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Mr. David Heath: I represent a part of the country that was capped by the Government after an election that had produced an overwhelming majority in the county for higher expenditure. Will the hon. Gentleman reflect on one phrase in his speech: management techniques? Is not that the crux of the matter? The Government are still determined to manage local government instead of providing for local autonomy, and Liberal Democrat Members will not stand for that.
Dr. Turner: I entirely disagree. Good management is not about telling everyone what to do, as the hon. Gentleman seems to think; it is about delegating, and ensuring that decisions are made at the right level. That, however, does not mean that the buck will stop lower down. Ultimately, it will continue to stop with Ministers.
In running the nation, we want to get the balance right. We want to be clear about the decisions that are made, and about who is responsible. That is what the electorate
need. Nevertheless, I accept that, in a country the size of ours and given our system of government, Ministers will want to reserve unto themselves some powers that reflect the fact that that is where the buck stops. I know--we all know--that, in the case of certain things that happen in local government and are experienced by the local electorate, Ministers will get the blame, and I have no doubt that Opposition Members will try to heap that blame on them when the time comes. One of the features of local government today is the fact that we have not yet achieved the right balance between Government and local decision making in terms of powers and the language that we use.
One of the difficulties that the House will experience in discussing local government is caused by the variety of quality to be found in local government. Local government is not black or white; it genuinely comes in all sorts of shades. During the 20 years I served in local government, I saw dedicated councillors who were in touch with their electorate, properly representing the views of that electorate and the interests of their community, acting with knowledge and appointing officers who gave good professional advice. I saw councillors who were keen to ensure that the best information technology techniques, and the best ways of running organisations, applied in their authorities. However, I also saw councillors who were more interested in posturing, uttering slogans and, in fact, abusing local people--more interested in academic argument that might, at times, be more appropriate in the Chamber--than in delivering local services. I believe that some of the difficulties facing the Government when they draw up a Bill such as this are caused by the wide range of performance, whether at council or officer level.
The difficulty and the danger are posed by the fact that we need to enact legislation to deal with the needs of the people who are unfortunate enough to have the worst councils, while ensuring that the rules do not discourage or prevent innovation and the progress of the very best. It is in that regard that Ministers must use their judgment.
As one who was a member of a local authority, I am well aware that compulsory competitive tendering wasted money. I sat on committee after committee which saw that the total cost to the public purse was larger than it would have been without CCT. However, I am glad that the Government are not saying simply that they will turn the clock back. Twenty years ago in local government, there was much to be challenged. The Bill addresses the need to achieve value for money, which will challenge councils to ensure that modern approaches and tools such as information technology can tell us what constitutes best practice.
It has been suggested that the Government are trying to create uniformity. I am well aware of the richness and variety of the ways in which local government is currently administered. By no means is a single formula applied locally, and I do not think that there is any intentionthat should happen. We should succour the rich experimentation that is currently taking place, and I do not think that the Bill does anything to prevent that; but we must learn the lessons of those who experiment. Experiments that fail must be abandoned, and when
experiments succeed, that best practice needs to be propagated in local government. That, I think, is the underlying philosophy of the Bill.
My experience as a Member has been coloured by the fact that my office is opposite that of Kings Lynn and West Norfolk borough council. Because of that proximity, I have felt a keen interest in the doings of the borough council, and I am delighted to note that, rather than feeling that it will pushed into something by legislation, the council has addressed the issue ahead of time. I believe that it was the first public body in the country to gain an "investors in people" award. It has received three charter marks, and a number of its services are benchmarked to ISO9002, a quality standard for service delivery.
Two years ago, the council made a commitment that it would work to the British Quality Foundation's business excellence model. That commitment will underpin its service review. It said that it would review its services in three years. I consider that a challenging objective, and I look forward to receiving the report, in a month or two, on its housing, financial, IT and refuse collection services for the current year.
I think that there is a broad welcome for the Bill. I believe that many people in local government feel that shackles have been removed, and that they can work in a different way with a different Government. However--and I speak as one who complained about capping when I was a councillor--we must face the fact that the slogan "Give them the money, Bernie", implying that the Government should provide the vast majority of the money and then let local authorities get on with the decision-making and the spending, is not a reasonable model.
The last Government treated local authorities as though they were in the doghouse. Certainly, the rules were simple enough for a dog to understand. It is possible that the present Government are treating local government as something more like an adolescent. As children grow older, the rules become more complicated, but they are still there. I hope that we shall see an evolution and a development in local government. After 18 years of its being denigrated, blamed, hit, limited and constrained, it will take a few years of the present Government to change the backdrop. I hope that we shall see a relaxation in the minds of Ministers, at least, in terms of regulation and control; and if the measures that the Government are introducing in regard to democracy succeed, I think that we can further empower the process of local accountability. It is not there yet, though, and I understand Ministers' concern about capping.
We must see progress. Ultimately, the quality of those in local government will determine what happens. The quality of the officers is clearly critical, but more important than that is the quality of the members, because they determine who the officers are. They need to be given a task that is worth while and a time scale in which to perform it, and they need plaudits as well as brickbats.
Mr. Adrian Sanders (Torbay):
We have heard very good speeches from the Opposition Front Bench, and interesting and well-put speeches from the Government Back Benches. We heard a good speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow); but I was somewhat disappointed by the speech of the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner). At one point, I thought that he was arguing against local elections, although I felt that I had a great deal of common ground with him when he intervened earlier.
The Bill, in effect, transfers power from the market to Whitehall, bypassing residents on the way. It simply confirms that local government in England is exercised only at the discretion of Whitehall and, in particular, the Treasury. Encouraging consultation while preventing local government from meeting the needs that may be highlighted is a bit like an adult telling a child that the siren indicates that the van has run out of ice cream. The principle of self-governance is not shared in government because the Government and their so-called third way do not trust the people.
Gladstone once said that liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence, and conservatism is mistrust of the people tempered by fear. New labourism appears to be distrust of the people tempered by focus groups. What is the Bill all about? The answer is in the explanatory notes on the effects of the Bill on public sector finances:
The council tax provisions will enable the Government to restrict excessive increases in council tax. That will control total revenue expenditure in England of over £50 billion and in Wales of over £2 billion, so it is about control of expenditure--something for nothing, no extra resources, central Government control.
How does that chime with the Government's ratification of the European charter of local self-government? How can a Government who commit themselves to the importance and independence of democratically elected government propose hit squads and further powers for Whitehall to intervene--nationally set performance standards, central powers of reserve to cap locally set budgets, new audit and inspection arrangements?
The Minister said that the Bill was pushing powers out of Whitehall to the town hall, yet there are 27 new central powers in the Bill. If the Minister's claims were to stand up to scrutiny, she would have been introducing a Bill to give local government the power of general competence and a system of proportional representation for local elections, where the ballot box, not the Secretary of State, would be the final arbiter of performance and tax raising.
The hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson) was right when he described the measure as an example of the mistrust of local government, a mistrust that has led to a lack of transparency in local government finance, leaving
local taxpayers confused over whom to blame for cuts, tax rises or waste; but the most pernicious aspect of the Bill is the council tax benefit clawback. The poorest areas are hit the hardest. As a national newspaper put it the other weekend:
"The improved efficiency and effectiveness in the use of resources which result is expected to deliver significant costs savings across the board, as well as improvements in service quality."
The Bill promises us something for nothing. We have heard that so many times. The notes also say:
"There will be some costs of compliance with the best value provisions of the Bill which will fall upon authorities, and which may involve them incurring new costs . . . Such costs will be expected to be contained within existing budgets"--
so there are no new resources with the Bill.
"The real issues are local choice and local democracy. Labour's scheme is capping in all but name--and indeed treats poorer councils worse than the Tory shires. The new measures are mostly contained in regulation changes, rather than legislation, and so will be confined to a House of Commons Committee. But the powers necessary to enact the reform are in the Local Government Bill. The Observer hopes that some honour is left among New Labour's back-bench MPs. If this was too much for Mrs. Thatcher, it should certainly be too much for New Labour."
I fear that the Division will prove that it is not.
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