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Mr. Jon Owen Jones: I am fascinated by the hon. Gentleman's contribution and by several speeches by Opposition Members in which they have reinvented themselves before our very eyes. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that he is able to condemn this country for being more centralised than our neighbours because other western countries have varying degrees of devolution to regional bodies? I do not recall the hon. Gentleman's supporting our devolution proposals.
Mr. Jackson: Governments of all parties share responsibility for the current situation. That is the spirit in which I make my remarks. I want to outline the dangers of the situation that we are in and to explain what we should do about it.
The fact is that the slogan of equity and efficiency could lead us to do away altogether with elected local government. It could even justify our doing away with elected national government. A body such as the European Commission--if I dare to mention it--could undoubtedly run this country with adequate equity and efficiency if they were the only values that mattered. We have to recognise that what is at stake includes the principle of representative government and the idea of accountability to elected people. In our treatment of local government over the years, our position in the House reminds me of the proverbial cartoon character who is depicted busily sawing off the branch on which he is sitting.
To my party in particular, I want to make a particular point. In the late 1980s, we were drifting towards the idea that, at the local level, accountability towards elected representatives could be replaced by accountability to the users of public services through the operation of internal markets. There are still those who find that a seductive vision: every school grant maintained; every doctor a fundholder; every public service run by people engaged on a fixed-term contract by a Minister applying transparent performance standards constructed on the basis of surveys of user preferences.
The problem is that we have no warrant from experience that practice matches that beautiful theory, in which politics is reduced to a subdivision of marketing and citizens are regarded essentially as consumers. How much power do users have in relation to monopolistic public services dispensing scarce goods? Can "Exit" replace "Voice" in those services? How does the fragmentation that the theory entails enable us to deal with the many problems that are best tackled on an integrated multi-service basis? Are we not coming to recognise that the world of opinion polls and focus groups is dangerously open to manipulation by the power holders? Can accountability in the detail that matters to users be ensured through fixed-term contracts? We should always remember that the American authors of "Reinventing Government" framed their ideas against the background of the highly developed and constitutionally guaranteed system of representative local government that we in this country lack.
I point out, in answer to the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones), that the British system--or perhaps, after devolution, we should now refer to the English system--has become excessively dependent on a single instrument: the accountability of Ministers to Parliament. All Members of the House know that instrument to be a broken reed. As the question of what we are doing to improve our procedures has been raised, let me point out that the Modernisation Committee is doing nothing about that.
My conclusion is that we all need to go back to fundamentals in local government. I welcome the recognition of that, although it was derided by Labour Members, by my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), who spoke from the Front Bench. The fundamental question that needs to be resolved is whether local government is to be an expression of local self-government or no more than one way among others
of delivering services. Another fundamental question follows: how far can we and should we do without the representative principle?
If we study the deep-rooted political traditions of this country, we know the answers to those questions. On those fundamental matters there is common ground between the Tory tradition of limited government and pluralism of powers and the radical liberal tradition of democratic citizenship. The only political tradition that sustains our present approach is that of the old-fashioned socialist top-down bureaucratic planning of which Whitehall is now the last exponent in the civilised world.
Once we have answered those basic questions, all the other questions of equity and efficiency, difficult as they are, can be more easily answered. The answer lies in finding a balance between what they require and what local choice, diversity and pluralism require. The key issue is encapsulated in the figure that I gave earlier--locally raised revenues now amount to no more than a sixteenth of total public spending. No other advanced country works in that way. Let us look to other countries, recognising that, if they can make subsidiarity work, so can we.
Mrs. Christine Butler (Castle Point):
I enormously enjoyed the speech by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), who performed a volte face by largely supporting the Bill, gave a litany of disclaimers for his party and made accusations against Labour-controlled local councils. Although he is not in his place, I shall enlighten him about what his party used to get up to in local government. I have direct experience of that because when Castle Point suffered under a Conservative administration, one of its members was well known for boasting that no one could teach him very much about corruption and it would take a majority of freemasons for the council to make any decision.
I was delighted to listen to the speech made by myhon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett), who gave wonderful descriptions of authorities in the great days of Victorian municipal authorities before the first world war. I am afraid that the world has moved on since then, although he rightly pointed out that, in most respects, people have not changed much in their attitudes to local or any other government.
I welcome the establishment of the best value regime that will replace the outdated, inadequate and unpopular compulsory competitive tendering system. I welcome also an end to crude and universal capping.
Some hon. Members have read too much into the Bill before us; it is not the definitive, all-purpose local government Bill. More is to come, and it would be appropriate to discuss at a later stage some of the matters that have been mooted this evening.
The Bill has a simple message: best value replacing CCT; a regulatory regime that will enhance local government performance; and the Secretary of State
taking a bottom-line approach by using reserve powers to police local government measures. I share other hon. Members' reservations about those latter aspects.
The principle of best value has been endorsed by stakeholders across a spectrum of national bodies including local government. From my experience, I know that members of the public appreciate, understand and welcome best value. The principle of best value in local service provision and the necessary consultation provided for in the Bill will increase public confidence in local government. More specifically, the Bill heralds a new and meaningful approach to participatory democracy through greater accountability, transparency and consultation. We must, however, be careful that the principle remains whole and clear in legislation and will shine through in the practical implementation at local level.
I should like the Government to make a commitment to a national scheme to give support and advice to local authorities that are developing best value. Despite the expected benefits that may cascade from the example of beacon authorities, sufficient evidence exists of a need for a resource to help to develop skills, particularly in researching supply markets, in procurement and in restructuring councils. Although I would have liked schools to have been included, and a single standards inspectorate to be established, I welcome the proposed inspectorate forum, which will at least create a coherent framework for inspection.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley):
Like the hon. Member for Castle Point (Mrs. Butler), I come from a background of local government. It is interesting that so many hon. Members who have spoken do so too. As a result, the House has seen through the sugar coating on the Bill's bitter pill. The first portion of the Bill, which plays to the Labour unions, especially in local government, is the sugar coating. It placates those in the unions, and Liberal Democrat and Labour councillors, whose concerns about compulsory competitive tendering have been expressed in the debate. Such concern neglects to see CCT in the light of the times in which it was originally introduced.
The second portion of the Bill is the bitter part: blatant capping. There is no doubt about that. The hon. Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley) said that the Bill takes away capping with one hand and puts it back with the other. That is not so. It removes capping with one hand, but puts it back with both. There are two forms of capping in the Bill: subjective capping in the main part of the Bill and a crude, across-the-board capping in the schedules.
As far as Labour councillors are concerned, this is the best value Bill. The words "best value" sound nice. I imagine that they roll easily off the tongues of spin doctors. The concept sounds easy to sign up to. It even sounds as though it might benefit somebody. However, as has been spelt out time and again, there is not enough in the Bill on which to grip in order that hon. Members may decide whether best value will work.
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