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English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, but I shall also speak to my amendment, which is simpler. As I go through my remarks, noble Lords will see the rationale for my amendment. It is clear that the Bill strengthens the architecture for economic growth. It stops short of embedding cultural and heritage ecosystems within this framework and it does not provide a clear mechanism through which MHCLG, DCMS and DSIT and their arm’s-length bodies can work collaboratively with strategic authorities. It leaves the very sectors, culture and heritage, which are the lifeblood of civic life, which encourage engagement by communities and which are a crucial part of the creative industries’ ecosystem, outside the formal machinery of devolution.

Cultural heritage, in my view, needs to be part of the core toolkit for mayors, since devolution is more than just economic growth. If this new architecture is to work, civic and cultural capabilities, which are the connective tissue of local life, have to thrive, so we need to create spaces where intercultural dialogue can take place.

Intercultural dialogue is not just a slogan but a bridge builder, where an ongoing practice of listening, understanding and negotiating difference to sustain social cohesion prevails for people to meet across boundaries, build trust, shape a shared sense of purpose and see themselves as part of a common story. Culture can be a powerful lever, used properly, to avoid the balkanisation of communities and arrest the intensification of difference in an era where identity politics are rife.

As we begin to develop a more robust regional tier of governance, we must ensure that the aims of fostering understanding and strengthening social bonds are woven into the strategic functions and that this change is seen as an opportunity for genuinely building social inclusion, not social division. I would argue that social cohesion matters for our national security, because we need to ensure that local devolution will help to harness national cohesion. This amendment will, in my view, go a long way in helping to ensure that there is deliberate engagement to coalesce around common issues that deepen what are called democratic behaviours and citizenship.

This amendment will not impose any fiscal or bureaucratic burdens but will ensure that culture and heritage sit alongside other competences. We need

national economic renewal, but we also need social renewal. These measures as a whole will build trust and a sense of belonging. I am aware that culture and heritage are often characterised as cross-cutting issues, but the same could be said of other competences. It is because they sit across so many parts of people’s lives that they should not be left to discretionary treatment but should be integrated purposefully into the remit of this Bill.

This amendment is not just an adornment but is foundational and will give human meaning to structural changes. I also want to make it clear that this amendment is not prescriptive about scale, timing or configuration, because it will be rightly worked through by mayors with central government. I hope that the amendment will be looked at sympathetically and I thank Culture Commons for the support that it has provided.