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8.37 pm
Mr. Gareth Thomas (Clwyd, West): I welcome the Bill whole-heartedly. It is part of the Government's wider programme to modernise local government. In my view, it strikes the correct balance between local accountability and initiative and an entirely necessary element of oversight and scrutiny by central Government, and, significantly, by the National Assembly for Wales.
The abolition of the inflexible and discredited CCT system and the crude concept of rate capping is entirely overdue. The new duty of best value and the duties to review, consult, appraise and engage continuously in a process of improvement simply mirror good management. Significantly, it is what the public have the right to expect.
To strike a note of criticism about the manner in which the Bill is drafted--I speak as a lawyer--schedule 2 is impenetrably complex. If one is striving towards transparency and engaging with the general public, surely there is a case for simplifying legislation on local government finance.
As the only Welsh Member to have spoken so far in the debate, although there has been an intervention by the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), I should
like to stress that the Bill applies not only to England but to Wales. In the context of Wales it is qualitatively different. I notice that the Minister agrees.
The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones), is to wind up the debate, and I should be grateful if he would respond to some points. To my knowledge, this is the only Bill so far directly to provide order-making powers not to the Secretary of State for Wales, but to the National Assembly for Wales--a democratically elected body that is at the forefront of constitutional change not only in Wales, but in the rest of the UK.
I hope that the Bill is the shape of things to come, and it is heartening that it conforms with the spirit of devolution. It is a framework Bill to provide enabling powers, and it is not overly prescriptive. It does prescribe the concept of best value, but there is a public expectation that basic services such as education and social services should be run properly and in accordance with best value.
The Bill is remarkably light on mandatory requirements thereafter. The provisions on performance indicators, reviews, timetabling and--significantly in the case of Wales--intervention and reserved powers are all permissive, and not mandatory. In the context of Wales, the provisions are dependent on the democratic will of the people of Wales through the Assembly, and that is significant.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will know that a key provision of the Government of Wales Act 1998 is section 113, which imposes a statutory duty on the Assembly to sustain and promote local government--a novel concept. That is entirely fitting in a country such as Wales, which places great--perhaps fanatical--emphasis on loyalty to one's own locale and community.
In Welsh literature and history, there is the concept of brogarwch--a dedication to one's milltir sgwar--that is of loyalty to one's locality. Wales is a nation of communities, and it is right that the Government of Wales Act will set up a partnership council between the new tier of regional government and local government. The Bill is consistent with the idea of a partnership council. At first blush it might not seem to be but, frankly, the Bill is permissive and subject to the democratic will of the people of Wales.
How does my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary foresee the partnership council inter-relating in practice with the provisions of the Bill? I agree with the constructive comments of the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) that much of the conceptualisation behind the Bill dependson good will between central Government, regional government--in the case of Wales--and local government. I will be interested to hear my hon. Friend's comments on that. I assume that the National Assembly for Wales can choose not to make any order-making powers, or to make order-making powers which are different from those which apply in England. Again, that is consistent with the spirit of diversity which lies behind the concept of devolution.
Clauses 22, 23 and 24 are technical measures relating to police authorities and reserved powers in relation to precepting authorities. However, the explanatory notes with regard to clause 24 seem to be inconsistent with the Bill. Is it the case that the Secretary of State for Wales will continue to retain powers relating to police authorities? That appears to be the meaning of clause 22,
in which case those reserved powers could be applied by the Secretary of State, but not by the National Assembly, so the position in respect of police authorities would differ from that of unitary authorities. The explanatory notes appear to be somewhat contradictory.
Mr. Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire):
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Thomas), although he will forgive me for not following up on the issues he raises that relate specifically to Wales.
I was interested to hear the hon. Gentleman refer to the partnership council: every Government Bill should contain a clause that is specifically dedicated to the establishment of a partnership council, for where would we be in the modern age without the Government's belief in partnership? However, the Government's approach is to assume that the partnership sought through all the various mechanisms will deliver everything because everybody will agree with each other all of the time. It is perfectly obvious that the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King) believes that, if people are brought together, they will agree. In fact, the object of legislation is often to require things to happen when people do not agree: for example, the whole point of capping is not to cover situations where people do what they are enjoined to do, which is not to engage in excessive spending, but, in the Government's own terms, to enable the Government to take reserve powers for the occasions when they do not. We are trying to ensure that powers exist to require local authorities to act responsibly when they are moved not to do so.
When the Bill was published, it was interesting to consider it in the context of the White Paper "Modern Local Government: In Touch with the People", because there is discontinuity between the then Labour Opposition's pre-election political posturing and all the rhetoric that led up to the Labour manifesto and subsequent events. After the election, instead of action on the aspects of the rhetoric that related to freeing local government and to sweeping away central Government interference and the excessive legislation introduced by the Conservative Administrations, we get only those legislative measures that serve Labour interests. In the Bill and, no doubt, in future legislation on introducing higher standards and controls over ethics and behaviour in local government, we can see that the Labour Administration's agenda on local government is driven by the requirements of dealing with Labour in local government.
The Government know that, to achieve their objectives in local government as dictated to them by their Labour local authorities, who are still in the grip of their relationship with the trade unions, they have to deliver the abolition of compulsory competitive tendering, but how are they to do that within the rhetoric of fiscal responsibility? They do it by talking about best value. Labour's political rhetoric is that we have to do away with
the wicked capping that past Tory Administrations used to prevent local authorities from spending money on services; but the Government recognise that authorities--it will inevitably be Labour authorities--who want to engage in excessive spending will have to be constrained from doing so. Their solution is to bring back control not in the guise of crude and universal capping, but as a mechanism that, in its technical aspects, is capable of imposing a system of capping that is just as detailed and constraining as anything that has been applied by past Conservative Administrations.
Again, we see the gap between the rhetoric and the reality. The rhetoric of Labour is about freeing up local government, but the reality is serving the interests of Labour in local government and recognising that Labour local government has deep flaws, which is why this Administration has introduced the Bill.
Dr. George Turner:
Will the hon. Gentleman reflect briefly on the fact that Conservative council after Conservative council was capped under the previous Government's regimes? I served on one. Those councils spent up to the cap and that became the norm. The English language was abused, was it not?
Mr. Lansley:
Yes. The hon. Gentleman is taking me to a later part of my speech. He will not be surprised to learn that I have difficulties with the manner in which capping regimes have been applied. For example, in recent years, my county council in Cambridgeshire was capped, even under a Conservative Administration. It was capped at the standard spending assessment level, when it had one of the lowest council taxes in the country. In that case, capping was not applied to curb excessive spending.
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