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Mr. Miller: Although my constituency of Ellesmere Port and Neston was not granted unitary authority status, we wish both Halton and Warrington well in their endeavours. I am sure that they will succeed. I hope that the Minister has listened carefully to my hon. Friend's remarks about a problem with which we are faced time and again when dealing with the county council. My hon. Friend referred to one particular issue, but there are others concerning social services and education. Will he comment on the difficulties that he has faced in those areas?
Mr. Hall: I largely agree with my hon. Friend. Suffice it to say that Cheshire county council's spending on
special needs is the second lowest in the country. I hope that the two unitary authorities will spend more on that aspect of education.
I have criticised Cheshire county council--now I will praise it, because it has accepted the recommendations and has issued, with Halton and Warrington borough councils, a joint declaration of commitment to a smooth transition of county-run services and to continuing to provide high-quality, cost-effective services to the people of Cheshire before and after the unitary authorities begin operating. That development and the recommendations are welcomed by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Mr. Oakes). The other Cheshire districts have also accepted that the two local authorities in the north of the county should have unitary status, and they are working together to bring that about.
As we come to the end of this long and winding road, the challenge for Halton and Warrington councils is to meet their promise to the people of those boroughs about the benefits of unitary local government--a concept that I support because I believe in the principles of democracy. Devolution is fundamental to strengthening our democratic processes. Halton and Warrington borough councils should not rest on their laurels on achieving unitary status but must devolve power within their communities. The local government review has aroused in both boroughs tensions and fears that must be addressed speedily and positively. Parish areas south of the Manchester ship canal in Warrington must be included at an early stage of planning for unitary status. Those areas have an important role to play in Warrington's joint future and their inclusion is essential if the best possible future for the borough is to be achieved.
One gesture that the council's ruling Labour group could make in that respect is to offer mayoralty to the opposition groups, which would cost nothing but go a long way towards building bridges in the whole borough--a gesture of political reconciliation which I strongly commend to my local authority.
Sir Anthony Durant (Reading, West):
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, on behalf of Conservative Members who represent Berkshire constituencies. Two of them--my hon. Friends the Members for Slough (Mr. Watts) and for East Berkshire (Mr. MacKay)--are Ministers, so are unable to contribute. My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor and Maidenhead (Mr. Trend) is heavily engaged in other duties, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Sir G. Vaughan) are in their places.
I do not know the position of the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel). I understand that he favours the unitary authority for his constituency, but I am not sure of his attitude towards the county.
I strongly support the proposals before the House. I have always been in favour of unitary authorities, because I started my political life with one. Woking was a big urban district council and we had a lot more power in those days. I was chairman of its education committee, which gave powers to the local districts, and learned a lot from that experience. Reading was an extremely good county borough.
I support the view of my right hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) that those of us with county boroughs in their constituencies much regretted their abolition. They provided a good service and offered high standards, and it was a pity that they disappeared. I am delighted that they are to return. People need to be near the services that they use. They want to know who is responsible for repairing a hole in the road or for allocating school places. At present, the public are confused.
I thank all those people who have worked in my county council--particularly the county councillors themselves. They have a good record and have worked extremely hard. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that Berkshire will not lose its identity, and it will retain its lord lieutenant. However, Berkshire lost a lot of the county some time ago, including Abingdon. The white horse, which was once the symbol of Berkshire, was also lost in a previous reorganisation. I fought against a white horse candidate in one election, who wanted to return the white horse to Berkshire. He won about 300 votes and it was interesting to have him in the campaign.
A MORI poll found that only 11 per cent. of the people of Berkshire felt that they had any strong connection with the county, which is pretty low. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, the county held some odd views. Initially, it joined the district in saying, "Yes, we want unitary authorities--so we will abolish ourselves." It subsequently took a U-turn, but no one has got to the bottom of the reason for that change of mind. Then it started a campaign and wasted a great deal of public money--all of it from council tax payers--going to court, the High Court and the House of Lords. All the letters that I have received about retaining the county council have arrived since that campaign started.
I made some disparaging remarks about county hall. Perhaps I may withdraw them and make it plain that I was expressing a personal view. It did win an architectural prize, which surprised me at the time. I was speaking for myself, not for everybody else in the county, when I said that the county hall was monstrous.
I accept that costs--there will be some--are an issue, but as the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) said, one can produce any figures one wants, whatever the starting point. It is up to the unitary authorities to control their costs. It is not a matter of their saying, "We cannot do anything. We need a lot more money." The authorities already run many of the services, so I believe that they can keep costs well under control.
Sir Peter Hordern (Horsham):
Is my hon. Friend aware that, only today, Reading has confirmed that after the transitional period it expects to run the area more economically than at present?
Sir Anthony Durant:
I have received the same communication from Reading district council, and we shall keep it to that pledge.
Concern has been expressed about voluntary and similar bodies. Berkshire districts have established liaison committees in advance of reorganisation, to cover planning and technical services, social services, the voluntary sector, community cultural services, emergency planning, trading standards, chief executives, finance officers, information technology, land and property, personnel and communications. The sad thing is that the county was originally involved in those liaison committees but withdrew when it started its campaign, which was equally a great pity.
One argument made in the county council's campaign was that the people of Berkshire had not been consulted. A letter from Purley parish council in my constituency states:
Mr. David Rendel (Newbury):
I regret that some of the speeches made so far in the debate seem to have concentrated on whether unitary authorities are a good thing as an issue of principle. We have had that debate on various occasions in the past; surely it is not the debate that we should be having today. This debate is about 10 orders that affect 10 areas, and whether they meet the requirements of those areas or whether they should be amended in some way and sent back for further consideration. That is what we should be dealing with and, at least for a large part of my speech, I intend to deal with those specific problems.
I realise that the Government and the Labour party are under the impression that they have effectively wrapped up the local government review and that there is little more to discuss. That is a pity, because there are some important points to be made. The fact that the Government and the official Opposition were so eager for 10 of these orders to be swept through the House in only three hours today--originally it was to have happened a week ago--is evidence enough of the low priority that both the Conservative party and the Labour party give local government.
We have three hours, which is only 18 minutes for each of 10 counties.
"Only an authority that is totally out of touch with the people and unaware of what is going on could make such a statement. The public has been consulted extremely adequately . . . The Parish Council has no wish for its 'Local Government' to be run by a body that up until the last minute was saying it did not wish to put itself forward as a Unitary Authority, and was proposing its own dissolution. At the eleventh hour they changed their minds, and would not appear to be intent on their survival. This indecisive stance hardly inspires confidence for the future."
That expresses the irritation of one of my parish councils.
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