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City of Wakefield (Mayoral Referendum) Order 2012

My Lords, I cannot resist making just one general point before I get on to the specifics about my fundamental objection to the directly elected mayor system. I see it as an import from a different political culture. In essence, it is a presidential arrangement. All levels of our democracy in our country have embraced the parliamentary system whereby executive heads emerge from the elected body. I think that is infinitely preferable to the presidential system. The Minister’s examples were notably from abroad, with the exception of London, and bringing in this system whereby elected councillors have no direct say on who the city’s leader should be is—I cannot find a less pompous way of putting this—alien to our political culture, and I do not think there is too much wrong with our political culture. In my view, it has inevitably—certainly in the United States and here—led to mayors being elected who simply do not arrive via the tried-and-tested system. I thought that the evidence put forward for extending this system in this dramatic way was pretty thin. The explanatory document claims that, "““directly elected mayors … enhance their city’s prestige and maximise the potential for local economic growth””." Let us not go to Barcelona or anywhere else. We have had this system in Britain for a number of years. Where is the evidence that those lucky cities and towns that have directly elected mayors have seen the prestige of their areas enhanced in comparison with those that have not had the benefit of directly elected mayors and have seen economic growth? In short, has London been demonstrably much better governed, to justify all this additional expense, than has, let us say, Newcastle, Manchester or Birmingham? If there is any evidence, I would love to see it, but I am not aware of it. I move to the specifics of the orders that we are now looking at. One has already been mentioned by my noble friend Lady Farrington. I am afraid this is more of a rhetorical question than one I expect the Minister to be able to answer because it is unanswerable. How on earth can you have an order that states: "““The authority must, on 3rd May 2012, hold a referendum””—" I would add, in brackets, ““whether you want to or not””—with the Government’s alleged commitment to localism? Why the compulsion? Why not leave it to the local authority to make up its own mind? I do not know the answer to that one. I do not think it will do to suggest, as the Minister did, that somehow this is an opportunity for local people to decide and that the Government are neutral, at least to the extent that the local people can make their own decisions, because is it just an accident that the only places where local citizens will be able to decide on their governance are places where they do not have an elected mayor at the moment? What about all those local authorities that have an elected mayor? Why not ask them whether, on the basis of the past 10 years, it is a good way of spending public money? I am delighted to be able to report that, as the Committee will know, in the one area where people have been given that choice, namely the splendid city of Stoke-on-Trent with the outstanding Stoke City Football Club, the public were asked, ““Do you want to continue with your elected mayoral system?”” The answer was a pretty resounding, ““No, we don’t, thank you very much””.