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Mrs. Ellman: Am I correct in believing that the right hon. Lady at one time advocated the total removal of responsibility for education from local authorities? Is she still of that opinion? Would she like the Bill to include provision to achieve that removal?
Mrs. Shephard: I believe, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer apparently does, that money is well handled at
local level by schools. I do not remember the hon. Lady challenging the right hon. Gentleman on that point when he made his Budget statement.As the hon. Member for Bath said, the work of local government has been overlapped, if not undermined, by the sheer number of quangos and executive agencies. At present, there are 6,500 quangos--the number is rising--and 238 executive agencies. There are also 708 executive non-departmental bodies.
Moreover, the Government's rush to constitutional reform has further blurred the accountability of local government. The plans for the governance of London illustrate the point. London has 32 boroughs and the Corporation of London. The mayor and the Greater London Authority will be superimposed on the local government system. Some of its members will represent constituencies of 500,000; others will have Londonwide responsibilities. In addition, the people of London will of course continue to vote for Westminster Members of Parliament and Members of the European Parliament. They will also have the services of the London regional development agency, the Government office for London, the police authority, a fire and emergency planning authority and a culture and arts commission.
However, what the people of London will not know--the Bill will not help them--is where to turn when there is a hole in the road. That is the simple test of accountability, without which local government will continue to be regarded with scepticism and apathy. No amount of electoral gimmicks or quick fixes will deal with the basic problems of local government, not all of which are of this Government's making. The legacy is of long standing. However, the Government undertook to solve problems that the Bill not only does not solve, but exacerbates.
I wish to deal briefly with the proposals for the new management structures. Do they address the problem of accountability? Do they make for greater transparency? Will they create more interest in local government? Do they demonstrate the Government's stated intention in their manifesto to make local government more accountable to local people? The Bill fails those important tests. It is a mockery that a Bill claiming to make local government more accountable to local people denies local people the choice of retaining the management structures they already have if that is what they prefer. How can Ministers, aware of their manifesto commitment, maintain that the only acceptable executive arrangements are those which they have devised in Whitehall, rather than those devised by local people? Why will they not have real confidence, and allow accountable elected local people to propose their own executive arrangements which, in their view and in the view of those whom they represent, are workable in their areas?
I have listened very carefully to what the Minister has said on this point. She seems to think that a committee system is, by definition, outdated. "Outdated" is her stock epithet. How sure is she that in a county council with a cabinet and executive system all the skills, knowledge and expertise of, say, 80 members are used to the full? I accept that in a smaller council, it may be easier to ensure the involvement of everybody, because everybody will have great knowledge of a small area. However, to exclude a large number of councillors in a large county is a waste of human potential.
The Government view, as stated in their press notice of 26 November, is clear. They want
- to create dynamic local government that listens to what people really want--how they want to be governed and how they want their services to be delivered.
The Minister said in support of her cause that many local authorities have introduced the new arrangements ahead of legislation. She must know, but perhaps will not say, that as local authorities know that they will be obliged to do so, they might as well get on with it. Compliance under the cosh is not a cause for self-congratulation on the part of those holding the cosh. Although some cabinet and leader arrangements are working well and democratically, there are some awkward contrasts regarding transparency and fairness.
I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell), who is no longer in his place, cite the good example of his local council. In Norfolk, the Conservative-controlled Breckland district council, with its balanced cabinet of four Conservative, three Labour and two Independent members, makes an interesting contrast with the Lib-Lab-controlled Norfolk county council. Seven of its nine cabinet members are Labour and two are Liberal, and eight members represent urban wards. The Conservative opposition, of course, was not invited to take part.
Sadly, Norfolk is not exceptional. According to the House of Commons Library figures, taken from an article in The Independent, in more than 60 per cent. of councils with a cabinet system, only the ruling political party is represented, and more decisions are taken in private. Such points have been raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House and I hope that the Minister will take careful note of them. She has clarified the Government's position on these matters, and I expect them to be further explored in Committee.
I cannot believe that the Minister intends to leave openness in large areas of decision making to the discretion of the new executives and remove the duties on local authorities to take decisions in public. Notwithstanding the Minister's clarification, the Bill produces the curious anomaly that local councils cannot choose the mechanisms by which they take decisions, but can choose to take them in secret. That seems a curious set of priorities and is difficult to square with the Government's avowed intention to create effective, democratic government which, as the DETR press notice says:
- relies on the bond of trust between the people and those who represent them . . .
The Minister will have noted the misgivings expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Of course there is agreement on other aspects of the Bill, but the problems of local government are fundamental and of long standing. Sadly, unless the Bill is greatly amended, it represents a wasted opportunity.
6.36 pm
Maria Eagle (Liverpool, Garston): I am grateful to have an opportunity to speak in the debate and to follow the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard). I am glad that so many women are speaking in the debate. Those of us who have been
excluded in one way or another from central Government over the years--not for too much longer, I hope--have often found a place in local authorities. I do not speak of myself in this instance--I have never been a councillor.I should like to concentrate on part II on governance arrangements, as many right hon. and hon. Members have also done. The city of Liverpool, a part of which I have the honour to represent, has had a long-standing problem of inadequate civic leadership. That is why I am interested in part II. Like many fellow citizens, I have had a long-standing interest in trying to put this right. My memory of politics in Liverpool goes back about 30 years, and I do not recall having any other opportunity to try to get things right. It is very important that local authorities, cities and other administrative areas with problems now get this right.
Liverpool has had 30 years of missed opportunities and poor civic leadership--my remarks are not aimed at any one political party, as they have all had a go in that time--but the result is that Liverpool, one of our greatest cities, has been unable to fulfil its potential. I hope that the Bill will assist in enabling Liverpool, which is moving into the 21st century with hope and ambition, to fulfil its potential at last, and to become what it should be--a great modern city.
The ideas in the Bill have been seized on in Liverpool. Many right hon. and hon. Members may think of Liverpool as a backward-looking place, but in fact it is very forward looking. There has been a major debate in Liverpool for the past two years about how to improve and modernise local government to ensure that the city can fulfil its potential.
The document "Local Leadership, Local Choice" was published in March last year. Since then, a debate has raged about how the ideas that it contains can be adopted to make Liverpool a better place. The Liverpool democracy commission, which was established in March 1999, finished its work in July 1999. It is a unique commission. I do not know of any other city or local authority area setting up an independent commission to consider how to improve governance. It was chaired by a well-respected local business man, James Ross of Littlewoods, and its membership included local parliamentarians of all parties, academics, business people, Church leaders and media figures.
The commission took oral and written evidence from anyone who cared to present it, including local organisations, individuals and those who had been involved in governance, local and national. It held meetings and consultations. Debates were held across various branches of the media--radio and local television--and it also commissioned polling; so I can safely say that we know very well what people in Liverpool think about what they have.
The commission made some recommendations, but in a sense they are not the important thing. What was revealing was the generalised will among all political parties, all types of business people and all organisations to see change. The conclusions were interesting. Only 2 per cent. of people polled thought that the council was doing a good job. Some of us who have been in Liverpool and represented it in various ways for many years thought that 2 per cent. was quite a high figure. Sixty-nine per cent. were willing to say that they were dissatisfied.
It was also apparent that the council was unable to represent the city to the outside world. In the modern era, that is increasingly necessary to improve the city and to bring inward investment and new people and jobs to the city. Local and civic governors need to be able to represent themselves to the outside world. Only 15 per cent. of people asked thought that the city council was either good or excellent at doing that; 75 per cent. thought that it was not.
One of the other major issues about which people are concerned is value for money in local government. Only 8 per cent. of people thought that the council gave value for money. Again, some of us were surprised at how high that figure was--certainly judging by my surgeries. I accept that the 8 per cent. probably never come to see me. Also, 90 per cent. of those asked could not identify even one of their local councillors. That is a damning indictment of the existing system. If those councillors had a defined role and were able to carry it out, in a way that local people could understand or tap into, more people would certainly be able to identify them.
The system is not good for councillors either. Evidence was given to the commission that many felt excluded, bewildered, unable to do a good job or not sure what the job that they were supposed to be doing was. One, Councillor Bostock, said:
- I did four years on the council and it did my head in.
Something needs to be done--perhaps a mayor is the answer. That debate was raging two years ago in Liverpool and it still rages. There is already speculation about who the candidates might be. I shall not add to that speculation except to say that the Liverpool Labour party, for one, will have an excellent local candidate.
The poll conducted by the Liverpool democracy commission also asked people whether they would like to have a mayor, and 63 per cent. of those asked said that they would. Only 20 per cent. were unsure and 16 per cent. were against. There is a great will to change what we have. All types of people and stakeholders in Liverpool are dissatisfied with the present arrangements.
However, we must make sure that the new arrangements are better. That has come through in the debate this afternoon. There has to be a hard separation between the executive and scrutiny functions. Any of the models in the Bill can provide that, but the Government need to make very sure that that is what happens when the new structures are adopted.
I want to use the example of Liverpool to show what can go wrong. While the Liverpool democracy commission was doing its work between March and July 1999, the city council, now controlled by the Liberal Democrats, sprang into action and decided that it would pre-empt the commission's findings and move straight to some new structures. They had just taken control and they
wanted to make a mark, which is fair enough. They established a cabinet with a leader, all the members of which were from one party. They established scrutiny committees led by back benchers and area committees based more or less on a ward or a small cluster of wards, which theoretically enabled local people to deal with local issues and become more involved.However, even though a massive debate was going on in Liverpool at the time, the county council consulted no one about precisely what arrangements it intended to establish. The result is a mess. Whether it is a deliberately contrived mess or has become a mess because the flaws of the system adopted have been exploited by the ruling group, I shall leave the electorate to decide on 4 May.
I shall use one illustration from my constituency of the consequences of the new system. The Liberal Democrat- run council has just announced the closure of Alderwood primary school in Speke. There were undoubtedly problems of poor teaching and a lack of grip by the governors and the local education authority, which meant that there were justifiable concerns about standards, but the council announced the closure to a local newspaper before it even told parents, governors or children. The story was telephoned through to the reporter by the Liberal Democrat chairman of the lifelong learning committee--the scrutiny committee. In other words, the chair of the scrutiny committee announced the council's policy to the local newspaper. What confidence can parents have that that scrutiny committee will organise proper scrutiny of a decision that he has announced?
That thought occurred to colleagues in the Labour group so they put that question to the leader of the council. They asked:
- Will the Leader of the Council state how the Chair of the Lifelong Learning Select Committee is meant to have any credibility in performing scrutiny of the Executive when he is quoted as announcing the administration's policies to the press?
- He has obviously taken lessons from the Labour Party. Oh Dear!
The closure was then designated by the executive as a ward issue, which in the new structure means that, despite the fact that a citywide review of surplus primary places is being conducted--of which the closure should surely be a part because there are surplus places in Speke--the decision can be called in to be scrutinised only by the local ward councillors, who all happen to be Liberal Democrat. They are certainly not Labour. A manipulation has taken place that prevented the Labour opposition from calling in the decision for scrutiny, even though the scrutiny would have been led by the man who announced the decision. The decision to close the school has been ratified through the council's rubber-stamp procedure within a week of its being announced, using a process designed to deal with non-controversial issues. The closure of a school is never non-controversial, certainly not for children, parents and governors.
The parents are extremely angry but it is not until tomorrow, after the decision has effectively been made, that the first consultation meeting will take place with those parents. Now, I am not a cynical person, but I think that the decision has already been made--so do the parents. That is not effective local democracy but an abuse of local democracy. I hope that the Government, in taking
powers to regulate, as they propose in the Bill, will take steps to prevent such Liberal Democrat manipulation in Liverpool and make sure that the executive and scrutiny functions of local councils are well and truly separated. Unless they do that, local people will not have confidence in the new arrangements.The Bill offers a way forward, but I urge the Government to ensure that the arrangements that are established satisfy its principles, rather than the ambitions of local groups.
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