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Mr. Sanders: I beg to move amendment No. 5 in the name of my hon. Friend and myself.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. There is no need for the hon. Gentleman to move his amendment. We group all the amendments together. The only amendment that has been moved is the first amendment in the group, in the name of the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson). The hon. Gentleman may wish to say simply that he supports the amendment, to avoid confusion.
Mr. Sanders: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Of course we support the amendment that the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) has just moved.
Amendment No. 5 leaves out lines 33 to 43 and removes the power of the Secretary of State to operate by order of mandamus. It would replace that power with a process of resolution approved by the Select Committee on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs. Yesterday, we received the latest version of the protocol between central and local government. The existence of the protocol implies some consultation and agreement on the way forward, but clause 14(8), (9) and (10) are the ultimate coercive powers that the Secretary of State would have if this part of the Bill were not amended. He would have the power to determine urgency and need for action without reference to the House. The only reference to the local authority required is that he has to inform it of what action he has taken--he does not have to consult it.
The Minister referred to referendums. They are a form of consultation. Any Minister in the new regime would not look kindly on a local authority that simply informed its local residents of its council tax rather than consulting them. What is supposedly good for local government does
not seem to be replicated for central Government in the Bill. The LGA still has concerns about the protocol, especially on the use of urgency powers, of which notice does not even need to be given to local authorities.
We believe that clause 14 is crucial. Although our amendment would not remove as many of the new centralising powers given to the Secretary of State as we would like, it at least provides a solid mechanism for parliamentary scrutiny of those powers.
Mr. Lansley:
I am grateful for this opportunity briefly to speak to four amendments within the group. Amendments Nos. 46 and 47 are not complementary but competitive. For reasons on which I will not elaborate because my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) referred to them, there is everything to be said for tweaking the powers of the Secretary of State. There will naturally be some creative tension between local authorities and the Government about the manner in which performance indicators or standards are to be set. Local authorities might well take reassurance from the fact that the indicators would be set in terms recommended by the Audit Commission. Fortunately, the reputation of the Audit Commission is such that hon. Members on both sides of the House ought to be happy that its history and knowledge of local authorities well equip it to recommend satisfactorily to the Secretary of State the basis on which the standards should be set.
I recognise that Ministers are normally not minded to circumscribe themselves, so if they are not minded to go as far as accepting amendment No. 46, I commend amendment No. 47 to them. If the Audit Commission takes the trouble to recommend performance indicators or standards to the Secretary of State and he chooses not to follow them, local authorities will find it helpful if any order published is accompanied by reasons why the Secretary of State has gone down a different path. That will remove any sense that the indicators or standards are arbitrary. Of course, Ministers never behave arbitrarily.
Amendments Nos. 48 and 49 also relate to clause 14. Amendment No. 49 has the purpose of removing those subsections that allow the Secretary of State to act urgently without consulting and simply to notify the relevant authority and such persons as the Secretary of State sees fit of what he has chosen to do and why he has chosen to do it urgently. The amendment would replace those subsections with a different mechanism, the purpose of which would not be to constrain the Secretary of State in acting in an urgent manner, but would require him to go through a consultation period, although obviously on a highly accelerated basis, without observing the one-month period that would otherwise apply for consultation.
I admit that amendment No. 49 would not enable the Secretary of State to act quite as swiftly as the Bill presupposes, but local authorities would find it a great deal more satisfactory procedurally if the Secretary of State consulted--albeit in the space of hours rather than days or weeks--and then acted, rather than acted and then notified. There is a big difference between those two things.
For my money, amendment No. 48 is the most important in the group, and I hope that Ministers will take it on board. If a report from the Audit Commission
deemed an authority to be failing to exercise its functions, and the Secretary of State took it over, it would be incumbent on him to say how he proposed to exercise that function, how he would remedy the failings set out in the report, and the period during which he expected to exercise the function. The amendment does not bind the Secretary of State to exercise that function for any specific period or in a specific way, but at least in this culture of measurement the Secretary of State will be measured at the outset as to the manner in which he takes over a function, how he exercises it and for how long.
I commend amendments No. 48 and 47 to the Government and hope that, even at this late stage, they are willing to take them on board.
Ms Armstrong:
This is a rather large group of amendments so I will get through them as quickly as I can. I shall start with Government amendment No. 6. In Committee, we gave a commitment to the hon. Member for Taunton (Jackie Ballard)--I am sorry that she is not here, because this is her moment of triumph--to table an amendment to require the Secretary of State to consult widely before he issues an order specifying performance indicators and standards. Amendment No. 6 fulfils that commitment. It is a commitment that we gladly give, as it has always been the Government's intention to undertake wide and inclusive consultation on the likely suite of national performance indicators and standards for best value. It is a commitment that we freely gave in both local government White Papers that we published last year.
Amendment No. 46 would give the Audit Commission an effective veto over what the suite of performance indicators and standards specified by the Secretary of State would contain. It would cut across much of the purpose of clause 4 and undermine the wider consultation process that the Government will undertake before specifying performance indicators and standards. I urge hon. Members not to press the amendment to a vote.
Amendment No. 64 would give the Secretary of State power to specify those bodies whose views he will have regard to when specifying performance indicators and standards. The Bill, as it currently stands, provides forthe Secretary of State to have regard only to recommendations made to him by the Audit Commission. It is because of the commission's unique role in best value
and its experience in monitoring local authority performance that it is included in clause 4(3)(b). Under best value, it will be responsible for auditing best value performance plans and undertaking best value inspections. It will retain a power, under the Audit Commission Act 1998, to set performance indicators. It will also have had considerable experience of setting performance indicators to monitor the performance of local authorities. The requirement for the Secretary of State to consult other organisations has been catered for by amendment No. 6, and I hope that hon. Members will not see the necessity to press amendment No. 64.
Amendment No. 47 would require the Secretary of State to publish the reasons for his specifying any performance indicators or standard in a manner contrary to a recommendation received from the Audit Commission. We are considering the best way to publish the conclusions of the consultation process that we will undertake before the Secretary of State specifies national performance indicators and standards. However, I hope that hon. Members will understand why I do not warm to the amendment. The Government should say how they have reacted to the views of consultees, but that should not be limited to explaining their reaction solely to the Audit Commission's recommendations; it should also include the conclusions of other consultees. The Government will consider how best to put that into effect, and the debate will help us in those considerations.
With regard to amendments Nos. 60, 61 and 62, we discussed performance standards at great length and in great detail in Committee. I hope that I can again reassure hon. Members about how performance standards will be applied and why they are important not only in driving up the performance of best value authorities, but also in providing the high-quality service that the public expect and deserve. The Government are committed to improving local services and ensuring that all people, no matter where they live, have access to, and receive, quality services. Standards and targets will be the key to achieving continuous improvements in service delivery.
The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) suggested that we cannot maintain continuous improvement without sacrificing value for money. I invite him to discuss that idea with, for example, the British Retail Consortium, whose members know that unless they improve their service year on year and give value for money, they will go out of business. Standards and targets will drive up the performance of local authorities, and put most pressure on those authorities that are performing poorly.
Where there is a clear national requirement, such as new standards for educational attainment for different age groups, the Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales will specify the performance standards that an authority must meet. The White Papers on local government in England and Wales set out that the Government will take a clear lead in setting standards, and the Bill makes provision for that.
The Government do not intend to impose a large number of new standards. Our aim is to specify minimum acceptable levels of service provision in areas where the achievement of particular standards is clearly in the national interest. The Government will consult widely with local government and other interested parties on those areas in which standards will be set, and on what form they will take. The ability to set and change
standards over time will be a key driver of improvement. That power will be used only where there is a clear national interest in setting standards. Standards will be relevant, necessary and appropriate for best value.
In some cases, they will arise from Government targets; for example, if the Government set a target that all authorities should achieve by 2003, all authorities should be performing at that level in 2003. That target might then become a standard to ensure that performance did not subsequently fall below that level. Future targets would ask for improvement above that standard. Standards and targets provide a mechanism for pegging existing levels of performance and ensuring the drive for continuous improvement in service delivery. For those reasons I urge hon. Members not to press the amendments to a vote.
Amendments to clause 14 are also included in the group. Clause 14 is an important part of the Bill and is vital to underpin the success of the best value framework. We realise that these provisions are powerful, but make no apology for that. We want to see all best value authorities making real progress towards continuous improvement and believe that the majority will do so. The enhanced system of audit and inspection will act as an early warning system and help to put best value authorities back on the right track in most cases where problems are starting. However, we need to ensure that we can tackle failure when it occurs. We structured the best value framework carefully to ensure that we will minimise the need for intervention, but there will be times when the Secretary of State or the National Assembly need to act, and there are plenty of precedents in existing local government and other legislation for such action being delegated to the Secretary of State.
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