FORCING cities like Newcastle to hold referenda on whether to have an elected mayor will be a political “car crash”, the Government has been warned.

Liberal Democrat peer Tony Greaves – his party’s local government spokesman in the Lords until last year – said it would be as bad for the coalition as the outcome of the referendum on changing the electoral system.

Labour frontbencher Jeremy Beecham, a former leader of Newcastle City Council, also attacked the requirement for compulsory referenda on elected mayors in 11 English cities next May.

During a Lords debate, Lord Greaves said: “The Government should learn. They have had a huge car crash, as people say nowadays, with the AV referendum. I voted loyally for that on every occasion and now I wish I had not. This will be another, in the modern phrase, car crash.

“Whatever has been in coalition agreements and manifestos, there are times when, politically, governments have to consider what is likely to happen.

“In most, if not all, these places, it seems likely that the Liberal Democrats will be campaigning vigorously against having an elected mayor – alongside the Labour party in many cases, and, I suspect, the Conservative party in so far as it still exists in some of these places. It certainly exists in some of them.”

The Lib Dem predicted all but two or three places would reject elected mayors and declared it was an “astonishing” waste of money.

Lord Beecham questioned why compulsory referenda were necessary when it was already legally possible to require such polls provided a petition of 5% of the local electorate was raised.

He said only a few dozen areas had held referenda over the past decade, with a clear minority of those in favour of switching to an elected mayor on low turnouts.

And why should extra powers be given to elected mayors rather than existing council leaders and executive committees, asked Lord Beecham.