My Lords, I support the order. I was born and raised in Birmingham, and my first and last jobs in manufacturing were in the city. I am old enough and my memory is still good enough to say that I can still recall my mother’s Birmingham co-op number. I served in the Commons as the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr, where I went to school and had my paper round, for 27 years. Although I no longer pay council tax in the city, I have just arrived at your Lordships' House from chairing the Neighbourhood Partnership Board at Castle Vale in the city. So I am now an outsider, but I have insider roots, insight and, indeed, support. However, my memory is also good enough to remember how the city was considered by others as a leader over five decades, over a variety of issues—an exemplar.

At the time when the noble Lord, Lord Nash, made the Statement in this House last year on 22 July, I did not get the confirmation—it was buried in the paragraphs—that the Kerslake review would not have any no-go areas. As such, in July, I put in my long-held views to Sir Bob about the governance of the city being split into separate boroughs. I copied my views to the city leadership at the same time—I have always been quite open on this point, which I raised in the 1980s and the 1990s. The city is too big. London does not suffer for being split into 32 boroughs, and Birmingham would not suffer for being split into two, three or four boroughs.

Sir Bob, who is soon to join your Lordships' House, has explained to me why his team went for what is in the order, and I accept that. I am not going to go over that tonight; it is not the time. His review makes it crystal clear that, if the city council fails to improve, questions of size will continue to be asked. Improvement is urgently required. As my noble friend just said, there are currently two government-imposed commissioners working in the city due to it failing—I do not like saying that, but that is the reality—in education and in children’s social services. The city has massive potential to return to being an exemplar for strong, good local government, as it was in the past and I want it to do so.

When I attended the Labour Party conference last year, I did not waste too much time in the conference hall, which is a waste of time. But I did not waste too much time: I went to every single fringe meeting dealing with urban affairs and city growth. I concentrated on that because I knew what would happen. The Kerslake review had been set up; it had been announced in July. Not once at any meeting I went to was the word “Birmingham” uttered as an example of what was being done as a beacon for others. It was always several other examples of cities in the country on various issues. The Birmingham leader knows this to be true because he sat alongside me for the whole of one of those meetings.

Usually when Manchester is mentioned, it turns out to be Greater Manchester that is being referred to. That is a misnomer, but the fact is that it is the 10 authorities working together—which has not been the case in the West Midlands. I remember being in Birmingham Council House with all the local authorities present years ago in 2004, when I was an ODPM Minister dealing with regeneration. I was the soft cop; my official was the hard cop. I uttered the phrase “Greater Birmingham”—I picked bits of the roof off my head later that day.

More recently, when I was chair of the Food Standards Agency I launched the food hygiene rating scheme in the north-west of England in Greater Manchester. Every single one of the 10 authorities was present in Trafford for the launch. In the Midlands I did a couple, separately, as did a couple of other board members. The idea of getting them to do it together was an absolute nonsense. The reality is that working together has not worked in the West Midlands, mainly because of the attitude of the biggest authority. It is the biggest by far. I will not go over the statistics; I put them in a paper to Sir Bob. There is more inequality of size among those councils than anywhere else.

So to the order. Like my noble friend, I have always supported annual local government elections, for a variety of reasons, some to do with governance and some party reasons. That has been the reality. These no longer apply in Birmingham. I think that change to all-out elections should be embraced—there is no doubt about it whatever.

Single-member wards will be new, but they should be grasped as a positive advantage. The Kerslake review makes it clear that it will be a better system, but there is a phrase in the review that concerns me. It talks about “mainly single-member wards”. The one thing that I would oppose is wards with different numbers of members. I know that this occurs around the country; I am always gobsmacked when I go to various local authorities and I find out there are one-member, two-member and three-member wards in the same authority. I cannot comprehend that. They should all be the same. I know that the Boundary Commission will deal with the details, but I hope that it has not got carte blanche. As far as I am concerned its job is to implement Kerslake, taking account of the practicalities at ground level. I hope that it does not mix the wards.

I think that the total number of wards should be an odd number—I have often wondered why it has generally been an even number. It is not a problem in Birmingham because there has been a written, almost legal agreement for about 40 years about the mayor. We got rid of all that nonsense about not taking the mayor if there is a split because you lose your majority. We have a sensible, written legal agreement between the three parties that has lasted since it was created, probably the best part of 30 or 40 years ago.

I would settle for 101 wards—or a maximum of 105. I do not think that it should be the same as the present number. I know that, looking at the arithmetic, there is a problem with that, but in my view it should be less than the present number. If there are going to be single-member wards, there is an opportunity for there to be very little variation—I would say plus or minus 4% as a maximum so that they are as near as possible the same size. At the moment, they are not; there are examples of massive disparity in the city because the last boundary review was a long time ago.

The population would be about 10,000. Funnily enough, the place that I have just come from, Castle Vale, has a population of exactly 10,000 and the electorate is about 6,500. It has its own postcode. The regeneration area that people have driven past along the M6 has been very successful. Thirty-two out of the 34 tower blocks have come down. Now, people queue up to live there rather than not wanting to be sent there, as was the case with my constituents and those of my late friend Lord Corbett.

I have one suggestion, which is that an attempt should be made—I am not sure by whom—to deal with what I think is the recurring theme throughout Kerslake. As I said, I am an outsider and I have not discussed this with any MPs, although in December I picked up vibrations among some of my friends on the council. They thought, “Oh, nothing’s going to happen with Kerslake until after May”. I told Mr Pickles in December that he had better get on with it because the view was that nothing was going to happen. This is a really serious issue and it should be dealt with urgently.

The recurring theme throughout Kerslake—it is recommended reading in relation to governance; it is not a massively long report—is the blurring of roles between councillors and officers. I was gobsmacked when I read the examples in the report. There is a complete lack of training opportunities for elected members. It seems to me crucial that councillors—a bit like Ministers, in a way—understand the difference between governance and management. It is fundamental that there is no blurring of the roles but, sadly, according to Kerslake, that seems to apply to some officers as well. That has grown up because of their culture. Kerslake says that the culture has to change, and that would be pretty radical. Although this is not my preferred solution, I think that the one that he has come up with is just as good in forcing a radical rethink and change: all-out elections and single-member wards. For councillors, it will be a completely new way of working.

The present culture is three-member wards, and changing will not be easy because not all wards are of the same political party. The idea that the councillors will divide the ward up among themselves is wrong; they will not. They will stand for election in the whole ward. In wards in my former constituency there was sometimes a lonely Labour councillor or a lonely Lib Dem councillor. They had the whole 20,000-odd electorate—the population was about 30,000—so the wards were quite large.

Therefore, single-member wards will be different. I do not think—no, I shall be positive about this rather than say, “I do not think”. I think that before anyone is allowed to be a candidate, they should have been on a governance training programme run by an independent body, such as a business school, a university or training specialists in government—but preferably not the Local Government Association, where there is too much of a vested interest.

The political parties really ought to embrace this. We are obviously not going to hear the views of the noble Lord, Lord Whitby, but I think that all the parties should embrace this. I am not seeking a qualification for anyone who stands for election, as that could be risky, but the public are entitled to know that those who are elected understand what their role is—and, more to the point, what it is not. That was the message that I took from Kerslake, and it explained to me why a lot of the negative issues for the city have arisen.

I am not going to go over any particular details, but when I saw how bad this blurring of the roles of governance and management was, I could think of examples where I thought, “Oh, that must be the reason why so and so happened”. This is a serious matter, in the largest local authority in the country. We know it has happened in others, because we have read about some recent examples, particularly in the north, but the fact is that it should not happen anywhere. There should be procedures to stop it happening, whether by the chief executive or other people in local government.

We have an opportunity here. There is the Boundary Commission and, of course, Birmingham currently has a council oversight board as a result of Sir Bob’s report, which is made up of the great and good. They all look very qualified people, they have not been sent up from London and they have experience of local government, at officer, chief executive and councillor level. I have faith in them, but they will have to look at the situation in 12 months’ time, when they will expect to see cultural change. One of the ways the parties could show that they are up for cultural change is by doing something about the most serious deficit that Kerslake identified, which is the blurring of the roles of councillors and officers. I support the order.