includes London, and why not? This is supposed to be an England-wide solution.

The first step is that we ask people to become involved in defining what the boundaries of the region should be. The second is that we put in a referendum to the people of England essentially three questions: "Do you support the proposals for the creation of regions in England, as proposed by the Secretary of State?"—in other words, the regional boundaries that are proposed; "Do you support the idea of referendums for elected regional assemblies in those boundaries in areas where there is sufficient interest?"; and, as a separate question, "Do you support the idea of reorganising local government in those areas that go for elected regional assemblies?"—in other words, an element of decoupling of those questions.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

If for example, with regard to the first question, people vote for the creation of regions, but on the second question they vote against the reorganisation of local government, is the hon. Gentleman tacitly suggesting that the Conservatives would then support, responding to the people, a four-tier structure?

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

If the hon. Gentleman had contained himself for a moment he would have heard me say that if there is a strong yes vote on the first two questions and a strong no vote on the third question, the Government will have to think very hard about their compulsory linking of unitarisation with elected regional assemblies. It is a messy business, but that is democracy. There is a need for a wide test of opinion on all three questions.

The Government try to insist that questions can be put on a strictly regional basis, but that is not correct. Post the United Kingdom devolution settlement, post the London government settlement, there is a need for an English settlement, which has to work for all of England. A solution that appeals perhaps only to one or two regions, or one that is built upon the sand of incoherent and unloved artificial regions, is not such a solution. New clause 3 gives a proper opportunity to test opinion England wide. It is more important to get it right than to get it quickly.

I shall very briefly touch on the other new clauses and amendments.

New clause 4 has been tabled specifically to allow an opportunity to discuss issues that were raised in previous debates about whether matters that are not proper are currently going on, in particular in relation to the north-west regional chamber. I shall leave it to other hon. Members, perhaps from that part of the country, to address that issue. The Minister was asked to look into the matter, and he says that he has. This morning he sent out copies of letters that he has sent to the relevant people in the north-west region reminding them of their obligations. But I had hoped to hear from the Minister today whether he had made any investigation of whether any of the matters that have already occurred are improper and represent spending that is not properly authorised for that purpose. New clause 4 would require the Secretary of State to satisfy himself that there is no improper behaviour going on within the regional structure before a referendum can be called.

New clause 6 was tabled by the Liberal Democrats. I regard it as the economy version of new clause 8. Having saved their money, or their drafting time, with the economy version of the new clause, they then splashed out on the bolt-on added extra of the Cornwall option. There is no provision for consultation. There is no process. There is just an order-making power for the Secretary of State. The only place that is protected is Cornwall, which would then on the face of the Bill be defined as a region. No doubt the hon. Member for St. Ives will tell us why that is so.

Amendment No. 2 provides that there shall be no regional referendum under clause 1 unless the England-wide referendum under new clause 3 has been held, and of course no England-wide referendum under new clause 3 can be held until the regional boundary-setting process under new clause 8 has been gone for.

That would take a little longer, but it would ensure that what the Government hope to build is at least built on durable foundations.

I must touch on amendment No. 26, tabled by the Liberal Democrats, before I finish. Clause 12 provides for a local government review, and the Government's intention is to require an all-unitary solution in areas that opt for elected regional assemblies. The Government's clearly stated intention is to publish the recommendations of that local government review before a referendum takes place, so that electors will be fully aware of the intended reorganisation of local government in their areas.

Amendment No. 26 quite shamefully seeks to postpone the review until after the referendum. The precondition that requires a review under clause 12 to have taken place would be replaced by a requirement only for the Secretary of State to have instructed the boundary committee to be prepared for that review.

So the Liberal Democrats, whose rhetoric is about transparency in government, have demonstrated by that amendment that the reality is that, when the truth will hurt their cause, they want to conceal it and suppress the boundary review process until after the referendum has taken place. That is typically inconsistent because new clause 7—also tabled by the Liberal Democrats—addresses what we call the pig-in-the-poke problem by deferring the implementation of the legislation until the power of elected regional assemblies has been set down in statute. [Interrupted]

I hope that I did not hear the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) say that I was deliberately misleading the House. Perhaps he would like to stand up and say that. If he reads amendment No. 26 very carefully, he will find out precisely what it does: it seeks to postpone the holding of the local government boundary committee review until after the referendum, so that electors who vote in the referendum will not know the changes that the boundary committee will propose to local government in their area when they vote. They will have been deceived.

I shall soon conclude my remarks because of the pressure of time. This group of amendments addresses some of the most serious weaknesses in the Bill. It proposes consultation on the appropriate definition of regions, and it provides for a referendum when the division of England into regions is known, and for a test of England-wide public opinion. It would introduce a proper test of appetite for an imposed local government reorganisation. I strongly recommend to the House the amendments and new clauses that stand in the name of my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself.

Graham Stringer (Labour, Manchester, Blackley)

I should like to make one thing clear in response to the speech made by the Conservative spokesman. I voted for the Bill on Second Reading because of the Labour party manifesto commitment to give people a choice about whether or not they wanted elected regional assemblies. I have become persuaded that the detail of the Bill will not deliver what it is supposed to deliver, so it would be wrong to deny people the right to vote against having an assembly.

If the Deputy Prime Minister reaches the judgment that people in the north-west have sufficient interest and they are given the right to participate in a referendum, I hope to persuade them to vote against having an assembly. The reason for that is that this paving Bill has been wrapped up by those who support it with the view that it will somehow solve the West Lothian problem, that it will tackle regional disparities and that it will deal with the democratic deficit that those of us who live in the regions believe exists. We do not have enough say in many of the public bodies that deliver our services.

I came to believe, as we considered the Bill clause by clause in Committee, that it will not do what was outlined in the White Paper. I also do not believe the argument that there is a great deal of desire for it in my part of the world, the north-west. I share the view that the north-west is a recent fiction of the television companies. We can solve the conundrum that was posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman), who rightly commented that MORI polls and surveys conducted by the BBC give different results from those conducted by Granada. If people are asked whether they want more democracy and more say in things, by and large they say yes. That is especially so if one puts it in the context of the years of Conservative Government during which people in the north-east, the north-west and Yorkshire—indeed, most of the regions—were deeply resentful. People will then say, "Yes, we want less of that and more control over our own lives." To put it in a different context—this would be true in the case of Manchester or Liverpool—if people are asked whether they want more bureaucracy, more politicians, elected regional assemblies whose members represent constituencies of a quarter of a million people, or a loss of power from local authorities, they give a completely different answer.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

Does my hon. Friend accept that the proposals in the Bill are not about removing powers from local authorities, but about democratising the powers that exist in an unelected manner in the regions? In particular, they deal with accountability for regional development agencies, housing investment, heritage, sports and cultural funding, and many other areas in which regional decisions are taken on a north-west basis without elected accountability.

Graham Stringer (Labour, Manchester, Blackley)

The answer to that depends on one's historical understanding of where the money that funds the regional development agencies comes from. Much of the money that used to be in the urban programme was given to the Housing Corporation and to English Partnerships and has now appeared in the regional development agencies. We are dealing with a historical process that has taken resources from the local level and put them much further up. I do not accept the basis of my hon. Friend's position.

My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, like my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside, has a long history of supporting regional government. There is a debate to be had, and we are having it. It is certainly necessary to take some control away from the centre and to democratise many public services. However, I am deeply suspicious, given our debates in Committee and on Second Reading, because the Bill proposes unique mechanisms that, as far as I am aware, do not exist anywhere else. When the Government rightly proposed that city and district councils should have the right to decide whether they wanted an elected mayor, the electorate were given the right to campaign and petition for a referendum on that. In other instances of changes in the democratic structures, the Government have stipulated the right way to do it and imposed it. I may be wrong—one's knowledge is not always complete in such matters—but I cannot think of a precedent whereby the decision on whether to have a referendum about a regional assembly is dependent on the subjective judgment of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. When challenged in Committee, my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench were unable to give any indication of what the subjective opinion of the Deputy Prime Minister would be when he came to consider whether there was indeed sufficient interest.

When we looked at the document that was being sent out to various bodies to get information from them, we noticed that question 7 asked respondents to give not only their own subjective impression but their subjective impression of whether other people were interested. As a basis for changing the structure and seeing whether there is an interest, that is entering the land of fantasy. As I said in Committee, given my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister's commitment to this matter, the only real test that the Government will use is whether, in a particular circumstance, that referendum will be winnable.

Kevan Jones (Labour, North Durham)

I understand my hon. Friend's position, and I understand that some people in all regions, including the north-east, are vehemently against elected regional assemblies. But is it not a fact that the Bill will give local people the say in whether they want a regional assembly? It will not be down to the Deputy Prime Minister, or any Minister. It will be down to the people. What is he afraid of in relation to people being given a choice about whether they want an elected regional assembly?

Graham Stringer (Labour, Manchester, Blackley)

My hon. Friend has misunderstood what I was saying and what is in the Bill. People in the north-east and the north-west will not be given the right to say whether they want a regional assembly if my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister does not think they are interested enough. The Deputy Prime Minister will have the right to say whether they have that right. My point was simply that the people of the north-east or the north-west should be able to petition to have that right to vote. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree with me on that point.

The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) said that it was a debate in Committee that led him to present new clause 4. That is what has led to my suspicion that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister wants elected regional assemblies. We have a regional assembly: should that body funded by the Government and by local authorities be allowed to spend that public money to campaign and work for what is clearly a political end and a matter of political dispute between the parties and within the parties?

My right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and the Regions has sent a letter to me and other members of the Committee saying that he has reiterated the legal position to those bodies: unless they are spending private sector money, they cannot campaign on those issues. I shall read just two sentences from the letter printed in the Manchester Evening News on 6 December 2002 from the chief executive of the north-west regional assembly. He said that

"it is essential for the future prosperity of Manchester and the whole of the north west that the region has the chance to elect its own regional assembly."

Some of my hon. Friends will agree with that, but it is clearly a political campaigning statement. The same applies to the following:

"The north west needs to be one of the first regions to hold a referendum and gain our regional voice."

That is something that one hears within the Labour party, but it is not the role of the chief executive of the north-west regional assembly to voice that. Presenting the information is one thing; campaigning is another. I do not know whether private funds have been given to the chief executive to use facilities to put that out in his name and the north-west regional assembly's name. I hope, however, that my right hon. Friend is sufficiently concerned to find out whether Government or public sector money has been used for campaigning.

Ministers are convinced that the north-east and the north-west should have elected regional assemblies. I think that there are other political priorities. It was a mistake for Ministers, in their Labour party capacity, to say that resources from the Labour party office should be devoted to winning this campaign. I would not want to overestimate the problem, but there is a threat from the British National party in parts of Lancashire. Our campaigning efforts would be better directed at that.

I shall conclude my remarks, as I know that many other Members wish to speak. The need for devolution exists but, unfortunately, the mechanisms in the Bill will not lead to its achievement.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

It is right that the House should focus on the two key issues: the definitions and boundaries of the regions and the fact that the local government reviews, which the Government seek to link with the referendums on the regions, should be decoupled from them. People outside the House recognise that the Bill requires amendment in both regards.Liberal Democrats have led the opposition on the two issues from the start, and I am pleased that the Conservatives have realised, after the proceedings in Committee, that they are the two key issues and have woken up to that fact. Although the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) took 30 minutes to make his points, I am delighted that he has recognised that the Liberal Democrats' agenda for opposition to the Bill is the right one.

Decoupling the local government review from the referendums is one of the key issues, and the hon. Gentleman said that Liberal Democrat amendment No. 26, which would achieve that aim, is wrong and would not allow democracy to prevail. However, it has been our policy for a long time—we have a policy; the Conservatives do not—that the regional assemblies should decide the review of local government in their region. That is the democratic way. We have tabled amendments and, although some of them have not been selected, the hon. Gentleman can read the amendment paper and see them for himself. The fact that he dealt with the Liberal Democrat case by ignoring those amendments does him no credit.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

The hon. Gentleman hogged enough time, so I will not give way to him on this point.With your leave, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will seek to divide the House on amendment No. 26 because it is so important.

Joyce Quin (Labour, Gateshead East and Washington West)

I, too, have expressed my support all along for decoupling. Although I support the idea behind the hon. Gentleman's amendment, I do not believe that it is necessary for the regional assembly then to address the issue. Regional government and local government are entirely separate and I regret the fact that there is confusion between the two in the Bill. I am keen for there to be no confusion, so I rather regret the fact that the hon. Gentleman has formulated his amendment as he has.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

I accept the right hon. Lady's point. It is not the ideal formulation, and the amendments that we tabled in Committee did not take this form. However, we are trying to reach a compromise with the Government. If they are worried, we have tried to make it clear that the referendum could assure the people that the regional assemblies would consider their concerns about there being too many authorities below the regional level. If the Government had accepted the principle in the amendments that were unfortunately not selected, they would have enabled that process to take place.

I accept that the current amendment is a compromise, but I hope that the Government will accept it, as it would help the referendums to be won. If we could argue to the people who are concerned about too many tiers of government that the regional assembly would, after it was elected, consider that point without prejudging the issue, some of those understandable concerns might be allayed. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) feels strongly about that point, as do many of my right hon. and hon. Friends. They want people to have the choice about the structure of local government in their regions. They want the regional assemblies to give them that choice.

Gary Streeter (Conservative, South West Devon)

The hon. Gentleman has completely misunderstood the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) to whom he will not now give way. We are not at all in favour of allowing elected regional assemblies to decide on the local government review. We have suggested an additional question so that the voters themselves can have their say. That is very different from the hon. Gentleman's proposal.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

I think that the hon. Gentleman misunderstands me. We want the regional assemblies to consider the proposals made by the boundary committee for England and to put them before the people so that they can vote on them. So the regional assembly would consider them, which is a more devolved approach, and the people would have a choice.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

No, I want to make progress.

It is vital to decouple the two issues. I hope that the other place will take that seriously and Members of all parties will co-operate to ensure that the decoupling works. It makes sense in terms not only of democracy, but of ensuring that the agenda goes ahead.

The second key issue is regional boundaries. New clauses 8 and 6 and amendment No. 15 deal with that in different ways. None of them is perfect, but they offer options. If the Minister is convinced by our argument, I hope that he accepts one of them, although my guess is that he will not. An important issue is at stake, as I think the Minister knows in his heart of hearts. Some regions, such as the north-east, the north-west and Yorkshire and Humber, will have boundaries that are accepted in general. There may be a few complaints about them, as we heard from one or two hon. Members in Committee and today, but that is the case in general for those three regions. However, in other parts of the country there is much debate and concern about the regional boundaries established by the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998, to which the Bill relates.

As the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge said, we should not accept some regions, such as the south-east. They are far too large. People do not identify with them and the boundaries need to be reviewed. I think that that is the case for all the regions except the three that I identified.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

My hon. Friend says that, in his heart of hearts, the Minister understands the conundrums that the Government will face when their zones are unacceptable to the people in their so-called regions. We are not attacking the Government, but advising them. Does my hon. Friend share my fear that the Government will find themselves in a straitjacket? They need to return to chapter 6 of the White Paper and recognise the need for flexibility when considering the future of the boundaries.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

My hon. Friend is right. A series of events will take place. Referendums will be held in the north-east, north-west and Yorkshire and Humber. I hope that those are won and regional assemblies are established there. I predict that a future Government will then ask for a review of the regional boundaries of the remaining English regions. They will have to do that because none of the referendums in the other regions is likely to be won unless they do. People who are strongly committed to regional devolution will be unable to bring themselves to support the campaign because they cannot support a region called the south-east of England.

It would be much better for the Government to admit that and allow the Bill to contain a review of regional boundaries, even if it excludes the three regions with boundaries that I believe are acceptable to the people in those areas. That would enable the referendums in the north-east, north-west and Yorkshire and Humber to go ahead so that we do not stop the movement for regional devolution. It would also allow us to put right the problems in the rest of England.

Joyce Quin (Labour, Gateshead East and Washington West)

Given what the hon. Gentleman has said, does he agree that the argument made by the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), which was basically that because the north-east was smaller than any other region, it should have to wait until every other region, including the south-east, was happy with its boundaries before being allowed to have a regional assembly, was utterly preposterous?

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

The hon. Lady is right; it was preposterous. The problem for the Conservatives is that because they do not believe in regional devolution, they have no policies—they do not know what else to do. They would be happy to keep the quango state. They support regional government but just do not like any democracy in it. That is why their position is untenable.

I am keen to hear from the Minister in reply to this debate and to give him sufficient time in which to do so, so I shall quickly refer to the other amendments. Although I have some sympathy with the intention of new clause 3, it is fatally flawed because it would prevent a variable geometry—different regions going at different speeds. New clause 4 has something to recommend it. I would be worried about illegal expenditure by the RDAs or other public bodies before the referendums. I certainly oppose amendment No. 2, which is a surrogate turnout threshold amendment. We have had that debate.

The key issues before the House—we will presumably get a chance at least to vote on the decoupling issue raised in new clause 3 and, hopefully, amendment No. 26—are decoupling the local government review and the regional boundaries. If the Government gave way on those two issues, they would have an awful lot more support both in the House and throughout the country.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

This is a complex group of amendments, I shall try to address all the new clauses and to respond as well as I can to the issues that have been raised.

New clause 3 enables the Secretary of State to hold a national referendum across England, including London, which would ask two separate questions. One would be on whether people supported the proposals for the creation of regions and the subsequent holding of regional referendums. The second would be on whether people supported the idea of reorganising local government into unitary authorities where an assembly is created. Amendment No. 2 would mean that no regional referendum about elected regional assemblies could be held until a national referendum had been held.

I am interested in the approach of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) to the people of London in these and other changes that the Conservatives have proposed. New clause 3 would give Londoners a vote on whether they were supportive of holding referendums about elected regional assemblies elsewhere in England despite the fact that there is no intention that London itself should have an assembly. It already has its own elected city-wide authority following a referendum in which the people of London voted yes. According to the Conservative party, the people of London would be asked to vote again even though, as I understand it, the Opposition have no intention of in any way changing any of the existing institutions in London. What a preposterous waste of time and money.

New clause 3 would also give Londoners a vote on whether they supported the idea of restructuring local government in two-tier areas—despite the fact that London already has wholly unitary local government. So, that proposal makes no sense at all. Under new clause 8, however, London would be specifically excluded from making proposals for changes in regional boundaries despite the fact that neighbouring local authorities outside London could do so. That illustrates the total incoherence, incompetence and inconsistency of the Opposition's approach. It tells us that new clause 3 has no serious or useful purpose. It is simply part of the official Opposition's ill-thought-out tactics to use any means to try to deliver referendums on whether to establish elected regional assemblies.

The Conservatives have made their opposition to regional assemblies clear; the hon. Gentleman stated it again this afternoon. As he will hear later, his noble Friend Lord Strathclyde made a scandalous statement yesterday in the House of Lords implying that the Conservative party in the other place would entirely ignore the views of this democratically elected House and try to stop the Bill becoming law. That comes from a party which accused us of arrogance, yet its unelected friends in the House of Lords are trying to dictate to this House which Bills should become law. That is a very dangerous challenge to our constitution, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman, who has made some disparaging remarks about the Government this afternoon, will immediately condemn his noble Friend's outrageous position.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

While the Minister is talking about the unelected and unrepresentative upper House can he confirm that it is now Government policy that the upper House should be wholly elected?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I put to the hon. Gentleman, who has no elected friends in the Chamber at all, to consider the right of Lord Strathclyde, a Member of the unelected House of Lords, to make the following point in a shameful speech last night:

"I have something to say to the noble Lord the Government Chief Whip as a word of advice and perhaps even a warning, based on what I have heard of the view of most Members of this House about the general awfulness of elections. His regional assemblies Bill? No chance."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 January 2003; Vol. 643, c. 826.]

How deplorable that an unelected House should tell the Commons what legislation should come through and that a Member of the Lords should refer to the "awfulness of elections". I hope that the hon. Gentleman will condemn that deplorable abuse of Conservative powers in the House of Lords.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the comments that he has just quoted are easy to equate with an Opposition whose Members cannot be bothered to attend this important debate and who, when in government, set up regional Government offices, clearly with the intention of wielding power in the regions without accountability to the people of the regions?

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. Before the Minister answers, time is short, so perhaps we ought to get back to the new clause.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Of course I shall do so, Mr. Deputy Speaker, while concurring entirely with the views expressed by my hon. Friend.

Thinking about the effect of the Conservative amendments, we would have a long debate on regional boundaries under new clause 8 and amendment No. 3. New Clause 8 would insert into the Bill a procedure for creating new regions. It would involve submissions by local authorities and other "relevant interests" on proposed new regions, after which the Electoral Commission would submit another set of proposals to the Secretary of State. Presumably, there would be a consultation, but that is not explicit in the amendment. An order would then have to be made creating new regions.

The Opposition replaced new clause 1 with new clause 8 so that they could include a provision excluding Londoners from the invitation to make proposals for regional boundaries. As I have already suggested, that is nonsense, as it would be open to people outside London to suggest changes to London's boundaries, but Londoners could not even make a proposal that London's boundaries should remain unchanged—how typical of the Opposition's incoherence. The process set out in new clause 8 could take years, given the resource implications for the Electoral Commission and the lengthy consultation that is envisaged. The consultation proposed by the Opposition would be time-consuming, expensive and unproductive. It would also, on the basis of past experience, be divisive and acrimonious, as most boundary disputes are.

That brings me to new clause 6, which was tabled by the Cornish enclave of the Liberal Democrat party. It would enable the Secretary of State by order to define a region for the purposes of the Bill, and would uniquely oblige him to define Cornwall as a region—another ill thought out proposal. In every other part of the country, the Secretary of State would have freedom to define regions. That curious aspect of the new clause probably explains why the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) did not put his name to it. It gives the Secretary of State extraordinary power to define regions everywhere else in the country—not, I think, Liberal Democrat policy—while requiring him to define Cornwall as a region.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

The Minister well knows that the new clause is a probing measure as I have spoken to him about it. If the Conservatives had not spent quite as much time debating the management of time we would have had a chance to debate the issue. There are important issues about the size of regions. The Minister knows that it is not the size of the Cornwall region that is problematic, but the fact that it is politically inconvenient for him.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I accept entirely the strength of feeling in Cornwall about its historical cultural identity. We understand that very much—indeed, we supported the campaign for the recognition of the Cornish language in which the hon. Gentleman was strongly involved. We were happy to accede because it is right for Cornwall's unique cultural heritage to be respected and preserved, but that is a very different proposition from the designation of Cornwall as a region. Regions are an intermediate tier of Government between the national and local level. A significant number of functions are currently discharged at regional level, such as economic development and planning. To be effective, such arrangements must operate on a large enough scale, and must be properly differentiated from the functions of local government, which should continue to be discharged at a local level. That, we believe, is the right way forward for Cornwall—to benefit from its membership of the wider south-west region in terms of planning, transportation and economic development, while preserving and enhancing its unique qualities through the work of its local authorities, and in particular through Cornwall county council, whose excellent performance was recently recognised by the comprehensive performance assessment. In response to the new clause proposed by the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George), I have to say, in words that will no doubt immediately be recognised by him, na wrav kammenn. That means no way, in Cornish.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

Will the Minister give way?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Briefly.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

Ow dysky da, ha clapya da. He has learned well—

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. Any words that the House does not immediately understand must be repeated and translated immediately thereafter.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

I was about to do so, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I said that the Minister had learned well and spoken well, and I am grateful. However, he will ultimately find that there is no way that the people of the Government's south-west zone will accept a region on that basis. He will have to revisit the issue. I urge him not to place a straitjacket around himself from which there is no escape.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. As I said before, we have not put a straitjacket around ourselves. In the White Paper we made it clear that there is an opportunity and flexibility to look again at regional boundaries in due course. We do not believe that that is appropriate at present. It would be divisive and would prevent progress towards establishing elected regional assemblies, but there is no straitjacket.

I must make progress, as time is very short. New clause 4, although apparently a sensible proposition as the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge proposed it, is unnecessary and unworkable, and appears to be designed, like so many other Opposition amendments, to wreck the Bill. It would make it impossible for the Secretary of State to begin the process of moving towards a referendum for elected regional assemblies if any individual in either of the organisations mentioned, over which the Secretary of State has no control, should, for whatever reason, step outside their powers in the 12 months prior to the moment when the referendum is to be ordered. It is clearly a wrecking proposal.

Amendment No. 26 from the Liberal Democrats would remove the requirement for a local government review to be carried out by the Boundary Committee before an order causing a referendum was made. Rather, the committee will only have had to be directed to prepare to carry out a review. We believe that any local government review of a region should be carried out before a referendum on elected regional assemblies, so that voters are fully informed of the implications of a yes vote for local government in their region.

We also believe strongly that three tiers of government would be too many. It must be a feature of regional government that where people vote for regional government, it should be against a clear understanding that there will be a unified tier of local government, in just the same way as there is in London, Scotland and Wales. That is the precedent. We think that it is right and that it should apply in the English regions, too.

Finally, Government amendment No. 4 is a minor tidying amendment, designed to make it clear that it is by order that an order under clause 1(1) to cause a referendum to be held is varied or revoked. It therefore makes it clear that any order to vary or revoke a clause 1(1) order would also be subject to the provisions in clause 27, and that the affirmative resolution procedure would apply. I ask the House to support amendment No. 4 and to reject the other amendments.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

The Minister often speaks of synthetic anger. We have seen a virtuoso display of synthetic anger from the master himself. He speaks of our amendments being wrecking amendments. They would not have been selected and they would not be on the amendment paper if they were wrecking amendments. They are sensible amendments. The Minister refers to the lack of attendance in the Chamber, on all sides. I tell him why there is a lack of attendance in the Chamber: his guillotine meant that hon. Members in all parts of the House saw that they stood no chance of being called in the debate and went off to do better things.

I am disappointed that the Minister has not listened to our arguments and has rejected all proposals to make his own structure more robust and durable, but I cannot say that I am entirely surprised. I will ask my hon. Friends to vote in support of the new clause. I shall also ask you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether we can have a separate vote on new clause 8, and if Liberal amendment No. 26 is pressed to a separate Division, I shall ask my hon. Friends to oppose it on the grounds—

It being Five o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker, put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Orders [29 October 2002, 26 November 2002 and this day.]

New Clause 8 — Regional Boundaries

Clause 1 — Referendums

Clause 2 — Referendum Question

Clause 6 — Combination Of Polls

Clause 19 — Advice Of The Electoral Commission

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

We have had full and extensive debates on the Bill. We debated it on Second Reading and our extensive debates in Committee were widely recognised as being thorough and good tempered. Those debates were followed by a full day's consideration in the House on the first four clauses and now by the debates on Report.

The Bill is in good shape, and it is right that we should now commend it to the other House, where I hope that it will receive a fair and impartial hearing on all sides. I also hope that Lord Strathclyde's sadly unhelpful comments, to which I referred in my speech on the last group of amendments, will not be indicative of the approach that the official Opposition will adopt in considering the Bill in the other place.

The Bill takes forward the Government's manifesto commitment to provide for elected regional assemblies where the people in the regions want them.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley North and Sefton East)

My right hon. Friend is aware that I am opposed to the Bill in principle and that, as things stand, I would be inclined to vote against it on Third Reading. However, he is also aware that, if it were possible to develop new proposals for city-wide government in certain conurbations, I might look more favourably on the Bill. Can he give me any reason for hope about that?

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

I know that my hon. Friend has reservations about the regional agenda, but the Government are committed to strengthening city government and ensuring that our big cities and towns have effective representation. We have already considered a range of constitutional changes, including directly electing mayors, and we will continue constructively to explore ways in which we can reinforce the ability of our cities and towns to achieve effective city government. I hope that my hon. Friend will want to engage in a constructive discussion about such issues and that he will feel able not to vote against the Bill tonight.

The principle on which the Bill is based is choice, exercised democratically by the people through referendums in each of the English regions. The Bill is at the heart of our programme to modernise our constitution, decentralise power and deliver better public services.

It is a crucial step towards establishing a democratic voice for the English regions—a voice that has been denied them for too long. We want to give the people of our regions the right to choose; the ability to decide what is best for them; a distinct political voice; a regional level of democracy; and, above all, greater control over regional issues that matter, such as economic development and regeneration, planning, housing, transport, health, culture and the environment. This is an important and exciting Bill and I commend it to the House.

Philip Hammond (Conservative, Runnymede and Weybridge)

Although I do not wish in any way to detract from the Minister's achievement in getting this Bill through, he has certainly not won all the arguments, including some with Members on his side of the House. He has had a pretty thankless task in piloting the Deputy Prime Minister's pet project through its parliamentary stages. The Bill is an ill-thought-out measure. It seems rushed and fatally flawed even to some of those who favour regional devolution on the Government's model: first, because it insists on using the inappropriate and irrelevant Government offices for the regions' boundaries to define the regions; and secondly, because it couples the issue of elected regional assemblies with the compulsory unitarisation of local government—on which, to be fair, Liberal Democrat Members have focused throughout the debate.

Elected regional assemblies will create an extra tier of government in the unitary areas and the loss of county councils in most of the shire district areas. That is a high price to pay for assemblies that are based on regions with which, in most cases, people will have little or no natural affinity. The regional assemblies will bring additional burdens of cost—extra costs on council tax payers, extra costs on business in the form of higher rates, and extra costs through the bureaucracy involved in paying for the prestige buildings, salaries and cars that will be demanded.

What powers will the assemblies have in exchange for all those extra costs? Of course, we do not know, because we have not seen a Bill that sets out their powers, and we have learned precious little from the White Paper and ministerial statements. They will have political control of the regional development agencies, but no additional money. They will have influence over central Government decisions and will be able to put forward strategic plans, but always within the context of a national framework and subject to the approval of the Government offices for the regions, which will be standing looking over their shoulders. They will have the planning functions that they have sucked up from county councils, which means that decision making will be more remote from, not closer to, local communities.

Notwithstanding our disagreement with the principles behind the Bill, we proposed constructive solutions throughout its passage, but every one was rejected. Today, the Government have set their face against greater transparency by opposing a new clause that would have encouraged voters to understand the implications for local Government in their region of voting yes in a referendum. They have set their face against a process that would have allowed a building from the bottom up of regions that would have some meaning for the people who live in them—regions that people could respect and even come to love, rather than the irrelevant regions that the Government have chosen to run with. They have set their face against a referendum of all the people of England to test their appetite for elected regional assemblies and the local government reform that the Government insist must go with it.

The Minister has got his Bill through this House, albeit without a proper debate, especially on the first four clauses, which are critical to the Bill, but were very time-limited in Committee. The Deputy Prime Minister has seen his pet project come to legislative fruition, but the Government cannot rely on procedure to avoid the real debate that will take place when the Bill reaches the other place. Because of the Government's approach—the rush, the refusal to compromise, the unwillingness to listen to the people and to create regions that have meaning and might stand a chance of winning the allegiance and affection of their inhabitants—they do not have a lasting and durable solution to the challenge of creating a model for decentralisation in England.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I am a keen supporter of the Bill. I was pleased to sit on the Standing Committee that considered it, and I enjoyed the experience. The Bill is the precursor to regional government, which I very much support for four principal reasons.

First, it will increase the accountability of the many regional bodies—quangos—particularly the regional development agencies, which have done some useful work in the south-west, although I have concerns about the boards being accountable through the Secretary of State but not directly accountable to us in our region.

Secondly, regional government will provide a strategic view. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill is currently going through Parliament, and the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) alluded to the fact that regional assemblies would exercise some planning powers under it. I support that, as it is appropriate to have a strategic approach within which sub-regional groups may mirror counties in many cases and deny what the hon. Gentleman said about the sucking-up of powers. It will certainly join up a lot of thinking. My area is lucky enough to have world heritage status for our coast, which cuts across county boundaries. I look forward to a more strategic approach at a regional level to maximise the benefit of that status.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

Does my hon. Friend agree that any suggestion that boundaries should be drawn around cities would mean the isolation of areas that are not within those boundaries, particularly rural areas, and would not deal with vital regional issues in relation to economic development, population movement and the work of the regional development agencies?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I am interested by my hon. Friend's intervention, but I have no desire to get involved with the politics of the north-west in answering it. There are times when there is a clear relationship between a core and a periphery. That happens at a national and a regional level, and it can happen between a market town and its periphery. That may give some support to her without necessarily offending some of my other hon. Friends.

The third reason why I support regional government is to provide a regional voice. Clearly, the north-east needs that voice. Even the south-west, however, with its rich diversity, has common strands of economic importance. We rely on agriculture, the defence industry and the tourism industry across the seven counties of the south-west. A clearer regional voice and set of thinking would be welcome.

Andrew Turner (Conservative, Isle of Wight)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that my constituency has many similarities with his and with much of the west country? Will he comment on the Department for Transport's recent airports map, which put my constituency off the coast of his constituency rather than off the coast of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne)?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I have no desire to comment on a map that I have not seen. I enjoy viewing the Isle of Wight from my constituency when I am in Swanage, but I accept that, on the boundaries of regions, there are some who would like to be either side. I am sure that parts of Dorset would welcome the Isle of Wight coming home to us, along with its geology. I am content that we should proceed on the basis of the boundaries that we currently have for our regions, because that means that we can have regional government all the more quickly. In addition, the south-west has some common problems, such as our transport infrastructure and a lack of affordable housing, which, equally, a regional government could address.

Finally, we need to resolve what is called the West Lothian question. We have seen the start of devolution in London with the Greater London Authority. We need to continue the process by developing regional government for England. I support the Bill and the fact that it is not imposing regional government on any region, as the electorate will be able to vote for it. It is not an addition of Government in most cases, and certainly not in the south-west, where we can see the unification of local authorities and strong parish councils, as I have argued throughout this debate.

I want to allow other Members to speak, as many want to do so in the limited amount of time available. I urge hon. Members to support the Bill, and I look forward to future legislation to finish off the job of the White Paper and resolve that important West Lothian question.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

There is a strong case for elected regional assemblies. The Liberal Democrats have advocated regional devolution for many decades, and it is a real pleasure to see that the Government are, at long last, beginning to take on that agenda.

One argument for regional assemblies is based on the democratisation of the regional government that already exists. The hon. Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight) has made some of the arguments for democratising the quango state that was bequeathed to Britain particularly by the previous Conservative Government. The value of democratising the regional government that exists is that we could, I hope, push for better value for money. Many of these bureaucracies have overlapping responsibilities, vast offices, many chief executives and so on. Much of that can be rationalised in the new regional assembly process. We look forward to that happening and we encourage the Government to go further than they have.

There are three major problems with the Bill. I touched on the first earlier today. The fact that the local government review is coupled with the regional referendums is a big mistake, and the Government will rue the day that they coupled the two. The second major problem relates to the fact that the Government have not allowed for a review of the regional boundaries. In responding to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Andrew George), the Minister said that there might be reviews of regional boundaries in due course. I hope that that will be sooner rather than later, and it will have to take place before there are referendums in regions outside the north-east, the north-west, Yorkshire and Humber.

The third major problem with the Bill is that it will allow referendums to go ahead without the electors knowing what powers the regional assemblies that they are being asked to vote for would have. That is a mistake. The Minister has cited the precedents in Scotland and Wales, but the Welsh vote was almost lost. One of the arguments used against the creation of the Welsh Assembly was that its powers were not set out clearly enough.

Llew Smith (Labour, Blaenau Gwent)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

I will not give way, because time is tight. It would have made much more sense if the Government had reassured us that they intended to introduce legislation, even in draft form, before the first referendum on a regional assembly took place.

On Third Reading, we have to ask whether the glass is half full or half empty. Our view is that it is important that the cause of regional devolution gets going and that we start a process that has been long awaited. Despite the many flaws in the Bill, we will view the glass as half full and we will vote for its Third Reading. Although the Minister was right to draw attention to the words of Lord Strathclyde last night and to say they were not appropriate, I hope that he will admit that it is the duty of the other place to scrutinise legislation.

Nick Raynsford (Labour, Greenwich and Woolwich)

Not to stop it.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

Not to stop it—the Minister makes a valid point. I hope that noble Lords on all sides will work to amend the Bill in the way that some of us tried to do in Committee.

Andrew George (Liberal Democrat, St Ives)

I want to put on the record that, although I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said, I am afraid that I have reached a different conclusion. I believe that the glass is half empty. I agree with his analysis and will not try to stop the Bill, but I will not vote for it. I will abstain and I am sorry about that, but much more work needs to be done before it is palatable to us.

Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat, Kingston and Surbiton)

I certainly understand why my hon. Friend has come to that conclusion. Many of us have had to think very hard about whether we would vote for the Bill because of the many problems in it. I understand why he wishes to take that action, but I urge my other hon. Friends to give the Bill its Third Reading, so that we can move on with regional devolution. The Bill will then move to another place where I hope it will be amended properly.

Joyce Quin (Labour, Gateshead East and Washington West)

I warmly welcome the Bill and I am glad that it is completing its proceedings in the Commons.

I wish to make two points. First, in parallel with the Bill and complementary to it, the Government are undertaking a soundings exercise to try to find out how keen people in the regions are on holding referendums.

I urge my right hon. Friend and his ministerial colleagues across the Government to give publicity to that. Many other issues understandably dominate the news, but I am keen that people in the regions understand and appreciate what is on offer.

My second point is that devolution has been a success so far, although it has thrown up interesting variations in policy, including enlightened approaches to nursing care, concessions for elderly travel and the establishment of children's commissioners. Although I encourage the Government to devolve functions to the regions of England, I also encourage them to consider some of those enlightened policies for England as a whole because many of them would be of great benefit.

Having said that, I wish the Bill every success in its passage through the other place. I certainly hope that it does not attempt to block it. The Bill is a manifesto commitment and it would be constitutionally unacceptable for it to do so. I wish the Bill every success and hope that regional assemblies will be successfully established, especially in my region of the north-east. 5.55 pm

Gary Streeter (Conservative, South West Devon)

The Bill is destined to join a growing list of half-baked and ill-thought-out new Labour legislation that has been put on the statute book since 1997. It introduces regional government on a piecemeal dyslexic basis, which will produce an asymmetric and unsustainable constitutional settlement for this great country. It introduces a system of taking soundings on the level of interest in a region which is so vague as to be utterly meaningless. The Deputy Prime Minister may as well open a window in Whitehall and stick his finger in the wind.

The Bill introduces referendums with no thresholds, so even a tiny number of anorak-clad voters can effect constitutional change with no recall and no recourse if mistakes are made. It does not define the functions, powers and responsibilities of the new elected assemblies, and will be a recipe for confusion. It fails to give sufficient information to enable electors to make an informed decision. The Bill locks itself into regions that make no sense whatsoever—

Hilton Dawson (Labour, Lancaster and Wyre)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Gary Streeter (Conservative, South West Devon)

No, there is no time. The hon. Gentleman has just entered the Chamber; I have been here all day.

The Bill locks itself into regions that do not attract local affinity or a sense of identity. How can it be right that Tewkesbury is in the south-west region when it is closer to Scotland than it is to Penzance?

The Bill ushers in a massive and unnecessary upheaval of local government and will almost certainly spell the death knell to historic county boroughs over vast swathes of the country. It will take decisions away from local people and give them to elected regional assemblies, which will be accountable to no one. It is a clumsy, inchoate and incoherent measure. It will not stand the test of time and we should oppose it.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

I warmly welcome the Bill. It is a vital further step on the road to regional devolution advanced by the Government. Its purpose is to bring more power to the people in the regions, to narrow economic disparities and to stop the increasing flow of populations from the poorer north to the overheated south and south-east. It gives the voice of legitimacy to elected people in the regions to influence Government and European policy to benefit their economic development. It brings accountability to those decisions that are taken on a regional level and brings more focus to them.

The Bill is of great importance to the country. It is of particular importance to the north-west and will be warmly welcomed in my constituency of Liverpool, Riverside. I look forward to it being put into practice and receiving support in the other place. It is a vital measure and I hope that it receives the full support of the House. 5.58 pm

Andrew Turner (Conservative, Isle of Wight)

As my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) said, this Bill is deeply defective—and for two reasons. First, however, I should like to deal with the point that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) has just made about the drift from north to south. It is extraordinary that she can criticise such a drift while at the same time supporting her Deputy Prime Minister's proposals to build houses all over the south of England to encourage people to drift from the north to the south. I find that incoherent.

The first reason why the Bill is unacceptable is that the boundaries of the regions do not match people's aspirations. I say that as someone who represents a constituency right on the edge of the south-east region—as defined by the Government—which has far less in common with Ramsgate and Milton Keynes than with Bournemouth and Portland.

The second reason is the West Lothian question. We must resolve the problem that issues that matter to Members who represent English constituencies, or in future to those who represent constituencies without a regional assembly, can be voted on by those—

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