House of Commons Hansard Debates for 25 Feb 1992

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group, of which the Minister of State remains an active supporter, spelt it out in its pamphlet, "Responsibility and Choice". It said : "Only public health, civil defence and local amenities need remain an integral part of local government."

What a choice--what a level of responsibility that is for local authorities to take on.

The Association of District Councils, eagerly awaiting the message that the commission is to set out on its travels to award councils new status, new power and new functions, finds in the end that they are to have none of them. Councils will end up with local government which is no more than a telephone box with a civic car outside. A mayor may be able to visit bazaars and give out largesse in the form of annual Christmas parcels or attend spring balls, without being able to meet the needs of the people in his community.

The legislation would make a farce of local democracy and a mockery of any attempt to devolve power to local government. Clearly, the Government have no intention of decentralising or devolving anything. They are intent on retaining power in their own hands, and on determining directly what local government should be able to raise and spend. The financial and functioning structure of local government will result in disillusionment and in people being increasingly frustrated. There is a danger of democracy being nothing more than a charade.

That is why we are against the way in which the commission is to operate. We do not agree with the Government's view of local government merely as an appendage to the central state rather than as a partner in a pluralistic democracy. We want to encourage people to partake in the delivery of local services and to stand for elected office so that they may take pride in the civic functions by contributing to the enhancement of the wellbeing of the people around them, and by being able to sustain and protect their environment. Instead, the financial system and the structure and functions proposed for local government would reduce it to a pale shadow of what we have understood it to be over the last 100 years. The proposed operation of the commission reflects the Government's contempt for local democracy. The Government intend that local authorities should be dealt with piecemeal, one by one, with Labour-controlled counties being tackled first. The Government intend to carry out the structural changes in a way which leads to the abolition of Humberside, Cleveland, Avon, Derbyshire and Lancashire, simply because they happen to be Labour authorities.

The Government do not propose to act logically or to take a comprehensive look at England as a whole so as to ensure that the structure can be fitted together as a complete jigsaw. They mean to adopt a "hide and seek" version of making a jigsaw, where bits of the jigsaw emerge one at a time and people are expected to guess what the final picture will look like. That piecemeal approach will lead to blight. As local authorities are picked off one by one, they will lose their senior staff, who will seize the opportunity to move to other authorities. There will be a bonanza for the metropolitan and London areas which, in the key areas of education and social services, will be able to call on the expertise from the counties facing abolition before the district authorities, which are the aspirants to

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take over those functions, can organise themselves logically to offer posts or provide a guarantee of quality of service.

Mr. Paul Channon (Southend, West) : I understand that the hon. Gentleman disagrees with the Government about various activities of local government. If by some chance--or mischance, depending on one's point of view--he were to have responsibility for dealing with the legislation under a Labour Government, what would he do about the commission? There is a great deal of interest in that. The people want to know what would happen if Labour won. Would Labour go ahead with the legislation or repeal it? Would Labour change the commission or allow it to proceed so that the reform of local government, which most people accept is long overdue, may take place in a reasonable period of time?

Mr. Blunkett : In the one day available to us under the guillotine in Committee, we made the position clear. We made it clear that we were in favour of a comprehensive approach to the reorganisation of local government, and that we wished the commission to operate through panels dealing with different parts of the country, being able to take consensus and agreement where they were offered, and being able to report back where there were difficulties, so that within a rapid time scale--two years would be the preferred operational time scale--we could see a pattern of local government emerging across the country. The commission could report its findings, enabling local government to be reorganised in a sane and rational fashion, providing stability for existing services prior to the final report and providing a sensible and rational means for the transfer of services to the new designated authorities. Finally, it could offer the kind of guarantees for whose provision the 1972 reorganisation, with all its failings, served as a useful model.

Mr. Douglas French (Gloucester) : Would that plan include the continuation of some two-tier authorities, or is what is being advocated a uniform single-tier system?

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Mr. Blunkett : It seems to us that there is little point in reorganising local government across the country if we end up with a shambles on our hands. Some counties will appeal to the Government to remain county councils, with their district councils continuing to act as they always have, while a neighbouring authority has unitary status having abolished its county and transferred what functions remain to the district. We illustrated that point in Committee : what is at issue is not whether one county should remain while others are removed, but the way in which authorities within a county would have to be dealt with if it was not clear that there should be a presumption of unitary status.

We do not have to have the same uniform status across the country. We are talking about numerical parity or saying that authorities must be of similar size. We are aware of the need for diversity and sensitivity. Some authorities have an identity of community even though they are small numerically or geographically difficult to operate. We recognise that such factors will have to be taken into account.

What we cannot countenance, however, is a shambles where one or two authorities claim unitary status within a county and the rest of the county has to be reorganised to

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fit in with them. We cannot have a string of authorities across a major county--the example that we gave in Committee was Essex--claiming that they should have unitary status because of their identity of community, their sense of belonging and their urban nature, only to leave a rump of a county with a disgruntled population, which wanted not a third of the original county or half the original county but the whole county or unitary status. We shall be faced with a shambles whereby people claim that they want to retain the county but retain only part of it. The county will be a shadow of its previous self without its core identity, and in some cases with the prospect of being divided in two by unitary authorities which cut right across it.

Mr. French : Does the hon. Gentleman really believe that the local government commission would recommend unitary status for some authorities without paying any regard to what was left over?

Mr. Blunkett : The consultation paper and the proposal before us would allow just that. That is why I say that we must choose between unitary and two-tier authorities. Once one begins the process of providing unitary authorities within a county area, one will have to decide what is to happen to the rest of the county. There is a logic to it.

Mr. William O'Brien (Normanton) : Paragraph 5.

Mr. Blunkett : My hon. Friend reminds me that paragraph 5 of the consultation paper deals with the matter, although we do not need the consultation paper only intelligent and rational thinking--to realise that when some authorities press for unitary status they will affect the status of other authorities with which they have a relationship within the county shire area.

Mr. Martin Flannery (Sheffield, Hillsborough) : The same is happening in education. For instance, competition between schools will mean that people will head for a school that is reputedly a good school with no thought for the one that they are leaving behind, which will become a sink school if the matter is left to the Conservatives.

Mr. Blunkett : My hon. Friend has put his finger on it : "I'm all right, Jack, and the devil take the hindmost" is what the Government's policy is all about. Presumably they would say that, so long as some authorities get what they are after, everyone should be satisfied. We cannot have it both ways, however. We cannot have the existing county, with the existing county structure, if some districts within it become unitary authorities.

Mr. Channon : I think that that is a bad analogy. In Essex, and in a great many other counties, there are districts which were old county boroughs, for example. It would be perfectly possible for those old county boroughs to become unitary authorities in their own right without affecting the rest of the county at all--if that was what people in the county wanted.

Mr. Blunkett : It would affect the rest of the county which, at the moment, incorporates those former county boroughs. The minute one tries to reverse the arrangements and return to the county boroughs--and there is some dispute in some areas as to whether only the former county boroughs should claim unitary status--one affects the organisation of every key county service, which

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then has to cope with the change. One must change the operation of education--in so far as it remains part of local government--of the social services, of highways and of everything else. The minute one makes a decision in repect of one authority, there will be a chain reaction.

That is why we believe that there should be a comprehensive approach, rather than a piecemeal approach whereby some authorities are dealt with first and others gradually over what the Minister of State has described as a likely five-year time scale. We should view these matters as a whole. We should review the arrangements throughout the country and come up with comprehensive proposals. We should announce them in two years' time, allowing for a period of consultation during which representations could be made and during which we could sort out disagreements.

We could then move forward in a way which allows the existing authorities to transfer services in a stable and sensible way, maintaining the quality of those services while building up a new structure to enable those functions to be taken on. Unless we do that, we shall have a period of blight during which services in the existing authorities disintegrate and staff leave. The services will begin to fall apart before the new authorities have been established in a fashion that would allow those services and staff to transfer in an acceptable manner. That is why we shall be moving shortly on another matter--the staff commission--to which I shall come in a moment.

In new clause 3 we advocate a sensible, logical and

well-thought-out approach. We have the option of finding a solution that will provide us with a lasting settlement for local government for generations to come or of accepting a piecemeal and fragmented approach which will result in dissatisfaction and continued calls for reorganisation and which will lead to our having to go through the whole process all over again in a few years' time. That would be very foolish indeed and most unfortunate for the populations of areas facing that shambles and that failure to provide quality. The outcome in terms of cost and quality would be most unsatisfactory. Moreover, it would reflect badly on the operations of the House and the way in which it has served local government badly over the past 13 years--another example of an ideological, value-driven approach rather than a logical approach taking into account the needs of local communities and responding intelligently to the demand for reorganisation.

We respect the demands for unitary authorities and for a return to the days when there was just one door on which to knock. We accept the need for accountability, which we applaud, to enable people to understand who is responsible for the services that they receive and who to hold to account for the results.

We want a reorganisation that would be lasting but, above all, a reorganisation that would be able to respond to the changing needs and aspirations of the population towards the year 2000. Instead, we face a proposition which would take away services rather than provide them, which would denude local government rather than complement those services that it already carries out, which would remove functions rather than build on them and restore them, which would give a piecemeal structure rather than a coherence that people could understand and respond to, and which would result in local government becoming even more the poodle of Westminster and Whitehall than a living part of our democracy enabling people to express themselves clearly and to have an

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alternative point of view to respond to the different political, economic and social needs of a diverse country and, above all, to be able to provide for the community that they serve the kind of services that that community wants rather than what central Government wants.

It happens that the rest of Europe has moved in the direction that we are advocating--that is, devolving and decentralising, giving people power to decide for themselves, providing quality services by encouraging and enabling local authorities to act on behalf of their communities, and ensuring that people have genuine choice. There should be choice as to who should provide services, choice as to whether services should be in-house or privatised, and choice as to what kind of spending and on what local authorities should spend their money. Those are the choices--about ownership, responsibility and accountability--that people have had for the past century in respect of their education services, their social services, their housing, their local refuse collection and their local environment. Now we see a threat to take it away--the threat of a commission which, from its very inception, will be disabled by a Bill and by guidance which take away those powers and denude local government of those services.

That is why we are opposed to the way in which the Government are operating under clause 2. That is why we are vehemently opposed to clause 1 and to the way in which the Government, particularly in clauses 8 and 9, are ensuring that reorganisation is complemented by privatisation and centralisation. That is why we believe that the Bill is flawed. An opportunity that has been missed and an agenda that could have carried us forward together have been set aside and replaced by dogma--by the values that were set out by the previous Prime Minister--and with a not-so-hidden agenda that carries those values and principles forward into the 1990s.

We know that the present Bill will not be carried into fruition. We know that we shall have the opportunity to change the guidance to the commission and to change its operation, and to ensure that it can do the job as we have described--a welcoming of partnership in local government to ensure that people receive the services that they want and deserve. That is why we know that, in rejecting the Bill and putting forward the new clause, we shall be responsible for carrying through our propositions and not the ones that the Government have put before us.

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey) : I am grateful for the chance to speak in support of the new clause moved by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and the other new clauses that Mr. Speaker has selected. I shall be relatively brief and put one or two points that deserve to be put at this stage. I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to do so, as I was not a member of the Committee.

On new clause 3, my hon. Friends and I believe that it is right that we should seek consensus on the structure for deciding the future of local government, and the more that that can be based on the views of the people, the better. One of the faults of the previous local government review was the artificial creation of structures of local government which did not do justice to the collective sense of belonging in very disparate parts of the country. As we travel around

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the country, we realise the strength of people's commitment to certain areas and structures of government such as counties. The right hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) referred to county boroughs. It is about time that we went back to a structure that reflected that view. I agree with the purport of the right hon. Gentleman's intervention, and I disagree with the hon. Member for Brightside. It is quite wrong, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti) said, to prescribe that there can only ever be one form of local government. That would be to make the same mistakes as were made before.

I cannot see why it is not possible for Essex to return to county boroughs for what is currently part of the county of Essex while the rest remains a shire county as a unitary authority. That is quite possible.

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Of course, we must make sure that the consultative process allows people to consider what the county would be like if we took out parts of it. However, county boundaries have changed. Counties such as Cambridgeshire have incorporated more than one county in the past. Therefore, the total geographical area of a county has changed over the years, and under that county structure we might find that people want district councils. It would be quite appropriate for the people of Cornwall to say that they want two tiers of government, a Cornish county council and five district councils. To say that they must have only one and that they must opt for a unitary authority flies directly against the wishes of many people throughout the country. From experience, I know that people in some parts of Britain would be happy to have a unitary authority. The people of Herefordshire resented greatly the amalgamation with Worcestershire. They would be happy for the county of Herefordshire as it now is to be a unitary authority. If, for example, we were discussing a Welsh authority such as Powys, which is a huge county, it would be entirely right for the people to say, "We want a two-tier government. We might be happy with the county of Powys, but we would also want the local district to be Brecknock or Breconshire." I do not see any incompatibility in having unitary authorities in some parts of the country and two-tier government in others. The Labour party is going down its traditional road of wanting everything in one-form terms. Britain is not a one-form society ; it is much more pluralist and diverse. Regions and countries are different, and we should respect that and allow people to decide.

Mr. Blunkett : Perhaps the hon. Gentleman, in describing the situation that he foresaw in Essex, inadvertently used the term "unitary" in relation to the remainder of the county. We have never said that we are against the idea that a part of a county or, in very exceptional circumstances, a county itself could not be the unitary authority. We have left our minds open. Nor would we be against an authority which, in our terms, would be described as a region with districts under it, such as the one that the hon. Gentleman described for the south-west peninsula, although we are against the district county and regional model with one tier on top of another

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tier until everybody cries for mercy because of the number of elections that are held and the number of people who are held responsible.

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that our proposition ensures that we can retain parish and town councils, perhaps with enhanced status, which would satisfy the pluralism and diversity of which he spoke.

Mr. Hughes : May I return to parish and town councils in a moment? They are a different debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne and I, and many other hon. Members, are committed to the idea of parish, town and community councils and believe that they should continue.

The debate is both technical and a much wider political debate. I may have inadvertently suggested that Essex minus unitary county boroughs would leave a shire which could not be other than unitary. That is not our view. There could be a two-tier structure. There could be the county of Essex, with its cricket, history and all the rest, and under it a local district authority reflecting the local community. The fact that the county had lost some of what is currently Essex does not mean that it would not be possible to have two-tier government.

Let us take the south-west peninsula. The hon. Member for Brightside will not make his cause popular in the south-west. The people of Cornwall want to be Cornish. They want to be governed as Cornwall, not the south-west peninsula. They may be in favour of regional government devolved from Whitehall, but they certainly do not want to give up Cornwall for some greater south-west region with tiers only below that.

Mr. Blunkett : I did not say that.

Mr. Hughes : Well, the people of Cornwall do not want to belong to the south-west peninsula. They want to belong to Cornwall, not Devon and Cornwall. On many occasions that is the cause of their resentment.

Mr. Blunkett : I will not keep the hon. Gentleman long, but I do not want an avalanche of letters from the south-west peninsula. I was referring to the possibility of regional government. I am happy to accept the Cornish wish to be Cornish. Indeed, many have written saying that they want a region with districts under it. That is different from being a county. They certainly do not want a west region that stretches from Wiltshire all the way down to Cornwall. Given that the hon. Gentleman's party is in favour of regions, perhaps he will enlighten me on whether he is also in favour of that.

Mr. Hughes : I had David Penhaligon as a colleague for many years and now have his successor. There are many other strong Cornish voices in my party, including not only those who run our county council in Cornwall. So I assure the hon. Gentleman that if we ever dared to suggest a western region from Wiltshire to Cornwall we would be in considerable difficulty. We do not suggest that, and we never have.

It is important that we should be clear about our respective positions. Both the Labour party and my party believe in regional government. In that context, the debate about smaller geographical units--Devon and Cornwall, or Cornwall on its own--is yet to be resolved. The aspirations of the Cornish are to their own nationality. They would put it as strongly as that. My point was that

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for unitary local government anything larger than Cornwall would be unacceptable. I know that from my visits and conversations with people there.

I wish to put in a strong plea to the Minister ; I think that he will be sympathetic to it. It is about the wording of new clause 3 and other similar new clauses. The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) has tabled a new clause which I guess comes from the same thought process and idea. I make a strong plea for smaller communities, especially in metropolitan Britain. Greater London--the area which both the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities and I represent--has suffered greatly as a result of the 1965 reorganisation of local government. So far the Government have resisted responding to voices in Greater London while they have not resisted voices elsewhere.

In this debate I am not arguing about the need for a regional authority for London. The Minister knows that my party and the Labour party believe that there should be such an authority. I am arguing about the natural local tier of local government. If I understand new clauses 3 and 14 aright, the local government commission will be asked to take account of certain objectives. New clause 14 describes them as :

"(a) to identify areas within which people expect to obtain most of their everyday services ;

(b) to establish local government boundaries that facilitate the meeting of people's needs and the respecting of existing social organisation".

In London, that means areas smaller than boroughs of 215,000 people.

I want to put this point simply to the Minister. I am sure that he understands it, because he is a London Member. In London there is no legitimate tier of democracy below the London borough. I do not know the exact figures for Enfield--the Minister's borough--but Southwark consists of about 215,000 people. So the lowest tier of local government represents a community of about a quarter of a million people.

In London one is not allowed by any process to set up a parish or community council. Anomalously, London is the one part of Britain that is excluded by law from having such councils. I have sought to correct that by means of a London local government Bill in the past. I beseech the Minister to say in response to the debate that he and his colleagues are not against the commission recognising, as implied by the wording of the new clauses, that, for example, people in Southwark say loudly--as they do--that they want smaller borough councils and allowing them to have such councils. They want the size that they knew and could cope with, which was relatively small. If we are to allow district councils in the shires of England, we should allow smaller borough councils in the urban areas.

Mr. O'Brien : Before the hon. Gentleman moves off the point about smaller local authorities, is he saying that the functions of unitary authorities in the shire areas should also be passed to the smaller authorities that he envisages in the metropolitan areas?

Mr. Hughes : Our view is clear. The hon. Gentleman's party and mine agree that there should be a strategic authority for London to take on strategic planning, economic development and other functions. If we had such an authority, we should also have smaller borough councils, as we previously had, to administer matters such

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as housing, social services and other provisions. Such a council is far more likely to deliver a user-friendly service. My local authority runs 60,000 properties. That is the housing stock of Southwark. That point has been made by other colleagues. It is effectively incapable of running that stock in a way that is responsive to the needs of the individual. People feel like numbers and are treated like numbers. I do not suggest that the hon. Gentleman does not appreciate that. People want a community service that is sufficiently close for them to feel that it is the same place. I will illustrate that simply.

A local authority in an area such as inner London may say to someone on the housing waiting list, "You cannot have a house in the place where you have lived all your life. You will go seven or eight miles away to a community which is completely different." For example, a person may be sent from Rotherhithe to Dulwich or Sydenham. But that is like saying to people in Halesowen that they must move to a village in south Herefordshire. That is the difference that is involved. It is bad for communities and for building up communities to do that. It is also expensive for the public purse. If communities and families are separated, they become dependent on public authorities for social support and not on the family and community that they know and love.

New clause 13 makes a simple proposition. It says :

"The Local Government Commission shall, in making recommendations under this Part, have particular regard to the need to secure effective planning for environmental purposes."

All of us who have taken part in the debate about how best one can plan for environmental purposes know that it is important to consider what is the best tier of local government for planning. It is no secret that the planners of Britain--bodies which are competent and respected, such as the Council for the Protection of Rural England--are worried that if unitary government were imposed or if the county councils disappeared, the best tier for planning would disappear.

In certain subject areas we plan badly at present. For example, there are no coherent planning strategies for development planning along estuaries. When people are trying to protect wildlife, the countryside, fishing, birdlife or whatever, it is no answer to say that the county or local authority boundary goes up the middle of the estuary : on the right there is Essex and on the left there is Kent or on the right there is East Sussex and on the left West Sussex. There is often a need for coherent policy for coastal, marine and estuarial protection. I am aware that there is a specific new clause on estuarine and coastal areas. We will probably not reach it. I am using them as an example and I hope that the Minister accepts that. There is a good case for saying that one ought to consider that sort of issue together and consider environmental aspects.

The commission ought to decide whether a boundary will allow for a structure that will take into account environmental, planning and demographic considerations. My hon. Friends and I ask the House and the Minister to accept that it would not be harmful for that obligation to be imposed on the commission. We are not saying that it should take precedence, but it should be added to its lists of objectives.

I hope that the new clause will be acceptable, either in its existing form or in some other. My hon. Friends and I

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dissent from the implied assertion of the hon. Member for Brightside. We expect that the Bill will become law before the general election, whenever that is. No doubt, the aim of the guillotine is to achieve that. On that basis, let us get it right as far as we can now. If the new clauses are acceptable and advantageous let us pass them. I hope that new clause 13 in particular, and new clauses 14 and 3--although I am not a signatory to the former--will be acceptable to the Government and will find their way into the Bill when we vote.

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Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne) : Both the previous speeches had a common theme--let us get it right this time. I shall be the third person to say that. We do not often get a chance to put right fundamental wrongs about local government. Whatever the outcome of the general election, the Bill is probably here to stay, in some form or other : for heaven's sake, let us get it right while we are about it.

I shall comment briefly on new clauses 3 and 13 and speak to my two new clauses 14 and 17. Before I do so, I must make a couple of general remarks. First, I must thank two people. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) had the unenviable job in Committee of moving an amendment standing in my name which focused on the importance of local people to this debate, as distinct from councillors and council officers. My hon. Friend expressed my views accurately on that matter and I am grateful to him. It was a thankless task to try to work out what I was trying to say and he said all that needs saying--from my point of view--on the question of local people. If hon. Members wish to pursue the matter, I refer them to columns 521 and 522 of the Official Report of Standing Committee D on the Bill.

I must also thank my hon. Friend the Minister of State who, from time to time, has said nice things about the influence that I seem to have had on parts of the Bill. I am grateful, but I think that he would expect me to say that I am sorry that he took on board only some of the things that I had to say. I shall make one last attempt to persuade him to accept the rest.

The second general point is that I deliberately did not seek to intervene on the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) because I want to couch my remarks in non-party terms. That is why I did not take him up on arguments that I disagree with. I shall try to express my remarks in a way which will not excite him, although he will disagree with some of them. What I have to say could well raise a few eyebrows on both sides of the House. For example, I agree with much of what the Labour party has said today and previously, but I fundamentally disagree with some things which they have got wrong, and will say so. Also, the Government are correct in principle in what they are trying to do, but they have to get some of the detail right. Hopefully, there will be a bit of give-and-take on both sides of the House.

I agree with five of the seven points which the Labour party lists in new clause 3, although one of the five is incomplete. The trouble with three of the aspects of the new clause that I agree with is that they do not define in clear terms exactly what they mean. Let me explain. First, the Labour party stresses in new clause 3 the importance of local communities, but does not say what they are and how it would establish them. However, it is right--local

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communities are important. Secondly, the Labour party refers to the importance of local government, but does not define exactly what it means. Thirdly, it says that the Bill must be understood by electors. My only quarrel with that is that it must be understandable to electors, residents, users of services and everyone else- -not merely to electors--but that is a small point. Fourthly, the clause states that the whole system needs to be accountable, but does not describe what that means. However, I agree in general terms.

Where I fall out in a big way with Opposition Members is when they talk about service delivery. They seek to make that the same thing as defining local government when it is a separate issue. They also seek to draw into the new clause matters which I would describe as regional. They see them as part of strategic local government. For reasons that I shall explain, I do not believe that service delivery is the same thing as local government.

The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said that he hoped that new clause 13 would commend itself. The sentiments in the clause are worthy and I support them entirely, but they have nothing to do with the Bill. If the new clause was tabled in a service delivery context, I would have no difficulty in supporting it.

The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey said that we must define natural local communities but then said that if they do not suit environmental protection we should draw up something else. He cannot have it both ways. He is right that we must have some way to deal with an entire estuary, to take his example--

Mr. Simon Hughes : I did not say that. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that one must define natural communities. However, environmental considerations should be taken into account by the Boundary Commission. They should go into the balance.

Mr. Wilshire : I shall pursue that later as it will become clear why I disagree and why that is not an issue when describing natural communities.

New clauses 14 and 17 seek to set out additional detail, which the Labour party has left out, and I hope that it will find them acceptable. The clauses also seek to show why service delivery must be separated from this discussion.

My new clauses seek to do five things. Paragraph (a) of new clause 14 seeks to define a local community for the purposes of the local government commission ; (b) gives a definition of local government which is intended to make it clear to the commission what it is supposed to be setting up ; (c) deals with the question of accountability and what the future of local government should be ; and (d) seeks to separate out service delivery. New clause 17 explains how service delivery could then be dealt with differently. We all agree that we want to define local communities, but what do we really mean by them? Most discussions that I have been party to, or listened to, start with the assumption that there is one thing called a local community and that all we need to do is to discover what it is, draw boundaries round it and all will be well, and we will not have to come back in two years to try to put it right. The trouble with that analysis is that we all belong to several different sorts of local community. It is vital that we understand the differences between them.

Let me give some examples of types of communities. We all belong to a household of some sort, we all come

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from a village, a street or a housing estate ; we all come from a town or a rural area, and from a county or a region. They are all local communities in one form or another.

If the local government commission is to get it right it needs to know which of those local communities it is supposed to be focusing on. All those communities have two things in common, which is why they are often confused. They are all part of the natural way in which human society organises itself. There are households, villages, towns and counties and, whether we like it or not, they are there and do not rely on Government to define them. Secondly, they are all territorial. One has only to look at what happens on the beach when one tries to stake out one's territory to realise how desperately territorial we all are.

Mr. McCartney : Who would risk lying on a beach under this Government?

Mr. Wilshire : I expect that you would rule me out of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I were to respond to that stupid intervention on beaches.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd) : The hon. Gentleman should learn to be diplomatically deaf, as I am sometimes.

Mr. Wilshire : I am practising that, Madam Deputy Speaker. Perhaps you could give me some instruction on it at some other time. The point about natural communities is that they are territorial and part of human organisation, but when we define them none of them owes anything to service delivery. As well as the differences between them, another aspect has been overlooked in the debate. Each community has a particular focus.

The household, for example, focuses on daily life. Anyone who does not consider that the household is part of social organisation should listen to those who argue for women's rights. They would then understand that there is a clear social organisation in the household, which women want to change. In the village, the street and housing estate the community focus is on self-help and in the town or area the focus of people is on the area within which their services will be delivered. When we consider counties or regions, we become locked into the issue of sub-cultural differences. I mention that because it is absolutely vital to note that, unlike the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey, I have not referred once to a sense of identity because each type of natural community has a sense of identity. It is no use appealing to a sense of identity when trying to establish local government because each community has it. If the household is a commune, its members will identify strongly with that community. If one asks a village resident in rural England, he will say that it is the place with which he identifies fiercely. If one speaks to the residents of the Falls road in Belfast, they will say that they identify strongly with that street.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Robert Key) : Brookside

Mr. Wilshire : Yes, one could take that example. If one speaks to the residents of the Broadwater Farm estate, one will understand how closely they identify with it. Consideration of the question of identity will get us nowhere. If one speaks to people from York, they will say

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that they identify with that town, but they will then take a further leap and say that they identify with Yorkshire. We have awful trouble in pursuing the issue of a sense of identity to establish what we mean by natural community for the purposes of local government. We all identify with many different communities of different sizes and we have to be careful when we consider them. The second key issue that lies behind my new clauses is what we mean by local government. I broadly agree with the hon. Member for Brightside on what represents a good and secure future for local government. There are two definitions of local government. The first is that it is simply a vehicle for the delivery of local services ; the second is that local government is part of the social fabric. The recent debate among Members on both sides of the House has tended to focus almost exclusively on local government as a vehicle for the delivery of services, which makes it an appendage of central Government. The hon. Member for Brightside said that it is increasingly being seen as an appendage. Conservative Members may have considered local government in that light, but Labour Members have also tended to do so.

The local government commission must avoid that and see local government as part of the social fabric and as something that can neither be created nor got rid of. If we consider local government in that way, we shall arrive at its true role and see it as part of society's organisation.

We arrive at local government's true role by my analysis of different types of community because each type focuses on something different. Each has a different role and that is their significance. The household may be informal, but it is an organisation. The village, street or housing estate has an organisation, which is typically the parish council. I support the view of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey that that concept exists in the countryside in medium-sized towns and in the metro-politan areas. That is part of the natural fabric, but the snag is that that concept does not equate to local government. We delude ourselves if we start talking about local government structures needing parishes in London. Social organisation requires them, but not local government. That is the key to my argument.

Mr. Simon Hughes : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that an anomaly exists in one part of Britain alone, Greater London, where there is no formal democratic structure through which people can get together on their estates or in their areas to discuss issues? That is wrong and it should be corrected.

5.45 pm

Mr. Wilshire : I support the hon. Gentleman's sentiments, but I question whether there is no structure. When the House deprives people of a formal structure for debate, such structures develop on a self-help basis, for example, with the establishment of residents' associations. I accept that they are not the same as a formal structure, but such associations develop when there is no alternative. That reinforces my point about the natural development of certain structures. The House cannot deny such developments, but it can make them more democratic. However, parish councils, which have a role in the future, are not part of the issue.

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