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5.39 pm

Mrs. Helen Jackson (Sheffield, Hillsborough): I hope that the Bill will be the last piece of local government legislation that the Government bring before the House. The Library tells me that there have been more than 200 pieces of legislation affecting local government since the Tories took office in 1979. Those have left a once proud system of local democracy in a shambles, so let us all hope that this will be the last of them.

The Bill is narrowly focused, closely directed at parliamentary seats in which Tories are defecting in droves and putting Tory majorities at risk. It is a fairly blatant last-ditch attempt to win votes in marginal seats. That is a shame, because much in the Bill is worthy of support. The drawback stems from the motive that has driven it on to the Government's last legislative agenda.

There are two principal problems. First, the Bill's effect will be marginalised, because it is out of line with the drift of mainstream Government policies. The thrust of

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those policies, whether on jobs, transport, housing, industry or even agriculture--the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis has significantly added to poverty among small farmers--has damaged rural and urban economies and communities alike.

The second principal problem is that, without any new resources, other than an apparently unlimited parish precept--all new tax--and with a lack of clarity about the cost-effectiveness and the arrangements for establishing an additional layer of bureaucracy, it is doubtful whether the Bill's worthy ambitions of greater community participation and public good will be realised.

We live on a crowded island, and urban decay and rural communities are close neighbours. I am not sure that the measures in the Bill will not serve to exacerbate existing tensions and help to set urban areas against rural areas in a negative way, rather than producing a positive result. For example, the decision to put crime prevention policies in place could be driven by the feeling, "Let's keep the townies out of our little area," rather than being a valuable attempt to build more satisfactory social cohesion. Could that measure be seen, as I read in the Local Government Chronicle this week, as little more than a

"subsidy for the middle classes"?

When the Environment Select Committee read the White Paper, we were delighted that the Government had acknowledged--

Sir Roger Moate: I am genuinely puzzled by what the hon. Lady says. In a typical village, the people who use the store are not middle class; everybody uses it. Why does the hon. Lady think that helping a village shop to survive is help for the middle classes?

Mrs. Jackson: The hon. Gentleman should wait for me to continue my speech. I was citing the concerns expressed by a wide range of local authorities in the Local Government Chronicle. I believe that they could be right about one of the effects of the Bill, and I shall explain how and why.

Unemployment in rural communities has wide effects throughout the country. If more Conservative Members represented urban areas, they would realise that the problems of rural unemployment are mirrored and multiplied by unemployment in the urban areas that Labour Members tend to represent. Indeed, as a result of Government policies, the effects of unemployment and poverty are spreading like a disease to every part of the country.

For example, the town of Stocksbridge in my constituency is nearly 10 miles from Sheffield, yet, as part of the Government's programme of cuts and part of the so-called benefit change programme, it is proposed to close both the jobcentre and the Benefits Agency office from 1 January. That will affect people living in all the rural communities around Stocksbridge. They will have to pay £1.40 there and £1.40 back on the bus even to go and look for a job, and the same to go for an interview about their benefit. That will not promote the health and welfare of rural areas, yet there is nothing about it in the Bill.

There is nothing to help with housing, either. When the Select Committee considered housing need, we made strong, well-supported, cross-party recommendations

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about the need for more affordable housing in rural areas. It is a pity that there is nothing in the Bill to address that continuing problem.

The same applies to education, which my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) mentioned. My constituency was faced with a proposal to put three rural schools on the closure list because of Government pressure to close schools with surplus places. Only after an enormous effort and a campaign by people in the rural communities dependent on the schools were the Government persuaded to allow the local authority to keep two of the three schools open.

Those are the Government policies that people in the rural areas of my constituency will remember; although they will welcome what is in the Bill, they will be aware of the wider issues, and the fact that wider Government policy is doing them no good.

I shall now be a bit more positive, in that I welcome the proposal to help shops, post offices and other businesses in rural areas with their business rates to enable them to survive. I should like an assurance today from the Minister that such measures will be allowed where villages and rural communities are part of a metropolitan area. I was concerned to hear an exchange between the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Day) which implied that that might not happen.

The residents of Bolsterstone, Dungworth, Bradfield and Wharncliffe Side--all villages with fewer than 3,000 inhabitants and one general store--will be extremely angry if the proposal does not extend to them and to their shops and communities, simply because they are on the rural fringe of a large urban area. That would be extremely unsatisfactory. Many of the seats that the Government intend the proposals in the Bill to protect are part of rural areas on the edges of major urban areas. Unless the Government understand the essential link between urban and rural, which is now so close, the drive behind the Bill will not be fulfilled.

To be positive, I should like to believe that the proposals on transport are a long-overdue recognition that bus deregulation has been an unmitigated disaster in rural areas. Three quarters of all rural parishes now have no bus service. Where services run on a commercial basis, they can be restricted, changed or cut altogether at short notice. That happened recently in Colne valley, for example, where the Blue Bus company suddenly and without consultation withdrew its services from Slaithewaite Hill Top through Wellhouse and Milnesbridge to Huddersfield, affecting 1,000 people and their bus journeys.

Only because of a concerted campaign by the local community, backed by Labour, was another bus company persuaded to fill the gap--but for how long? When will the next company withdraw the service without consultation? Similar things have happened in my constituency in connection with the Bradfield school and its bus services. There is absolute chaos, because of the lack of certainty that bus deregulation has meant for rural areas.

I welcome the possibility that the drive, advice and guidelines aimed at extending community transport schemes and local bus-sharing initiatives, which may well

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be promoted by parish councils, will be beneficial to people in rural areas. I am sure that the Opposition would support that.

I turn to the other main drawback. I agree with the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir R. Moate) that there is a lack of clarity about the role and nature of the devolution of such services to parish councils and its effect. I agree with the thrust of the proposals that parish councils should provide a chance for local action. They provide an opportunity for voluntary work and a strengthening of the sort of community activity that is effective in preventing crime and promoting the rich variety of cultural life enjoyed by many villages.

I should like to place on record the excellent efforts of Bradfield, one of my parish councils, which looks after all 200 miles of footpaths in my constituency and has been partly responsible for South Yorkshire coming top of the footpath league in the recent Countryside Commission report on the state of rights of way. It is at such a local level that women in the community can play a very active role in developing community initiatives.

My worries about lack of clarity, however, are founded on the fact that other community and voluntary-based groups also undertake excellent work--possibly on a wider basis than the parishes--such as the Sheffield community transport scheme. The group operates services in rural areas and throughout the city. It has an excellent partnership arrangement, funded by the city council, to which parishes contribute, but it is an independent, voluntary group. I could mention other groups, and I am sure that other hon. Members could cite similar examples.

What concerns me is that, in Sheffield's experience, it has been easier to build sound partnerships between the local authority and such independent development trusts or groups, with some support from parish councils, than it has been to build them between authorities--higher tier with lower tier. It concerns me that putting too much emphasis on the parish council undertaking this work will mean that the drive towards partnership that allows two authorities to work together will be lost.

There is no question--we in the House know--but that much of the time of an elected authority at any level can be spent in moaning, groaning and criticising the higher tier rather than getting on with implementing the positive policies. Authorities may have their own political agendas, and may even find it more appropriate to that agenda to carry on their lobbying roles rather than getting on with implementing the very useful proposals in the Bill. That is relevant not just to developing a two-tier system within a relatively urban rural area; such activity in parish councils in more rural district local authority or county areas could be a recipe for conflict rather than positive progress.

It is important, therefore, that, where a parish council decides to take on new work and responsibility, it is prepared to carry the can for failure as well as for success. I assume that the district audit service will have to assume an additional role in monitoring the spending of parish councils where they take on extra work. There is still not enough clarity about where the functions will begin and end, how those functions will be financed and what limitations will be placed on them.

For example, if a parish decides to raise its precept--even double it--to take on road safety and traffic-calming measures, how will that affect the district allocation for

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road safety? Do the Government expect that allocation to remain more or less the same, or will it be reduced as the parish precept is increased? If the latter happens, there would be a serious danger of skewing the overall authority's priorities. If one area on the fringe of the authority wants to implement traffic-calming measures, therefore, will it take away the possibility of the wider authority introducing the same measures in a wider area?

An enormous number of complications will need to be addressed and sorted out in Committee to ensure that extra money is provided for these proposals. In his winding-up speech, will the Minister address the point made in an intervention by one of my hon. Friends about whether increased spending as a result of an increased precept by a parish council or a number of them in a larger area will affect the overall spending allocation that is taken on board where capping criteria are set? We need an absolute guarantee that, pound for pound, the proposals will not affect what the umbrella authority will be able to spend.

Such issues are extremely important, since a wider authority may end up failing the majority of its citizens because of the activity of one or two fringe areas. The Bill's lack of clarity on such financial issues will produce endless wrangles rather than productive projects, many of which are already under way.

I wish the Bill well in principle. I am sorry that it has been presented at a time and in a way that looks as if it is window dressing for targeted areas of the country. I do not believe that voters will be fooled, because the wider issues that affect the economy and people's standard of living are not restricted to either rural or urban areas. Such problems face both types of area and we badly need a Government who begin to legislate for the whole nation.

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