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Ms Armstrong: Perhaps I can help. Clause 14 exists in its present form because we want to facilitate new ways of working. For example, we want to enable health authorities and local social services departments to pool budgets. Where appropriate, we want authorities to develop waste management programmes, not necessarily to separate collection and disposal, and that is impossible in two-tier authorities at the moment. We cannot do so in a way that will give local authorities flexibility to decide whether such a move is appropriate for them without doing so in that way.

If the hon. Gentleman persists in opposing those provisions, he will, for example, restrict the ability of authorities to work together. One authority that was a best-value pilot discovered that it organised only10 adoptions last year. It has said that it is crazy for its social services department to offer a full adoption service and that it should be able to work with a neighbouring authority. The Bill would give authorities the freedom so to do. However, Parliament must be able to agree decisions to keep the public audit trail right.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. I understand that the Minister is anxious to give the fullest possible explanation, but the Front-Bench spokesmen will have the opportunity to deal with such points when winding up.

Mr. Burstow: I am grateful for that full explanation of the Government's intention behind the clause, but we

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must have regard for the fact that the Minister and the Secretary of State will not always be in those posts and that others could use the powers entirely differently. That is why we are expressing our concern and why we want to be clear about the procedures and the ability to amend. The Bill would allow alterations through regulations, when hon. Members would be allowed to vote yes or no, but they would not be allowed to consider, amend or change such regulations. That is a fundamental weakness of the Bill. A better way to secure what the Minister wants to achieve is to introduce a power of general competence. That would be in accordance with the representations made by the Local Government Association and--many times--by Liberal Democrats. We would support the Bill if it introduced that power and put in place a process by which Parliament would get what it needs but which also gave greater freedom to local government. Although we shall discuss the matter further in Committee, we object strongly to the Bill in principle because it does not offer that.

Dr. George Turner (North-West Norfolk): Is not the hon. Gentleman's criticism of the Bill in fact a criticism of the way in which the House works? The problem is that the House does not properly scrutinise Government. That is not the fault of the Government, who want to introduce sensible management into local government. It is for the House to modernise scrutiny of Bills and secondary legislation: if hon. Members addressed that matter more forcibly, we should make some progress.

Mr. Burstow: I could not agree more. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will vote with us when we press those very points. We firmly believe that many elements of the House's procedures could benefit from the modernising zeal about which Ministers often speak. Such modernisation would ensure that the House could scrutinise the Government's actions and legislative proposals more effectively than at present.

The Bill greatly extends the remit of the Audit Commission. I strongly support that organisation's work and the non-partisan and effective manner in which it operates, but the Bill could add a new dimension to the conflict that can arise between local councillors and auditors. That is because, when assessing best-value plans, it is possible that auditors will go further than a review of the process involved in assembling such plans and will stray into challenging directly local authorities' policy priorities.

As the Bill is drafted, it appears that the Audit Commission may have to issue guidance and give support to local authorities. It will be interesting to learn how much extra Ministers think that local authorities will have to pay in fees for such additional services.

Reference has been made already to the 100 or more local authorities, under the control of all parties, that are engaged in best-value pilot schemes testing the practical effect of the ideas contained in the Bill. How will the lessons from those pilot schemes be translated into the provisions of the Bill and the regulations and guidance to be issued subsequently? I hope that the Minister will give some indication of the timetable and the process involved. When will the information derived from the best-value pilot schemes be shared with the House?

Questions also arise with regard to the duty to implement best value and the drafting of clause 3, which omits any mention of equality or environmental

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sustainability. We are especially worried that the Bill does not refer to either of those matters, and we shall press Ministers on them in Committee, as we believe that they are important and must be given due regard in the application of the best-value regime.

I turn now to capping, whose scope the Bill in fact extends because it allows a more sophisticated selection of authorities that may be capped. We have consistently opposed the principle of capping, as we believe that it blurs accountability. Council tax payers faced with higher bills or poor quality services will not know to whom they should complain. Should they express their unhappiness in writing to Ministers or to local councillors at their surgeries, or should they boot out those councillors at the next local election?

As has been said already, the new regime will introduce more secrecy into the process. It will be harder for treasurers and councillors to make judgments in advance of capping to protect their local authorities' interests when it comes to setting budget requirements and council tax levels. The absence of pre-signalling will be damaging. In the interests of local democracy and of genuine local accountability through the ballot box, we should prefer capping to be abandoned altogether.

The Bill paves the way for the introduction of the council tax benefit subsidy limitation. The previous Conservative Government introduced a housing benefit subsidy limitation, and this Government are to employ the same claw-back mechanism for council tax benefit. Even though some Labour Members are continuing their campaign for changes in what they believe to be an unfair housing benefit regime, they are likely to support the introduction of the same unfairness into the council tax benefit system.

We believe that the proposal will penalise councils that spend slightly more than what is dictated by central Government. The Local Government Association has calculated that there are at least 23 local authorities in England which, even if their spending levels match those of the Government's standard spending assessments, will be penalised by having council tax benefit subsidy clawed back. That seems even more unfair in the light of what the Minister said earlier about achieving a balance between the interests of taxpayers at national and local levels. How can it be fair for central Government, by means of the new device contained in the Bill, to claw back benefit paid to support services at the level that central Government will have deemed appropriate? The Government must examine closely the details of the scheme, which clearly will penalise some of the poorest councils and people in the country.

The Bill will restore, by the back door, the system of crude capping. It will amount to another way in which the Government will be able crudely to direct local authorities in the conduct of their affairs, and we shall oppose the measure for that reason. As our reasoned amendment makes clear, we believe that the provision is inappropriate.

What is the reason for the haste behind the introduction of the council tax benefit limitation? In the coming financial year, even though they may not be pre-signalling, the Government will continue to implement the existing regime of crude and universal capping. So why are they hurrying to rush through Parliament this Bill and its associated regulations to

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enable them to impose this additional central control over local authorities? What is the rush? The scheme has been announced, but local authority associations and treasurers have not yet seen the scheme's precise details. That makes it much more difficult for treasurers to advise local authority members about setting appropriate budgets.

The Bill fails to put in place the building blocks needed for the reinvigoration of local government. It does nothing to tackle the democratic deficit caused by the domination of one-party councils as a result of the first-past-the-post electoral system. [Hon. Members: "Here we go."] Hon. Members may say, "Here we go," but they would have been even more surprised had I not made some reference to a voting system that causes too many councils to be complacent about the views of their electorates because they know that they will not be tipped out of office. The present system reinforces one-party domination of councils.

The Bill does nothing to introduce the wider power of general competence to which I referred earlier, nor does it increase local financial autonomy by returning control of the business rate to local councils.

Mrs. Gorman: Does the hon. Gentleman care to remember why the business rate was reorganised? It was because, rather than increasing the domestic rates, local authorities--largely Labour councils--were milking the business community. They often doubled and sometimes trebled the business rate year by year. The Government had to introduce measures to protect the business community. Incidentally, many areas with poorer populations benefited from the redistribution of the business rate from councils such as Westminster, which provided a very large part of the money.

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