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Mr. Dobson: I am sure that that is true. I last went to Ashworth before it was Ashworth. My hon. Friend will understand what I mean--such places have their names changed. Some of the people who work in some of the medium-secure units that I have visited are heroes just for working there in very difficult circumstances. I want to try to ensure that the people who work there feel that they are getting the credit, the attention and the help that they deserve.
From my brief acquaintance with him, I am confident that the new chairman of the authority has the necessary drive, skill and management capacity to take on the task of at least getting the first response from Ashworth. I have told him that I should like him to take on the task for four or five months and if he wants to stay after that he is welcome. However, I have agreed that if it is so demanding that he wants to return to Morecambe bay, he can.
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
Whom can the public blame at the top for what has happened over the past six years? Let us have names. Which Ministers were responsible?
Miss Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone and The Weald):
Oh, come on.
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
Oh yes. The right hon. Lady did not get to the Dispatch Box because she was so frightened about her image. I am sorry to raise this controversial issue. Who is to blame for what happened during the regime of relaxation? Why was there no monitoring by Ministers at the Department of Health in the early 1990s to ensure that the changes that were being introduced would not be abused as they have been? People need a politician to blame for what has happened.
Mr. Dobson:
As my hon. Friend knows, I am the last to go round blaming people--with the exception of a few Conservatives. The previous Government implemented the Blom-Cooper report when the right hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley) was Secretary of State for Health. In view of the infinite capacity of the civil service and the national health service to take
The almost universal application of the liberalisation after the Blom-Cooper report, which was directed not at the personality disorder unit but at the rest of the hospital, was effected pretty thoughtlessly by whoever was responsible on the ground. It was predictable--common sense must have suggested--that a group of highly intelligent, manipulative people would be better able to exploit reduced security and greater freedom than the average person suffering from mental illness in another part of the hospital. Quite frankly, in respect of some of the management and professional staff involved, it is as though the words "Abandon common sense all ye who enter here" were written over the doorway of Ashworth.
[ant documents: The Eleventh Report from the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee, Session 1997-98, on the Implementation of the Best Value Framework (HC 705-I) and the Government's Response thereto (Cm 4082).]
Order for Second Reading read.
Madam Speaker:
I should inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown).
The Minister for Local Government and Housing (Ms Hilary Armstrong):
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill provides for the replacement of crude, universal council tax capping with new reserve powers to protect the council tax payer and new arrangements for achieving best value in the development and delivery of local authority services. It provides a crucial role for the new National Assembly in Wales. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones) will say something about that later.
Modern councils put people first. They are at their best when leading their local communities, working with partners to develop and achieve a vision for their area, striving for continuous improvement in the delivery of local services, involving and responding to local people and building effective partnerships with local businesses and the local community.
The Bill is the first step in the wider modernisation of local government set out in our White Paper last year. Our proposals to transform the political management and ethical framework of councils will be published soon in a draft Bill and other measures will follow.
The Bill concentrates on the bread-and-butter issues: raising the quality of public services to improve the quality of people's lives; creating a level playing field to ensure real and fair competition in service provision and the efficiency gains that competition brings; and recognising the immense contribution made by public servants in the public, private and voluntary sectors.
The Government's belief in modern public services comes from our traditional values of community and solidarity. We believe that, by the strength of our common endeavour, we can achieve more than we achieve alone.
That is why communities work together, through their local councils, to ensure the provision of education for children, homes for the homeless, care for the elderly and vulnerable, regeneration for run-down neighbourhoods, crime prevention and community safety; and to plan better public transport. That contrasts with the open hostility of the Conservative party to the very idea of community. The Government embrace the values of community; the Conservatives scorn them. That is why the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), a Front-Bench health spokesman for the Conservative party, described community as "atavistic, backward-looking, irrational".
Mr. Robert Jackson (Wantage):
As the Minister is so very keen on the importance of local communities and
Ms Armstrong:
I shall not be tempted to breach the rules of the consultation. I enjoyed receiving the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues from the local authority this morning, when I made clear the boundaries within which we work at the moment. The Bill provides slightly different boundaries, and I hope that he will be interested in hearing about them later in my speech.
It is because we believe so strongly in the power of community and the potential of modern public services that we have zero tolerance of inefficiency, mismanagement and waste. It is because the Conservatives care so little for community that they have zero tolerance of public services. That is why they oppose the Bill. People expect a bigger say and a better deal from the services that their councils provide, with more transparency and involvement in the way in which decisions are made about the cost, quality and delivery of local services.
Dr. Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak):
I agree with my hon. Friend about the need for greater transparency, but how will the capping of council tax benefits help to ensure greater transparency and accountability?
Ms Armstrong:
As I will say later, the Bill proposes a sharing of responsibility between national and local taxpayers on decisions that are made locally.
People expect public services to be delivered in the most effective and efficient way, meeting their expectations on cost and quality. They are more concerned with how services are delivered than with who delivers them. They are fed up with the old ideologies which pitted public sector against private. What matters to them, and what matters to us, is what works.
Modern public services are the foundation stone for modernising local government. The best councils recognise their success and seek continuous improvement. The worst councils should be changing now, or face intervention by Government. The average cannot afford to be content with mediocrity.
Best value is far from a soft option, with four disciplines driving standards even higher. First, the public will set the standard and see the outcome. Secondly, standards and performance will be independently audited. Thirdly, tough inspection regimes will make sure that all councils are up to scratch. Fourthly, if they are not up to scratch, the Government will intervene to protect our public services and the council tax payer.
Best value is based on four Cs: challenge whether a particular service is necessary or desirable; consultation with local people about the standards that they expect; comparison with the quality and cost achieved by other similar service providers; and competition, real and fair, to achieve the maximum value for money. When the Conservatives were in Government, they had their own version of the four Cs--capping, compulsion and central control.
The Bill seeks to define more closely the role of Government, away from centralisation to regulation. The Bill will shift power out of Whitehall to the town hall, but will make sure that individual citizens are protected as
consumers and taxpayers. For too long, public service provision has been an ideological battleground between public and private sectors.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex):
Will the Minister give way?
4.35 pm
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