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6.32 pm
Mr. James Couchman (Gillingham): I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Medway (Dame P. Fenner) in her place. She and I will share the Kent (Borough of Gillingham and City of Rochester upon Medway) (Structural Change) Order 1996, which proposes to dissolve Gillingham borough council and Rochester upon Medway city council and to create a new unitary authority to provide the full range of services presently provided by the two district councils and Kent county council.
This has been a contentious issue in my constituency for far too long. It has been a matter not only of contention but of sadness and bitterness for friends from the same party serving on district and county councils who have found themselves on opposite sides of the argument, and for Members of Parliament such as myself who, having stood up to be counted on one or other side of the argument, have lost friends and supporters who took a contrary view.
Change in the way in which we govern local services is rarely popular; we are all conservative with a small "c". I have been consistent in supporting the proposal to create a single tier of local government for Gillingham,
Rainham, Chatham, Rochester and Strood, which together have a population of about 250,000. I gave evidence to the first Local Government Commission for England and expressed my support for a unitary authority. That was in line with the support then given to the proposals by both district councils, but against the stance adopted, understandably, by the county council, which was fighting for its survival.
I confirmed to the second Local Government Commission chaired by Sir David Cooksey, which was acting on the Secretary of State's requirement to review some of the final recommendations, that I was consistent in my support for a single authority, despite Gillingham borough council--reflecting the new overall control by Liberal Democrat councillors--having done a complete about-face in its support for such a single authority. Gillingham's Conservative and Labour councillors remain in favour of a unitary authority, as do councillors from all three parties on the city council. The reasons why I expressed support for a single authority to the first commission remain as strong now as they were then.
I served as a councillor on Bexley borough council from 1974 to 1982. The outer London boroughs, despite the unwelcome interference of the then Greater London council, were virtually and are now actually unitary authorities, providing all those services, apart from police and fire services, which are provided by the district and county councils outside London. Bexley was an excellent council in those years, providing first-class schools, social services, housing, roads and civic amenities. It was a viable entity serving the population that it did. It still is viable and is respected for its innovative services. Bexley came out of Kent county council in 1964 and its inheritance from Kent county council was pretty threadbare.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has referred rightly to the geographical integrity of the Medway towns and to the weak nature of the present boundaries between the city council and Gillingham borough council. I believe that a single-tier council serving Gillingham, Rainham, Rochester, Chatham and Strood can be as viable as Bexley borough council, on which I served. Decisions will be taken by people living in those towns rather than people who live from Dartford to Dover and Maidstone to Margate.
The constituent parts of Kent are quite different. The problems and opportunities which confront the Weald or even east Kent are different from those that affect north Kent. Kent in my view is three counties--east Kent, north Kent and what I am pleased to call posh Kent. The council has not always realised that.
Some people have suggested that Gillingham will become submerged in Rochester. I do not believe that for one moment. The pivot for the Medway towns in future is likely to be where it has always been. The former royal naval base and Chatham dockyard, now Chatham Maritime, is where the development is taking place for the towns. Gillingham's business developments, both in Chatham Maritime and the business park, together with its football club, which achieved promotion last year, Hempstead Valley shopping centre and even Gillingham's unique connection with the Japanese mean that Gillingham will remain its own town. However, I believe that Gillingham will remain in Kent for postal purposes
and for Kent's heritage and sporting traditions, just as 30 years on Bromley and Bexley remain part of Kent, if not of Kent county council.
Dame Peggy Fenner (Medway):
It is most kind of my hon. Friend to allow me this interjection. I should like to correct the assertion made by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) that the order was not a democratic response to the people of Rochester. Five Liberal members of the local authority joined the members of other parties in support of the proposal for a unitary authority. I am sure that the logic of the rest of his speech, little though it was, would count a population of almost 250,000 as large enough to have one authority.
There is one particular burning issue that I wish to raise and about which I wish to be reassured. Article 7 makes provision in respect of the Medway towns specifically for minerals and waste policies. I should like an assurance from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that that includes the minerals and waste policies--
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes):
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but that was a very long intervention.
Mr. Couchman:
I am sure that my hon. Friend has made her point and that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has heard her. I agree with her contention about the democratic nature of the arrangements. There is a huge irony about the fact that Gillingham Liberals are now against the proposal. The leader of the Gillingham Liberals proposed to the Association of District Councils in Kent that the whole of Kent should be made into unitary authorities, but of course, like other Liberals, he reserves his right to change his view from time to time. I suspect that he may have realised that a unitary authority for the Medway towns would not be dominated by Liberal councillors. That may explain his change of mind.
My hon. Friend is right about the democratic nature of the proposal. The hon. Member for Newbury made great play of the commission's consultation exercise. The commission sent out 650,000 leaflets detailing four options. One in 13 of those many leaflets was returned to the commission--that is about 50,000, a number not unadjacent to the number of people who work for Kent county council and who would have had a heavy vested interest in its retention and maintaining the status quo.
In Gillingham, fewer than 3,000 leaflets were returned out of a population of 96,000. Some 75 per cent. of those were in favour of retaining the status quo--two thirds of the 96,000. People tend to write in if they are against rather than in favour of something. It could therefore be suggested that almost 94,000 of Gillingham's population supported, or did not mind, the concept of unitary status.
The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) also made much of the somewhat bizarre MORI poll that was conducted by the commission. I am not going to follow the hon. Gentleman's comments on that subject; I think that we have yet to reach the parlous state where legislation is based on opinion polls.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been criticised for inviting a second commission to review the final recommendations of the first commission. He has
done so for consistency throughout the country; he made that clear in his statement to the House when he set up the second commission, and I support him in that decision.
Throughout a difficult period of controversy, I have tried to respect the opinions of all those who have taken an opposite view. I have been consistent in my support for the proposal, which I believe will result in the best local governance for Gillingham and Rochester, through a time of great change and regeneration, into the 21st century. As the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) suggested, no one can say whether it will lead to a higher or lower council tax. That will depend on a number of complex resolutions about support grant, standard spending assessment and the residual debt--I mentioned that to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State as we are worried about the possibility of asset stripping by the existing authorities. The council tax level will also depend on those who are elected to the new, single-tier authorities. I shall not add my guesstimate to those of the soothsayers who have been so eloquent in their guesses as to whether it will be an expensive option.
I have read the order carefully and there are some points on which I would like my right hon. Friend's guidance. Article 5 sets up a new county of the Medway towns, but without a county council. I presume that that is to allow the transfer of powers and duties from Kent to the new unitary authority. But flowing from that, what are the ramifications for policing the area of the new county and what implications will article 6 have for fire services? Am I right to assume that the postal address will remain Kent, as it does for Bromley and Bexley some 30 years on? Who will represent Her Majesty as Lord Lieutenant? Will it be Lord Kingsdown, who has done such a splendid job in Kent for so long?
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