| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
10.53 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir Paul Beresford): Like everybody else, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir J. Spicer) on securing the debate. I congratulate, too, my hon. Friends on having joined in, and, of course, the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mrs. Maddock).
Today, a number of markers have been put down for local authorities, especially Dorset county council, which will be called upon to meet those targets--targets which in many ways it has set for itself. The hon. Member for Christchurch was to some extent trying to defend the indefensible--but we shall wait and see; the results will come forward.
In defence of the council, the hon. Lady mentioned the Audit Commission report. I do not think that I have ever seen an Audit Commission report on a council that could not be called a curate's egg, so obviously she can pick out some of the nice bits and leave some of the more distasteful bits for other Members to ponder upon. I hope that they will do so.
The hon. Lady also made comparisons of costs with other counties. That is difficult to do. As she will be aware, one must consider standard spending assessments and other factors, and also the nature of the other members of the family. Those factors alone are enough to suggest that savings would be available.
The hon. Lady made the standard complaint about expenditure vis-a-vis Government expenditure. We must recognise that, as has been said, the SSA for the county increased by 2.9 per cent, its SSA for education rose by 4.9 per cent., that for the fire service by 9 per cent., and
the capping limit by 3.3 per cent. Those figures are not targets but ceilings, and I am sure that the county council could spend well within and below them.
The other predominant factor in the debate was the result of the recommendations of the Local Government Commission. As has been said, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State considered the commission's report and the representations that he had received, and on 21 March last year he announced his decision. He accepted the recommendation that there should be unitary authorities for Bournemouth and Poole, but decided that the rest of the county should remain with two-tier local government.
As my hon. Friends have pointed out, that hybrid solution was promoted by the county council itself.
Mrs. Maddock:
Will the Minister give way?
Sir Paul Beresford:
I have only about five minutes, and I have already cut my speech considerably. I shall just run through a few points.
Mrs. Maddock:
I realise that time is short, but to blame Dorset county council for what happened over local government reorganisation is amazing. It was a Government-inspired operation, and there was no agreement in Dorset among anyone--county council, district councils or Members of Parliament--about what should happen. In the end, we have all had to suffer a hybrid position that very few people wanted.
Sir Jim Spicer:
Who inspired it?
Sir Paul Beresford:
If the hon. Lady is having some problems with private grief over her own disabilities and so on, I shall leave her to struggle with it. The fact is that the hybrid solution was ultimately promoted by the county council. To my mind, that means that the county council must make it work.
The order to make Bournemouth and Poole unitary was made on 11 July last year. All-out elections to those authorities will be held in May this year, and reorganisation will take effect on 1 April 1997.
The county council has said that it is committed to carrying out a fundamental review of the division of functions and finances between the two tiers. As part of that service review, it proposes to delegate decision making and service delivery where appropriate, and carry out service audits jointly with the districts. It is committed to streamlining service provision in collaboration with the district and other councils. It also proposes sharing principles and objectives with the districts--for example, for trading standards and for libraries.
During the local government review, many local authorities made such undertakings. We made it plain that we expected local authorities not only to make such undertakings but to put them into practice.
As the hon. Member for Christchurch said, I was at a conference on Monday at which the Local Government Management Board launched a report analysing the commitments given to the Local Government Commission during the review. The report shows that some authorities are putting their words into action and introducing many innovative improvements.
On the other hand, it is clear that progress across England has been patchy. That is true not only of the nature and scale of improvements, but also of the range of people involved. Dorset was not one of the areas used as a case study, but there is some evidence of intentions, and we expect those intentions to be fulfilled.
Mention has been made of costings, expenditure and the anticipated standard spending assessments of the authorities affected by reorganisation. The methodology for each service will be the same as it is now. Indicative 1996-97 SSAs will be available in May. That gives a short but physically possible time in which authorities can organise themselves.
Of course, Government offices will be keeping watch over progress towards reorganisation date; their interest will be directed towards particular local authority services in which they have a special interest. However, it would be fair to say that we shall not see clearly how things are developing until after the elections to the unitary authorities in May. Indeed, the regulations placing powers and duties on authorities to prepare for reorganisation reserve much of the power to make policy decisions to the councillors who will be elected then.
Apart from the Government office, the Audit Commission and the district auditors are in a unique position to see what is happening in each authority, and the Audit Commission has a statutory duty to promote efficient, effective and economic local government. Preparation for reorganisation and developing co-ordination and co-operation across the tiers form a part of the agenda.
Miss Kate Hoey (Vauxhall):
I welcome the opportunity for a slightly longer debate than I had perhaps expected. Wednesday mornings are useful in that they provide time for the House to consider issues which do not necessarily hit the headlines but which are important to millions of people.
The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), is probably wondering what he is doing here. I could not see swimming mentioned anywhere in his job specification. That suggests that there is a problem with responsibility for the matter. I would have liked to debate swimming generally, but there was a problem with finding the appropriate Minister. I decided that I wanted to deal mainly with swimming in schools and the attitude of local authorities to the subject, and the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment has been chosen to reply.
I would have liked the Minister with responsibility for sport to be here, but he might not have been able to answer the debate because the Department for Education and Employment is responsible. The situation is unclear, and the departmental cross-responsibility shows the need for co-ordination and strategy. Nevertheless, I welcome the presence of the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment. In all my dealings with him, he has been generous with his time and prepared to listen to arguments.
I wish to start by dwelling on the importance of swimming. The ability to swim combines a worthwhile and pleasurable activity with a skill that could one day save a life. Not for nothing is swimming sometimes referred to as a life skill. It is also medically advantageous to general physical and mental health and it has special benefits for people with disabilities. It is a very fine way to establish mobility and a feeling of balance and control.
The difference between swimming and other sports is that, as well as being a superb recreational activity, the ability to swim is a critical factor in reducing the risk of accidental death by drowning. Research among all age groups has shown that the risk of drowning is more significant for non-swimmers and in the 10 to 24-year-old age group non-swimmers were three and a half times more at risk than swimmers. That may seem a somewhat obvious point, but it is worth making.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |